Gesture and Creating Zones of

Proximal Development for Second

Language Learning
STEVEN G. MCCAFFERTY
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV 89154-3005
Email: mccaffes@nevada.edu

This study investigated the role of gesture in and of itself and in conjunction with speech in
creating zones of proximal development (ZPD) for second language learning and teaching. A
university student of English, newly arrived in the United States, was videorecorded once a
week in conversational interaction with an American graduate student, an ESL/EFL teacher,
over two different periods lasting 15 weeks altogether. The view taken in the study of Vygotsky’s
concept of the ZPD follows that of Newman and Holtzman (1993), who argued that it primarily
concerns revolutionary activity, that learning and teaching transforms as a consequence of
interacting in the ZPD, and that this affects all participants. Findings indicate the important
role that gesture played both in promoting language learning and in facilitating positive
interaction between the two participants, helping to create a sense of shared social, symbolic,
physical, and mental space.

DEFINING IN FUNCTIONAL TERMS THE zone
of proximal development (ZPD) in relation to
teaching and learning, Vygotsky (1978) sug-
gested that “what is in the zone of proximal devel-
opment today will be the actual developmental
level tomorrow—that is, what a child can do with
assistance today she will be able to do by herself
tomorrow” (p. 87). Within education there has
been a tendency to treat this concept as a mecha-
nism that can be enlisted by teachers to measure
an individual’s deficits in relation to the subject
matter at hand. This tendency ignores the central
idea that the ZPD is a function of co-construction:
The identities of learners and their interactants
make a critical difference. Furthermore, the con-
texts of interaction—the setting, artifacts, and use
of symbolic tools—must be included when con-
sidering cognitive development (which, as
pointed out by Vygotsky, is inseparable from af-
fective/volitional elements) within activity theory
(Wertsch, 1998), the framework most suited to
considering the ZPD within sociocultural theory.
The Modern Language Journal, 86, ii, (2002)
0026-7902/02/192–203 $1.50/0
©2002 The Modern Language Journal
Also, as suggested by Newman and Holtzman
(1993), there has been an undue emphasis on the
spatial metaphor in considering the ZPD, that is,
speaking of what is “in” the zone. Newman and
Holtzman argued that the ZPD is not so much a
“place” as an “activity,” and moreover, it is a revo-
lutionary activity that can lead to both learning
and transformation for all involved. Thus, New-
man and Holtzman characterized the ZPD as a
“tool and result” as opposed to a “tool for result”
(pp. 46–47). It is both process and product at the
same time in much the way that the poet, e. e.
cummings, changed the conventions of printed
English (i.e., capitalization) in writing his poems.
That is, he transformed the language in the pro-
cess of using it. Nor of course were such innova-
tions arbitrary, they were done to change the
sense (psychological association) of what was rep-
resented through the use of script. It is this per-
spective of the ZPD in relation to gesture and
second language (L2) learning that I wish to pur-
sue in this study.
Learning a new language-culture in a country
where the L2 is dominant, that is, in naturalistic
contexts, is itself a transformational process that,
as described by Vygotsky for children, moves from
Steven G. McCafferty
an interpersonal to an intrapersonal plane of de-
velopment. In the case of adult L2 learners this
entails an individual’s apprenticeship to new ways
of doing and being. In considering the encul-
turation of children, Vygotsky (1978) argued that
“in appropriating the resources of the culture
through participation in social action and interac-
tion, the individual both transforms those re-
sources and is transformed in the process”(p. 42).
There are many examples of immigrant popula-
tions who have changed many of their own ways
but at the same time transformed aspects of the
surrounding culture. However, the extent of
transformation at the level of the individual has
much to do with intentionality and selectively in-
ternalizing aspects of the second culture (Lantolf,
1999; McCafferty, 1997). This perspective gains
further support if we take a view of the ZPD that
emphasizes its role in creating meaning, some-
thing that is cognitively at the heart of apprentic-
ing to any new realm of understanding and be-
coming. Again, this is why the ZPD cannot be
viewed as simply a pedagogical technique, a tool
for result. As a tool and result, Newman and Holtz-
man (1993) argued that the ZPD changes the
functional structure of consciousness, and that
one of Vygotsky’s principal concerns was how
such changes reorganize overall development.
Although Vygotsky has been accused of propa-
gating dualisms within his own theoretical ap-
proach (see Wells, 1999; Wertsch, 1991), he none-
theless wrote explicitly of the woes of this kind of
thinking. In a paper first published in 1925 in
which he laid out much of what was to occupy
him intellectually during the remainder of his
short life, Vygotsky (1981) argued that neither
subjectivism nor behaviorism (the dominant
schools of psychological thought of his day) alone
could account for human psychology. Nor did he
view the attempt simply to merge one with the
other as tenable, instead arguing for a reconcep-
tualization of mind and behavior (Minick, 1997).
The Cartesian mind/body split that has so
dominated Western thought is equally untenable.
