GCLA 2016; 4: 289 – 314 Gale Stam Gesture as a window onto conceptualization in multiple tasks: Implications for second language teaching DOI 10.1515/gcla-2016-0017 Abstract: This paper demonstrates that it is necessary to look at learners’ gestures and speech to have a complete picture of their conceptualizations in their L2. It argues that context and task afect learners’ speech and gesture and need to be considered in SLA. A comparison of the speech and gesture of an L2 learner in two tasks (an oral profciency interview and a narration task) over a fourteen-year period of time shows that fewer gestures per clause and primarily metaphoric gestures were produced in the oral profciency task and more gestures per clause and primarily iconic gestures were produced in the narration. Implications for second language teaching are discussed. Keywords: speech, gesture, conceptualization, second language acquisition, second language teaching, tasks, context 1 Introduction Whether people speak their frst language or their second language, the act of using language is not just an individual act. It is a social and cultural act that involves contexts, participants, settings, goals, rules, and types of discourse for diferent activities (Gumperz 1972; Holtgraves 2002; Hymes 1974; Mead 1934; Vygotsky 1986). According to McNeill (1992, 2005, 2012), gestures are as much a part of lan- guage as speech is. Together, gesture and speech develop from a ‘growth point’ (a minimal unit of thought similar to Vygotsky’s psychological predicate) that has both imagistic and verbal aspects. This model for verbal thought is “a ‘language-imagery’ or language-gesture dialectic” in which thought, language, and gesture develop over time and infuence each other (McNeill 2005: 25). Research on the perception of speech and gesture (Kelly et al. 2004) and the production of speech and gesture (Marstaller and Burianová 2014) have shown Gale Stam: National Louis University. E-mail: gstam@nl.edu Brought to you by | New York University Bobst Library Technical Services Authenticated Download Date | 12/8/16 2:12 PM