Under the shadow of the Japanese cherry trees

Abstract

Cad. Saúde Pública 2021; 37(2):e00346820 RESENHA BOOK REVIEW Under the shadow of the Japanese cherry trees Sob a sombra das cerejeiras japonesas A la sombra de los cerezos japoneses This article is published in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, without restrictions, as long as the original work is correctly cited.

Comprehension benefits of visual-gestural iconicity and spatial referencing

“…With respect to gestural strategies, various studies have revealed that novice L2 learners’ use of manual and bodily gestures while speaking can assist with language learning (Gullberg, 1998, 2006, 2009; McCafferty, 2004), and spoken-language bilinguals use gesture more during production of their L2 when compared to their native language (Sherman and Nicoladis, 2004). It has also been shown that hearing L2 learners of a sign language 1 with only spoken language experience (furthermore second-modality second-language (M2-L2) learners; Chen Pichler, 2009) use more manual gestures in conjunction with their L1 speech, when compared to non-signers (Weisberg et al, 2020). Among the gestures that learners typically use are deictic points to present and imagined objects, common emblems that may be recognized by speakers of different languages (e.g.…”

“…It would be useful to briefly introduce terminology that has been used to refer to different types of L2 learners, since we consider both spoken and signed languages throughout this work (Chen Pichler, 2009). The acquisition of a second language (L2) that is within the same modality (M1) as one’s first language can be referred to as M1-L2 learning.…”

“…On the one hand, iconicity helps L2 learners remember learned signs more easily than non-iconic signs and also translate them to words from their L1 faster than non-iconic signs, but it could also cause L2 learners to incorrectly articulate some of the phonological features of signs (Janke and Marshall, 2017; Ortega and Morgan, 2015; Ortega et al, 2020). The negative effects of iconicity have been attributed to the transfer of knowledge of common gestures to a learner’s production attempts of signs (Chen Pichler, 2009; Janke and Marshall, 2017). Researchers have used the term ‘gesture–sign cognates’ to refer to common gestures that are similar in form to the signs of a signed language (Chen Pichler, 2009; Ortega et al, 2020); the gestures cause a type of interference with production such that phonological features are not as faithfully reproduced as compared to non-iconic signs.…”

“…The negative effects of iconicity have been attributed to the transfer of knowledge of common gestures to a learner’s production attempts of signs (Chen Pichler, 2009; Janke and Marshall, 2017). Researchers have used the term ‘gesture–sign cognates’ to refer to common gestures that are similar in form to the signs of a signed language (Chen Pichler, 2009; Ortega et al, 2020); the gestures cause a type of interference with production such that phonological features are not as faithfully reproduced as compared to non-iconic signs.…”