Cognitive science cultivated a representation of
the mind as solipsistic, that is, the individual func-
tioning largely independently of others, and as
disembodied as well. In the formal study of lin-
guistics this has led to a view of language as an
inventory of grammatical structures that are
passed back and forth from “one brain to an-
other.” However, a moment’s reflection on the
host of nonverbal features attendant in face-to-
face interaction and their significance in making
meaning reveals this conceptualization for the
illusion that it is. Because language is inextricably
193
interwoven with a more inclusive or comprehen-
sive process of communication, in naturalistic
contexts L2 learning necessarily involves nonver-
bal features that are both linguistic and nonlin-
guistic (McCafferty & Ahmed, 2000) and that are
also found intrapersonally (McCafferty, 1998).
Given this evidence, it can be assumed that inter-
action in the ZPD also includes these elements.
Play and drama also have important roles in
relation to the ZPD and L2 learning. When inter-
acting with native speakers, nonnative speakers
can feel quite disconnected from both the lan-
guage and the setting, as if they are playing a part.
In fact, it may be that they are not themselves.1 In
terms of L2 development, such a situation is akin
to forms of play in which children take on the role
of adults, dressing up and imitating the words of
their parents. Vygotsky (1978) connected this
form of pretending to the ZPD, suggesting that in
these circumstances a child “always behaves be-
yond his average age, above his daily behavior” (p.
102). In fact, Cohen and MacKeith (1991) sug-
gested that the noun play depicting a theatrical
production is more reflective of the children’s
activity than is generally recognized.
Along these same lines, Newman and Holtz-
man (1993) pointed out that we create new roles
for ourselves through performing them. With an
eye to how this happens in interaction, Habermas
(1984) suggested that people in conversation are
engaged in “dramaturgical action,” that is, they
“[constitute] a public for one another, before
whom they present themselves. The actor evokes
in his public a certain image, or impression of
himself, by more or less purposefully disclosing
his subjectivity” (p. 86). This behavior is of course
especially important to establishing a sense of
identity in a new language-culture, an area of
research currently receiving a good deal of atten-
tion within Applied Linguistics (see Kramsch,
1995; Norton, 1997; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000;
Siegal, 1996; Toohey, 2000). As pointed out by
Leont’ev (1981), and in relation to Vygotsky, it is
through play that children attend to becoming
adults. In a sense they are mastering their future
roles and activities. Certainly this process pertains
to L2 learners in naturalistic contexts as well.
Gesture is an important mediational means in
both play and drama; indeed, Vygotsky (1978)
pointed out in reference to how objects used in
play come to represent other things that “It is only
on the basis of . . . indicatory gestures that play-
things themselves gradually acquire their mean-
ing” (p. 108). Artigal (1993) used indexical space
and play as a primary means to teach a L2 when
working with kindergarten children. He did so by
194
marking objects and actions in a narrative
through pantomiming actions in culturally recog-
nizable spaces, for example, putting cookies in a
cookie jar on a kitchen countertop. In doing so,
Artigal also recognized that the way an artifact or
action is depicted influences how it is understood,
that is, there is a direct connection to sense
through the nonverbal channel. This perspective
finds support in work on psychological develop-
ment. Tomasello (1999) stated that
When children begin to understand other persons as
intentional agents, and so to imitatively learn the
conventional use of artifacts through them, the world
of cultural artifacts becomes imbued with intentional
affordances to complement their sensory-motor af-
fordances—with children’s very strong tendency to
imitate adult interactions with objects clearly appar-
ent. (p. 86)
The use of signs and symbols that accompany
such actions with objects is of course equally criti-
cal. In his account of semiotic mediation, Vygot-
sky (1978) observed that children first connect
an object with its referent through grasping.
However, when the child begins to point at ob-
jects which are then brought to him or her by
others, the child experiences having his or her
intentions understood through the use of signs
and acted upon, a major step in entering the
world of human activity.
THE STUDY
Purpose
It is important to reiterate that the use of ges-
ture either by itself or in conjunction with speech
in creating ZPDs for language learning and teach-
ing was examined in this study within an activity
framework; that is, the spatial metaphor charac-
terizing what is or is not “in” the zone was consid-
ered too narrow a perspective to account for the
kind of revolutionary transformations that take
shape through this process as described by Vygot-
sky. Moreover, the view adopted in this study em-
phasizes the importance of co-construction, that
the ZPD potentially transforms the participants
not only individually but collectively as well and
that new ways of thinking and doing develop out
of the interaction. On this view, it was of course
also important to consider the setting and arti-
facts utilized by the participants in relation to
speech and gesture. Finally, one overarching as-
pect of the study had to do with language learning
and teaching as an embodied activity, although
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
this element was of an admittedly limited focus as
only gesture and speech were examined.
Participants
The L2 learner in the study, hereafter desig-
nated as “B,” was in his 20s and had left his country,
Taiwan, to come to study English in the United
States. At the beginning of the research, B had
been living in the United States for 1 month and
was attending a large university in the American
Southwest, enrolled in two intermediate English
as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Over the pe-
riod of time he was recorded, he resided with his
sister with whom he spoke Taiwanese the majority
of the time. According to him, outside of the study,
he engaged in the production of English only in
class or when doing written assignments at home.
