Learning a new language can be daunting – especially if you want to try and sound authentic.
But gesturing as you talk might help you learn to speak like a local, a new study suggests.
Researchers have found that making pronounced hand gestures could help you emphasise the correct parts of words.
And doing so could help you sound more like a native speaker.
Certain languages, like English, Italian and Russian, have lexical stress. This is when certain syllables within words are pronounced with markedly more weight than others.
Researchers have found that making pronounced hand gestures could help you emphasise the correct parts of words. And doing so could help you sound more like a native speaker (stock image)
In the word ‘language’, for example, the first syllable is stressed, whereas in the word ‘begin’ the stress is in the second syllable.
Researchers from New York University in Shanghai, China, recruited 124 native Chinese speakers aged between 18 and 28.
They watched videos of people performing ‘up and down’ hand movements, synced to recordings of English words.
All of the words consisted of three syllables, but their lexical stress differed to fall on either the first, last or middle syllables.
The participants were divided into four groups, with one group watching videos that featured no gestures at all.
The other three groups all saw videos that featured gestures over every syllable of each word – but only one of these groups saw a pronounced gesture over the correct stressed syllable.
Analysis revealed the use of pronounced gestures over the correct part of the word helped the participants identify lexical stress between 10 and 15 per cent more accurately compared to those who saw no gestures (stock image)
Before and after they watched the videos, the participants were asked to press a button when they thought lexical stress was being applied to different words.
Analysis revealed the use of pronounced gestures over the correct part of the word helped the participants identify lexical stress between 10 and 15 per cent more accurately compared to those who saw no gestures.
The team said: ‘Participants learned the lexical stress of foreign languages by observing the up-and-down manual movements synchronized with audio recordings of spoken words.
‘Our findings highlight the functional role of gestures in enhancing speech learning, suggesting practical implications for language teaching and learning.’
The preprint of their study was published online by bioRxiv.
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
