Current research into second-language learning has tended to ignore (or at best to treat incidentally) a linguistic phenomenon that once used to be a particular preoccupation of applied linguists, the interference error. Instead, the limelight is now firmly focussed on developmental phenomena, with many studies using an approach to data gathering and analytical methodology strongly reminiscent of research into child language acquisition and language contact. There have been specific attempts to establish developmental sequences in the TL, in morpheme acquisition, for instance, so as to compare first and second language learning, and not a little attention is now being paid to such sociolinguistic notions as variability, continua and simplification. In other words, the main emphasis in interlanguage research has shifted from a rather static error-oriented view of language learning to a dynamic view of learners' language as a constantly evolving system. The calls for longitudinal studies of interlanguage of the late sixties and early seventies have not gone unheeded, eve if the word ‘longitudinal’ is sometimes rather liberally interpreted, as in those cases where a tacit (and probably justifiable) assumption is made that studying groups of learners of varying proficiency in respect of given TL features at one and the same time is really the same as following the progress of one group over a long period.

The literature oncrosslinguistic influence(Sharwood Smith and Kellerman 1986) ortransfer, as it has been traditionally called, is by now quite extensive, as befits a topic which has been wreathed in controversy ever since the fledgling days of second language acquisition (SLA). Perhaps few other research interests have been so affected by shifts of paradigm or fashion; yet whether we consider its importance primary or peripheral, an understanding of the part played by knowledge of one's first or other languages in the acquisition of a second remains an essential goal of SLA theory.

Most people are unaware of the gestures they make while talking. It has been claimed that speech and gesture derive from a common source, and the information about thought processes that gestures convey complements or reinforces the simultaneous information provided by speech. For instance, if we compare French "il traverse le fleuve en nageant" with English "he is swimming across the river", gestures indicating the swimmer's path tend to fall on the verb in French and other Romance languages (plus Japanese), while they fall on the adverbial in English and other non-Romance Indo-European languages (plus Chinese). What then happens when people subsequently learn a language unlike their own in this respect? Non-native gestures assume considerable importance in investigating this question, since they act as windows onto the speaker's 'thinking for speaking' in their L2. To investigate this question ourselves, we examined the use of 'path' gestures in descriptions of motion events. Native speakers of English, Dutch and Spanish participated in the study, with the latter two groups also performing in English. The results show that there are language-specific gestural patterns, and that they are often transferred to L2. These 'manual accents' suggest that the importance of gesture in the study of second language acquisition should not be underestimated, because gestures may reveal L1-based thinking patterns not detectable in otherwise fluent and correct L2 speech. Consequently, we should reflect carefully on what it means to 'become bilingual'. 1. Motion events crosslinguistically If you observe people conversing, you will see more than a mouth move. Eyes, eyebrows, hands, head, body, all seem to be involved in some synchronized expressive dance. But the question is, does the dance vary according to the language being spoken?

In the field of second language acquisition (SLA)

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