He also said that he tried to improve his listening
comprehension by watching television, which he
reported doing some 2 to 4 hours a day. Moreover,
he suggested that on occasion he read newspapers
and magazines in English and used English-
language Internet sites to help with his reading in
addition to doing his homework assignments.
Although initially not considered a participant
in the study, because the expected focus was on
the dyadic interaction of L2 learners, a graduate
student, called “J” hereafter, ended up taking an
unanticipated interactional role with B owing to
circumstances that developed in the course of the
study. It is important to point out that J is an
experienced English as a Foreign Language
(EFL)/ESL instructor, having spent several years
in both Asia and the United States teaching at the
postsecondary level. This experience clearly had
something to do with his orientation toward in-
teracting with B.
Videotaping
Originally, 5 ESL students were involved in the
study, although all but B dropped out by the 8th
week. Once a week various groupings of between 2
and 4 participants were videorecorded while they
were sitting on benches in a small park-like area
not far from their ESL classroom. The benches
formed a “v” shape, and the students sat halfway
between facing each other and the camera, which
was positioned behind the opening of the “v.” The
camera was on a tripod and took in most of the
body of each of the participants (sometimes the
lower legs and feet were not seen). An external
microphone was used to enhance the quality of
the audiorecording. J prepared a short list of top-
ics that he hoped would stimulate discussion for
Steven G. McCafferty
most sessions. Sessions generally lasted between 5
and 10 minutes. During the early recordings J
stayed behind the camera and, although he had
not planned on doing so, found himself engaging
the students quite frequently beyond just provid-
ing topics.
By the 5th week, B was able to volunteer only
for a time slot when none of the other students
could join him, so J set up the camera and micro-
phone and sat down to converse with him. Al-
though he followed the same format, the topics
that were introduced generally were discussed at
greater length and with more depth than they
had been with the other participants. There were
also many more student-initiated topics, B taking
the role of expert, J becoming the learner (al-
though not with regard to English). At times the
interaction was highly conversational, with sym-
metry if not equality, between B and J (see van
Lier, 1996). Overall, in these recordings J took a
much more active pedagogical stance than in the
previous sessions when he had remained behind
the camera. He supplied vocabulary, had B re-
peat words and phrases, spelled words out, ex-
plained syntactic structures, and so forth. Gesture
had an important role in these efforts and in and
of itself as well.
It was hoped that B would be involved in the
research over a continuous period of time, per-
haps lasting a year. However, after arriving in Sep-
tember for the fall semester, he decided to go
back to Taiwan by the middle of November. He
expected at that time not to return to the United
States, but in March of the following year, much
to my surprise, I discovered him in the Student
Union having a meal and asked him if he would
be willing to continue being recorded, to which
he readily agreed. For the second set of seven
recordings the weather had grown cooler, so J
and B moved indoors and used a couple of differ-
ent rooms in the same building on campus. The
guidelines established previously for video-
recording procedures continued to be followed,
although the participants sat on chairs, and each
of the rooms included somewhat different fea-
tures. Therefore, all told, 15 sessions were re-
corded, the first 8 beginning soon after B’s arrival
in the United States, and the second sequence,
lasting 7 weeks, starting sometime after he re-
turned from Taiwan where he had stayed for a
period of 19 weeks. The total duration of time
covered by the study was close to 8 months.
Finally, it is important to mention that J
thought the research had something to do with
the appropriation of abstract gestures on the part
of L2 learners, a topic he had not examined.
195
Therefore, he never considered himself to be
part of the study, nor, when asked upon comple-
tion of the recording did he recall ever being
aware of his use of gesture. B was never told
anything about the purpose of the research be-
yond the fact that it had to do with L2 learn-
ing—gesture was never mentioned.
Analysis
The 15 videotaped sessions were examined for
the use of gesture as part of creating ZPDs for L2
learning and teaching as found in the contexts of
the study. Included in the analysis were the par-
ticipants’ explicit attention to linguistic features
of the L2, their use of artifacts in the setting as
well as the setting itself, and aspects of their inter-
personal relationship, such as the establishment
of participant roles and intersubjectivity, which
Rommetviet (1974) defined as an “immediately
shared social reality” (p. 30).
In most cases it was not necessary to view the
videotapes in slow motion, but there were in-
stances when slow motion provided a needed ex-
actness. However, in all cases multiple viewings
were necessary in order to insure the accuracy of
the transcription for speech, gesture, and combi-
nations of speech and gesture.
