Onderzoek naar de multimodale codering van motion events in het Frans en het Nederlands als T1 en T2

Abstract

This master thesis starts from the importance of co-speech gestures in communication and from the typological differences between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages (Talmy 2000). It is thought that these differences are reflected in gestures (Kita & Özyürek 2003, McNeill 2005 and Brown & Chen 2013). The present study aims to determine how French native speakers, Dutch native speakers and French-speaking learners of Dutch (2 proficiency levels) express dynamic and static motion events in both language and gestures. To do so, we conducted an experiment in which participants had to recount scenes from Tweety and Sylvester and in which they had to locate objects on images. Their productions were then analysed on both levels. The results of the current research are mostly in line with previous studies on the expression of motion events by French and Dutch speakers (Talmy 2000, Lemmens 2002, Kopecka 2006) and with studies on the expression of static motion events by French-speaking learners of Dutch (Lemmens & Perrez 2010, 2012 and 2018). In addition, it reveals (1) how French speakers of Dutch express dynamic motion events, (2) that the gestures produced by the two groups native speakers do show similarities and differences and what these are, (3) that gesturing in L1 is different than in L2 and (4) that learners tend to code the same pieces of information in their gestures in both languages.