Talking hands, shifting tongues: How does the use of co-speech gestures and second language relate to emotional autobiographical memory narration?

Abstract

Gestures can play a role in narrating emotionally valenced autobiographical events, particularly in second language use. We investigated how hand gestures, phenomenological experience, narrative details, and level of emotionality interact during autobiographical memory narration. Forty-one Turkish-speaking individuals (26 females; Mage = 21.12, SDage = 2.13) narrated emotional autobiographical events (two in English, two in Turkish). Results indicated no effect of the second language on phenomenological ratings, level of emotionality, or narrative details. Representational gestures correlated with phenomenological characteristics and episodic details in nearly all narratives. The primary difference between first- and second- language use involved beat gestures, particularly in negative events. In the first language, they were linked to all details, while in the second language, they correlated only with the phenomenological characteristics. These findings suggest that representational gestures assist in scene construction in both languages for proficient speakers, while beat gestures emphasize details in the first language and enhance fluency in the second language.