The section headings for the findings and dis-
cussion are not meant to be completely discrete
because clearly there is overlap. Rather, the head-
ings focus on what proved to be significant as-
pects of the findings from a functional/activity
perspective.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Gesture and Lexical Comprehension
Because of difficulties with the verbal channel,
L2 learners can develop other means for both por-
traying and comprehending meaning, including
relying more on nonverbal than verbal modes. In
the 4th recording, J relied on a gesture to guess the
meaning for a lexical item. B’s conversational part-
ner at the time, also a student from Taiwan, used
an iconic gesture (a concrete representation) for
the word statue. When J responded with the word
statue, the student looked at B as if to convey that
he was pleased that J had been able to help him.
Although this response to the other participant’s
use of gesture did not have any effect on B’s ges-
tures at the time, it did set the stage for things to
come. The next session was the first time B inter-
acted solely with J. After setting up the camera and
microphone, J took a seat on the bench and began
196
to engage B in various topics of conversation. Al-
most immediately B used an iconic gesture when
searching for a vocabulary item, looking at J as his
classmate had done the week before. Although J
did not respond in this instance (the gesture was
rather vague), this form of gesture, that is, B look-
ing at J and attempting to illustrate a vocabulary
item while conducting a lexical search, was re-
peated in later sessions as well, becoming an estab-
lished part of the praxis created by the interac-
tants. Although the gesture in this instance was not
successful in promoting comprehension, I want to
emphasize, following the suggestion of Wells
(1999), that it is diversity more than improvement
per se that should receive emphasis in characteriz-
ing the ZPD. The example should, therefore, be
appreciated for its potential in creating a ZPD.
This form of seeking help with a lexical item
was also found by Beavin Bavelas, Chovil, Coates,
and Roe (1995) among native speakers of a lan-
guage; gesture alone was sufficient to stimulate a
response from an addressee. It may be that B also
elicited help in his native language in this way,
but, in the contexts of the study, there is no re-
corded use of gesture for this function until after
he had seen his countryman deploy the statue
gesture and J’s subsequent response.
In the next recording, B gesturally illustrated
water being splashed on him by cupping both
palms and “splashing” himself by pumping his
arms up from a horizontal position on his lap
inward toward himself. He did this while relating
his experience of watching a killer whale perform
at Sea World in San Diego. J at once realized that
B did not know the word splash and asked him,
“Did the whale splash you?” (emphasizing splash).
When B gave him a quizzical look, he continued,
“you got wet,” producing a similar splash gesture
with the word wet. A bit later J said, “the verb is
splash, you know water . . . ” leaving the sentence
verbally unfinished, and supplying a gesture in-
stead, but this time he brought down his hand,
palm flat, as if slapping the surface of water.2 This
intervention hinged upon J’s recognition and
utilization of B’s gestures in conjunction with the
verbal contexts.
In another such intervention, J tried to illus-
trate the meaning of so far by providing both a
semantic equivalent, until now and an accompany-
ing gesture. J held his left hand, palm down and
flat, at a level about even with his eyes. His right
hand was directly below at about chest level and
also with the palm down. The onset of the gesture
came just before for in the utterance “It’s like an
idiom for until now.” With until now he brought his
lower hand progressively up with a pulse of the
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
hand (a beat) on each of the three syllables, not
quite reaching the steady hand. J repeated this
same gestural sequence with minor variations
four more times on saying “until now” as embed-
ded within utterances of a similar or identical con-
tent. This is a metaphoric gesture (McNeill, 1992)
in that the moving of the lower hand progressively
upward toward the upper hand is an iconic, or
concrete, representation of a concept—the pas-
sage of time—rather than an object. Although B
said “oh” at the end of J’s intervention, signaling
comprehension, this response appears to have
been more out of politeness than understanding
because he made no attempt to continue the con-
versation from where it had left off before the
intervention, despite J’s repeating so far at the end
of the intervention. Nonetheless, it is possible to
see how the gesture might have led to B’s compre-
hension because imagistically, the indication of an
end point through the use of the steady hand and
the gradual movement toward that point, not
reaching it, is illustrative of the concept so far. J
also used a metaphoric/emblematic gesture dur-
ing the session, and what is important to note, it
was one that B had used during the previous ses-
sion in reference to children: He held his right
hand out in front of where he was seated, palm
down, about 3 feet above the ground. Both speak-
ers used this gesture in subsequent sessions as
well, although B at times used both hands. The
gesture is metaphoric in that it references age
through height and emblematic because it is a
culturally prevalent nonverbal form for referring
to children, functioning as a lexical item in and of
itself. Another metaphoric gesture was intro-
duced and repeated during this session. J held
one hand up about chest level with the palm down
to signify an upper limit as in the sense of keeping
the price down. The gesture accompanied the word
discount. Later in the recording, B repeated this
gesture, providing the same nonverbal sense to
the word.
The use of gestures that became established
lexical items and were repeated by both interlocu-
tors is, I think, a fine example of the ZPD in rela-
tion to language learning. Through creating a
shared history of signs, the participants scaffolded
each other in their efforts to co-construct mean-
ing and provide the sense they wanted to convey
because, clearly, the gestures described consti-
tuted a significant means of enhancing communi-
cation and facilitating comprehension. Also, this
use of gesture helped to create what appeared to
be a high degree of intersubjectivity between the
participants. Gesture in these instances inhabited
the shared social, physical, symbolic, and mental
Steven G. McCafferty
space created by the interlocutors. Furthermore,
the gestures imparted a dramatic, play-like quality
to the exchanges.
