"This book demonstrates the vital connection between language and gesture, and why it is critical for research on second language acquisition to take into account the full spectrum of communicative phenomena. The study of gesture in applied linguistics is just beginning to come of age. This edited volume, the first of its kind, covers a broad range of concerns that are central to the field of SLA. The chapters focus on a variety of second-language contexts, including adult classroom and naturalistic learners, and represent learners from a variety of language and cultural backgrounds." "Although there is a large body of research on gesture across a number of disciplines including anthropology, communications, psychology, sociology, and child development, to date there has been comparatively little investigation of gesture within applied linguistics. This volume provides readers unfamiliar with L2 gesture studies with a powerful new lens with which to view many aspects of language in use, language learning, and language teaching."--Jacket.

Gesture studies and second language acquisition: a review / Gale Stam and Steven G. McCafferty -- Nonverbal communication, gesture, and second language classrooms: a review / Carla Chamberlin Quinlisk -- Material foundations for second language acquisition: gesture, metaphor, and internalization / Steven G. McCafferty -- Embodiment as self-regulation in L2 task performance / Elizabeth Platt and Frank B. Brooks -- The dialectics of gesture in the construction of meaning in second language oral narratives / Eduardo Negueruela and James P. Lantolf -- Gesturally-enhanced repeats in the repair turn: communication strategy or cognitive language-learning tool? / David Olsher -- Does gesture aid discourse comprehension in L2? / Tsuyoshi Kida -- Language learner and native speaker perceptions of Japanese refusal gestures portrayed in video / Nicholas O. Fungheim -- A helping hand? Gestures, L2 learners, and grammar / Marianne Gullberg -- Linguistic and gestural introduction of ground reference in L1 and L2 narrative / Keiko Yoshioka -- What gestures reveal about second language acquisition / Gale Stam -- "Because of her gesture, it's very easy to understand" -- learners' perceptions of teachers' gestures in the foreign language class / Daniela Sime -- Gesture and the negotiation of meaning in a second language classroom / Martine Faraco and Tsuyoshi Kida -- Expository discourse in a second language classroom: how learners use gesture / Alexis Tabensky.