Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language

Prosody and gesture are two known cues for expressing information structure by emphasising new or important elements in spoken discourse while attenuating given information. Applying this potentially multimodal form-meaning mapping to a foreign language may be difficult for learners. This study inve...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Baills, Florence, Baumann, Stefan
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat de Lleida (UdL)
Repositorio:Repositori Obert UdL
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.udl.cat:10459.1/467815
Acceso en línea:https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2025.11
https://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/467815
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:French as a foreign language
Gesture
Head gestures
Information status
Information structure
Multimodal communication
Non-native speech
Pitch accents
Prominence
Prosody
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spelling Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign languageBaills, FlorenceBaumann, StefanFrench as a foreign languageGestureHead gesturesInformation statusInformation structureMultimodal communicationNon-native speechPitch accentsProminenceProsodyProsody and gesture are two known cues for expressing information structure by emphasising new or important elements in spoken discourse while attenuating given information. Applying this potentially multimodal form-meaning mapping to a foreign language may be difficult for learners. This study investigates how native speakers and language learners use prosodic prominence and head gestures to differentiate levels of givenness. Twenty-five Catalan learners of French and 19 native French speakers were video-recorded during a short spontaneous narrative task. Participants’ oral productions were annotated for information status, perceived prominence, pitch accents, and head gesture types. Results show that given information in French is multimodally less marked than new-er information and is accordingly perceived as less prominent. Our findings indicate that Catalan learners of French mark given information more frequently than native speakers and may transfer their use of low pitch accents to their second language (L2). The data also show that the use of head gestures depends on the presence of prosodic marking, calling into question the assumption that prosody and gesture have balanced functional roles. Finally, the type of head gesture does not appear to play a significant role in marking information status.The first author is a Serra Húnter Fellow and acknowledges funding from the European Union-NextGenerationEU and the Spanish Ministry of Universities through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, via a call from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) at the time the research was conducted. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the SFB1252 Prominence in Language (Project-ID 281511265), specifically project A07 Metrical Prominence – Scales and Structures.Cambridge University Press2025info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionhttps://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2025.11https://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/467815reponame:Repositori Obert UdL instname:Universitat de Lleida (UdL)InglésReproducció del document publicat a https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2025.11Language and Cognition, 2025, vol. 17, e42, p. 1-28cc-by (c) The Authors, 2025Attribution 4.0 Internationalinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/oai:repositori.udl.cat:10459.1/4678152026-06-24T12:42:17Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
title Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
spellingShingle Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
Baills, Florence
French as a foreign language
Gesture
Head gestures
Information status
Information structure
Multimodal communication
Non-native speech
Pitch accents
Prominence
Prosody
title_short Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
title_full Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
title_fullStr Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
title_full_unstemmed Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
title_sort Prosody and head gestures as markers of information status in French as a native and foreign language
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Baills, Florence
Baumann, Stefan
author Baills, Florence
author_facet Baills, Florence
Baumann, Stefan
author_role author
author2 Baumann, Stefan
author2_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv French as a foreign language
Gesture
Head gestures
Information status
Information structure
Multimodal communication
Non-native speech
Pitch accents
Prominence
Prosody
topic French as a foreign language
Gesture
Head gestures
Information status
Information structure
Multimodal communication
Non-native speech
Pitch accents
Prominence
Prosody
description Prosody and gesture are two known cues for expressing information structure by emphasising new or important elements in spoken discourse while attenuating given information. Applying this potentially multimodal form-meaning mapping to a foreign language may be difficult for learners. This study investigates how native speakers and language learners use prosodic prominence and head gestures to differentiate levels of givenness. Twenty-five Catalan learners of French and 19 native French speakers were video-recorded during a short spontaneous narrative task. Participants’ oral productions were annotated for information status, perceived prominence, pitch accents, and head gesture types. Results show that given information in French is multimodally less marked than new-er information and is accordingly perceived as less prominent. Our findings indicate that Catalan learners of French mark given information more frequently than native speakers and may transfer their use of low pitch accents to their second language (L2). The data also show that the use of head gestures depends on the presence of prosodic marking, calling into question the assumption that prosody and gesture have balanced functional roles. Finally, the type of head gesture does not appear to play a significant role in marking information status.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2025.11
https://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/467815
url https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2025.11
https://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/467815
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv Reproducció del document publicat a https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2025.11
Language and Cognition, 2025, vol. 17, e42, p. 1-28
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv cc-by (c) The Authors, 2025
Attribution 4.0 International
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
rights_invalid_str_mv cc-by (c) The Authors, 2025
Attribution 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Cambridge University Press
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Cambridge University Press
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Repositori Obert UdL
instname:Universitat de Lleida (UdL)
instname_str Universitat de Lleida (UdL)
reponame_str Repositori Obert UdL
collection Repositori Obert UdL
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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score 15,81155

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