Illustrator Gestures
The splash gesture produced by B is both iconic
and an illustrator given that it is used by the
speaker to provide an imagistic realization of the
accompanying verbalization. The use of illustra-
tors appears to be rather idiosyncratic—some
people use them with frequency, while others al-
most never use them. It has also been found that
cultures vary in their use of these gestures. Ac-
cording to Argyle (1988), “Illustrators add consid-
erably to the amount of information conveyed by
speech, especially about shapes, physical objects,
and spatial relations” (p. 195).
B’s use of illustrators was quite common. The
following protocol is a brief example. The partici-
pants were discussing B’s friend who was studying
art therapy. The segment starts with a question
from J about the process. In the transcription,
brackets indicate the stroke of the gesture (its
beginning to end across time). Utterances are
subdivided by gesture, each subdivision centering
on a single stroke.
J (1)
a. [so, is she]
right hand next to face holding virtual
writing instrument
b. [using]
pulses right hand (same position) in a beat
[pictures then?]
moves right hand (same initial position)
down and away from face with a squiggly
motion as if writing
B (1)
a. no, [she] look
points down with index finger of right hand
held just above the lap (seems to be
referencing the drawing he is about to
mention)
[the]
flips right hand over, palm up and flat (this
is the drawing), eyes focused on the hand
[draw . . .]
right hand moves up to chest level and
assumes a form like that found for J
above, that is, as if holding a writing
instrument, then traces a rectangular frame
vertically
J (2)
a. [ . . . looks at the drawing, yeah]
nods head
197
B (2)
a. [you – then – it can]
holds both hands close to his chest with
fingers pointed downward
[do]
pulses hands in same position in a beat
[look the]
moves right hand into palm up position as
before, representing a drawing
look a [children draw . . . ]
left hand replaces right in same position,
then right hand forms configuration of
holding a writing instrument and moves
over the left hand as if drawing
B’s use of illustrators before J started sitting
down to talk with him was infrequent at best. Also,
B did not deploy these gestures in all of the sub-
sequent recordings. It is of course critical to con-
sider the specifics of the contexts of interaction,
and, as expressed above, J explicitly used both B’s
and his own gestures as a way of imparting mean-
ing. This use of gestures leaves open the possibility
that, when speaking with J, B utilized illustrators as
part of what he perceived as the pedagogical con-
texts. Indeed, unlike the example above, many of
B’s illustrator gestures accompanied well-formu-
lated utterances; in other words, the gestures were
not needed to induce J’s comprehension per se,
although it may be that B was concerned about
conveying the sense of what he wanted to say, feel-
ing that his ability at this level of lexical repre-
sentation was especially limited. Along these lines,
and with regard to native speakers, Beavin Bavelas
and Chovil (2000) noted that “signs or behaviors”
that appear to be redundant in that they mirror
the verbal message may in fact function “to reduce
the ambiguity of a message . . . to increase the
likelihood of a correct decoding of the meaning”
(p. 185). It is not difficult to see why a L2 learner
would utilize as many means as possible to config-
ure meaning, that is to say, perhaps even more
than when speaking the native language, although
this comparison has yet to be investigated.
Another consideration from a sociocultural
perspective deals with intrapersonal dimensions
for the use of this type of gesture. Although not
meant as an explanation separate from the two
interpersonal aspects discussed above, which op-
erate concurrently, enacting meaning with the
hands should serve purposes of self-regulation as
well as communication. It may be that B found
that his gestures helped him make meaning for
himself as well as for J, as Vygotsky (1986) sug-
gested for speech. Moreover, McNeill (1992) ar-
gued that thoughts come together imagistically,
198
linguistically, and pragmatically as a single unit,
which he termed the growth point. This intercon-
nection lends support for the notion that B was
concretizing the verbal element through gesture
as a way of leading his linguistic efforts.
Environmental Affordances
Both participants referenced various objects in
the immediate environment as well as sites in the
distance through the use of deictic gestures (refer-
ential, mainly pointing). Some examples from the
recordings follow. B pointed at the ground, index
finger extended, when saying “soil.” J patted the
wooden benches they were sitting on just before
saying “structure.” B also struck the bench with the
flat of his hand when saying, “We sit the chair.” B
pointed to the ground when referring to the name
of the local city and tapped his index finger on the
arm of his chair in one of the rooms on campus,
again when indicating the city (“here”). In addi-
tion, B often pointed to or put his hand on his
chest when referencing himself and also pointed
to J at times when referring to him (“you” in most
cases). He also used reflexive gestures when refer-
ring to personal attributes, for example, when
speaking of his native language.
Both B and J also pointed to a number of places
that were not within their immediate visual field.
