How I See What You’re Saying: The Role of Gestures in Native and Foreign Language Listening Comprehension TOVE IRENE DAHL UiT The Arctic University of Norway Department of Psychology 9037, Tromsø, Norway Email: tove.dahl@uit.no SUSANNE LUDVIGSEN UiT The Arctic University of Norway Department of Psychology 9037, Tromsø, Norway Email: susanne.ludvigsen@unn.no In what ways do native language (NL) speakers and foreign language (FL) learners differ in understanding the same messages delivered with or without gestures? To answer this question, seventh- and eighth-grade NL and FL learners of English in the United States and Norway were shown a video of a speaker describing, in English, a cartoon image that the viewers could not see. For half the viewers, the speaker’s gestures were visible; for the others they were not. Participants drew a picture of each description, which was later coded for recall of explicit information, comprehension of logically implied information, and distortions. Overall, NL listeners produced the most accurate drawings; the presence of gestures did not appreciably facilitate NL comprehension. In contrast, the availability of gestures had a measurable effect on FL listener performance: It enabled them to produce drawings within native-like range. However, lack of gestures negatively impacted FL listener comprehension and recall. Regardless of condition, distortions in FL responses were significantly more frequent than in NL responses. All participants reported valuing visual cues in communication, yet their understanding of their value for their actual drawing performance was inconsistent, suggesting a difference between visual cue preference and visual cue dependence. Keywords: gestures; recall; comprehension; native language (NL); foreign language (FL); explicit information; implied information; distortions NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR, A NATURAL PART of everyday communication and face-to-face interaction, has traditionally played a secondary role to the study of verbal language in spoken interaction. Fortunately, in the past few decades, interest in nonverbal communication, and ges- tures in particular, has been increasing (Gullberg & McCafferty, 2008; Osada, 2004). This is impor- tant because gestures are a fundamental part of our ability to express meaning and complex ideas (Cassell & McNeill, 1991). Gestures and speech coexist in time, meaning, and function to such a degree that they can be reasonably regarded as different sides of a single underlying mental process (McNeill, 1992). From a semiotic perspective (Gullberg, 2010), gestures are spontaneous movements of the hands and arms that are constructed at the moment of speaking to reveal images that are isomorphic with what is expressed in speech or to comple- ment notions left unexpressed in speech (McNeill, 1992). In this way, they help with expression and listening comprehension, though understanding how they do so is another matter (Gullberg, 2010; Kelly, Manning, & Rodak, 2008). The Modern Language Journal, 98, 3, (2014) DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2014.12124.x 0026-7902/14/813–833 $1.50/0 © 2014 The Modern Language Journal