These references included buildings on campus,
points of interest in the city, people’s houses, a
national park in another state, a city in that same
state, and other features of the landscape. In all
cases, the participants either used an index finger
or thumb to point in the direction of the place
indicated. What is perhaps particularly notewor-
thy about this use of gesture is that it happened
with regularity, and in all cases, close attention
was paid to the cardinal direction.
There are also instances in the data when deic-
tic pointing was extended to include virtual or
far-off contexts. For example, when asked about
what he would do when buying his first home, B
pointed to the ground while responding, “I will
buy carpet,” deicticly situating himself in concord
with the hypothetical location. Also, in reference
to his hometown in Taiwan, B said, “It’s south of
Taiwan,” moving his forearm down across his
chest. This gesture clearly originated from a pri-
vate point of reference, seemingly an image of
Taiwan as represented on a map.
In one instance, the meaning of a gesture
transformed over the course of the session, going
from referencing things in the more immediate
environment to include distal elements as well. At
the beginning of the session, when speaking of
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
the architectural plan of the campus, on saying
the word planning B extended both arms out to
his sides at about chest level, then swept them
inward in a half circle, palms down, until the
thumbs touched, arms extended in front of him.
J used this gesture in referring to the buildings on
campus as well, but later in the session the ges-
ture took on the more general meaning of every-
thing. This transformation of meaning is of par-
ticular interest in connection to the ZPD because
it is a clear case of dialogic interanimation.3 The
meaning of the gesture could have changed only
through its evolving sense within the co-con-
structed contexts of its use. Also, it is important
to take into consideration the role that imitation
plays in this case—that it is creative and transfor-
mational,4 as will be discussed in the next section.
Overall, in Artigal’s (1993) terms, the interac-
tants established “a semiotic territory that is rec-
ognizable, i.e., shared and co-present for all par-
ticipants” (pp. 15–16). However, for Artigal, as
described above, the assigning of space is a delib-
erate practice in his approach to L2 pedagogy. In
the case of the current data, the assigning of
space arose through J and B’s “framing” the envi-
ronment as part of the “stage set” for their con-
versations. Some of these practices became con-
ventions; indeed, most of the nonverbal features
listed in this section were found in both the first
and second set of recordings, despite changes of
location.
It is of course important to keep in mind that
“Any line of action that a person is pursuing is
always carried out in relation to a specific envi-
ronment” (Kendon, 1990, p. 247). How individu-
als mediate understanding, create a sense of
identity, attempt self-regulation, and so forth,
then, has much to do with what is available to
them (see van Lier, 2000). In connection to this
notion, it is critical to realize that “people in in-
teraction become environments for each other”
(Erickson & Schultz, 1997, p. 22, citing McDer-
mott, 1976). Also, the background or larger con-
texts influence activity. In the current research,
the setting was a university campus, B was asked
to participate in a study concerning L2 learning,
J was identified to B as a research assistant and
EFL teacher, the seating arrangement was speci-
fied, the activity was limited to the visual field of
the camera, and so forth. All of these elements
played a part in leading to the creation of ZPDs.
However, it would be misleading, I believe, to
think of them as “factors.” The outcome of the
convergence of these elements may be more akin
to what happens with complexity theory because
“both natural and human sciences deal not only
Steven G. McCafferty
with universal laws, but also with the realms of
unstable, unpredictable, creative, and unique
processes” (Lektorsky, 1999, p. 69). Finally, the
use of gesture cited in this section is a particu-
larly good example of how the ZPD can trans-
form the tools, the setting, and the activity
(Wells, 1999).
Imitation
Vygotsky (1978) argued that imitation is a key
aspect of learning, “a person can imitate only that
which is within her developmental level” (p. 88).
Furthermore, Vygotsky (1986) stated:
In the child’s development . . . imitation and instruc-
tion play a major role. They bring out the specifically
human qualities of mind and lead the child to new
developmental levels. In learning to speak, as in
learning school subjects, imitation is indispensable.
What the child can do in cooperation today he can
do alone tomorrow. Therefore the only good kind of
instruction is that which marches ahead of develop-
ment and leads it: it must be aimed not so much at
the ripe as at the ripening functions. (p. 188)
In explicating this view, Newman and Holtz-
man (1993) stated that, for Vygotsky, imitation in
childhood is “the predominant joint revolution-
ary activity that occurs in the ZPD,” and that as
such, it is “fundamental to the unity {meaning-
making/learning-leading development} because
and as the child does what she/he is not yet
capable of doing” (p. 151). This marks imitation
as a transformational process (internalization);
that is, enactment on the social or interpersonal
plane leads to development on the psychological
or intrapersonal plane.
Tomasello (1999) also found the developmen-
tal impact of imitation remarkable: “During the
period from one to three years old, young chil-
dren are virtual ‘imitation machines’ as they seek
to appropriate the cultural skills and behaviors of
the mature members of their social groups” (p.
159). If we invoke Frawley and Lantolf’s (1985)
principle of continuous access (that adults go back
to the ways of “knowing” [psychological tools]
developed during childhood) then of course it
would not be surprising to find that L2 learners
in naturalistic contexts utilize imitation in rela-
tion to both speech and gesture and that it serves
transformational purposes. In further support of
why this would likely be so, Tomasello (1999)
contended:
I learn to use the symbolic means that other persons
have used to share attention with one another. In
imitatively learning a linguistic symbol from other
199
persons in this way, I internalize not only their com-
municative intention (their intention to get me to
share their attention) but also the specific perspective
they have taken. (p. 128)
And with explicit regard to gesture, he stated:
“Even in the case of nonlinguistic gestures, if the
learning process involves the understanding of
communicative intentions and the execution of
role-reversal imitation inside a joint attentional
scene, the product will be a communicative sym-
bol” (p. 106).
Also, it has been demonstrated that nonverbal
imitation can be key to creating a sense of shared
context and interpersonal rapport. For example,
mimicry, which is more literal than imitation in
the sense that it is meant to be an “exact duplica-
tion” (Donald, 1991, p. 168), according to Hess,
Philippot, and Blairy (1999) “may increase coher-
ence between interaction partners by making
them more similar to one another” (p. 215). Fur-
thermore, with regard to imitation in childhood,
“imitating another’s nonverbal actions is a core
behavioral strategy for achieving social coordina-
tion during the developmental period preceding
reliance on verbal communication” (p. 221).
Also, and within a tutorial setting, Allen and Feld-
man (1976) found that young children imitated
their tutors’ gestures and other nonverbal expres-
sions to a high degree.
As indicated in the findings above, imitation
was a prominent aspect of B’s nonverbal interac-
tion with J. It is also crucial that J both initiated
the use of gesture and imitated B’s gestures as
well. Had he not done so, the interpersonal dy-
namic may well have been more static, lessening
B’s sense of involvement in the language learning
experience afforded him, decreasing interaction
and the ZPD. Indeed, with monolingual children,
Ward and von Raffler-Engel (1980) found that
imitation was not a two-way proposition, that the
teacher initiated all of the gestures that were used
jointly. This finding is an interesting contrast to
what unfolded in the present study. Although it is
not known at this time, it may be that other expe-
rienced L2 or foreign language teachers mimic or
imitate the gestures and other nonverbal ele-
ments of their students—a possibility worthy of
further research. It may also prove upon further
study that without the presence of these features
in face-to-face communication with a native
speaker, L2 learners simply conclude that the in-
terlocutor is unwilling to make the kinds of ac-
commodations necessary to facilitate conversa-
tion, which John-Steiner (1985) found was true in
the case of verbal adjustments.
200
Synchrony
In nonverbal interaction, synchrony refers to
the “mirroring” of “rhythm [and] movement, and
the meshing of interaction” (Argyle, 1988, p. 34).
Kendon (1990) contended that
To move with another is to show that one is “with” him
in one’s attentions and expectancies. Coordination
of movement in interaction may thus be of great
importance since it provides one of the ways in which
two people signal they are “open” to one another. (p.
114)
In an interesting illustration, McGuire (1980)
found that an American child, while watching a
videotaped version of himself, would mirror his
posture and expressions when he agreed with
what his screen image was saying but would not do
so when he did not agree with his image. It is also
noteworthy that research has demonstrated that a
lack of such coordination can lead to a sense of
frustration on the part of an interlocutor in the
case of native speakers of a language (Bernieri &
Rosenthal, 1991).
There were many instances, in addition to
those already described, when the two partici-
pants mirrored each other’s movements and ges-
tures. A further quotation from Kendon (1990)
suggests the relationship of interactional syn-
chrony to the ZPD:
Interactional synchrony is best regarded as an
achievement of the interactants that is attained when
the participants come to govern their behavior in
relation to one another in respect to a commonly
shared frame or joint plan of action. Interactants
come to be able to behave together as if they share a
common musical score and this can make possible a
very high degree of temporal coordination between
them. (p. 115)
Wells (1999) used learning to dance as an anal-
ogy for what happens in “learning and teaching
in the ZPD” (pp. 322–323). He argued that the
cultural historicity and inherent structure of the
activity provide contexts in which novices must at
first be guided by those who know the steps but
which eventually lead them not only to be able to
partner others but to innovate as well. For B and
J, learning and teaching were also bound up with
a kind of “dancing,” interactive synchrony having
been described in just these terms (Kendon,
1990). Of course, this may also have something to
do with B’s learning English as an embodied lan-
guage, as I have argued elsewhere.
An additional consideration stems from the
study of child language acquisition where there is
evidence that the body movements that accom-
The Modern Language Journal 86 (2002)
pany speech are in place before the language
itself is acquired (Waylie, 1985). B may also have
been trying to capture the rhythms of English by
synchronizing with J. Finally, as pointed out by
Newman and Holtzman (1993), acting is “copy-
ing, mimicking, repeating without being ahead of
oneself” (p. 153). However, in the case of L2
learning, the creation of oneself dramaturgically
is a different, transformational process, one in
which mimicry, imitation, and synchrony may be
leading development.
CONCLUSION
I believe that the role of gesture in relation to
B’s language learning in this study supports a
view of the ZPD as revolutionary activity: that J
and B utilized each other, the setting, and arti-
facts through gesture to transform teaching and
learning. Wells (1999) identified four basic forms
of transformation in relation to the ZPD, all of
which apply to the findings for this study.
The first form is transformation of the learner’s
identity in relation to “his or her capacity to effec-
tively participate in future actions of a related
kind” (pp. 327–328). The amount of effort that
both B and J expended in trying to communicate
effectively through the use of gesture suggests its
interpersonal importance. Gesture is also consid-
ered to have helped B gain self-regulation in both
developing and conveying his thoughts in the L2.
B’s use of gesture, then, proved a vital feature of
his conversations with J, and although his interac-
tions with other people in future will of course
prove to be different in any number of ways, it is
still reasonable to expect gesture to play a facilitat-
ing role at times.
The second form of transformation and the
ZPD that Wells mentioned is the “invention of
new tools and practices” or the “modification of
existing ones” that lead to a transformation of
“the culture’s tool-kit and its repertoire for prob-
lem solving” (p. 328). Certainly gesture operated
as a form of problem-solving for B and J, however,
there was no cultural tool kit per se for them to
rely on. Rather, coming from different language-
culture backgrounds, the interactants had to co-
construct their own tool kit and practices, which
included the use of gesture to reference artifacts
and other features in the environment. It is im-
portant to note that for B, words in the new
language had little discursive history outside the
classroom; this study was the first time he had
ever interacted with a native speaker of English
for any real length of time. Therefore, much of
B’s vocabulary lacked “sense.” This may have
Steven G. McCafferty
been instrumental in why gesture emerged as it
did; that is, it was needed by both participants to
shore up this missing dimension, although clearly
this was more of a necessity for B than for J.
The third form is the “transformation of the
activity setting brought about by the problem-
solving action, which, in turn, opens up further
possibilities for action” (p. 328). The first use of
gesture came as an explicit pedagogical tool in
the form of eliciting vocabulary from J. In and of
itself this transformed the activity setting. How-
ever, other forms of utilizing gesture quickly fol-
lowed, and furthermore, over the course of the
study took on a variety of functions.
Fourth, in conjunction with transformation of
the participation of the individual participants, is
“transformation in the social organization of the
ground and in the ways in which the members
relate to each other”(p. 328). The use of gesture
impacted the social ground primarily through its
role in helping to create intersubjectivity. All of
the functions of gesture discussed in this article
contributed to developing a sense of shared physi-
cal, symbolic, psychological, and social space for
the participants. In face-to-face interaction peo-
ple are almost always communicating whether or
not they are speaking or even whether or not they
intend to do so, as gaze, posture, and so forth, all
carry meaning. Also, although the present study
focused only on gesture, and therefore is of lim-
ited scope, it nonetheless provides an example of
the significance that nonverbal forms can have in
defining participant roles.
However, it is essential to recognize that it was
B’s willingness to interact with J in the second
language-culture that allowed what took place in
the study to occur. Putting oneself in this position
is a daunting prospect for anyone—essentially B
had to find a way of re-mediating understanding
and re-representing himself. The circumstances
in which he engaged, however, appear to have
been well suited to these purposes because they
provided him with the tutorship of a language
teacher familiar with Asian cultures and with a
context in which he learned his new role through
performing it.
In applying these findings to pedagogical con-
cerns, it would seem that L2 students exposed to
naturalistic contexts might benefit from becom-
ing aware of the use of gesture as part of the
overall process of making meaning in the L2. Not
only might this awareness help them both to com-
prehend the language and to express themselves
in it, but also it might help them consider how
they want to portray themselves by using or resist-
ing specific gestures and other nonverbal ele-
201
ments. In order to do this, however, students
would first need the opportunity to examine the
use of gesture in the L2 by watching videotaped
interactions of various sorts as well as by explicitly
talking about gesture when performing role plays,
scenes, skits, and scenarios, for example.
In closing, the findings of this study strongly
support the idea that the ZPD is embodied. This
area of research appears to hold a good deal of
promise at this early juncture for teachers and
researchers alike.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Chris Iddings, George Jacobs,
Gary Palmer, Gale Stam, and Gordon Wells for their
valued comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of
this article. I take full responsibility for all shortcomings.
NOTES
1 See Harre and Gillette (1994) who argued that in a
very real sense we are our discourse.
2 Upon viewing this gesture after the study, J sug-
gested that it stemmed from his many years at sea—that
the sense of the gesture represented the force and solid-
ity of water as it splashes against a person or object.
3 Interanimation is a Bakhtinian term that portrays one
speaker’s ability to add to or change the meaning of
another’s words. The discourse of dictatorship offers a
counterexample because no one is allowed to interani-
mate such a voice.
4 I would like to thank one of the reviewers for point-
ing this out.
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