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ng the role of EFL teachers’gestures in online one-to-one interactions.Third,the present study also provides insights into teacher education research inonline teaching.

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 An Overview of the Study of Gesture

People gesture when they speak(Kelly,Manning,&Rodak,2008).Virtually allresearchers in the field of gesture studies accept that gesture is closely connected withlanguage in relation to meaning-making(Stam&McCafferty,2009).Someresearchers even argued that gestures are not simply a supplementary resource tospeech,but gesture and speech form an integrated and unified system(Clark,1996;Kendon,2004;McNeil,1992,2005;Kelly,Özyürek,&Maris,2010;Goldin-Meadow,2006).Among these researchers,David McNeill(1992)was the first to argue thatspeech and gesture,like words and phrases,is an integral part of language whichcaptures and reflects a unitary underlying cognitive process from different aspects.Inthe integrated system,“gesture,speech and language are increasingly seen as linked inproduction,comprehension and development”(Gullberg,2010,p.78).A review ofliterature in this study starts with a review of gestures studies as a whole,providing abrief history of gestures studies and how gestures have been defined and categorized.

2.1.1 The History of Gesture Studies

Gesture studies can be traced back to as early as Roman Times,whenrhetoricians like Marcus Fabius Quintilianus began to study how gestures can be usedin rhetorical discourses.In the eighteenth century,there was a shift in focus as thegesture was viewed as a precursor of spoken language and as carrying informationrelated to the evolution of language(Kendon,1982).In the mid-1900s,in the bookGesture and Environment,David Efron(1941/1972)first compared the gesturalpractice of traditional and assimilated groups of Eastern European Jews and SouthernItalians.This study confirmed that the style of gesturing is culturally associated.In thefollowing years,many researchers represented by Condon,Ogston,and Kendon(Condon&Ogston,1967,1971;Kendon,1990,2004)were inspired to study bodymovements and gestures after Birdwhistell’s(1952)founded the field of kinesics.

2.2 Gesture Research in Teaching and Learning

In addition to investigating the gestures used in daily communication,researchers have also been attempting to look into the gestures that appear inclassrooms,especially teachers’gestures.Liu et al.(2020,p.4)referred to teachers’gestures as“the habitual gestures and the act of natural interaction with students orteaching tools,such as blackboard,computer,and mouse,which are used by teachers’arms,palms,or fingers”.In teaching activities,sufficient input and meaningfulinteractions are of crucial importance in ensuring learning outcomes.Teachers’gestures,along with other nonverbal behaviors(NVBs),such as posture,gesture,eyecontact,and physical distance,are thus frequently adopted to enable more persuasiveand appealing teacher talk(Belhiah,2013;Chen,2020).

2.2.1 Studies on Gesture within Foreign Language Education

Abundant research has asserted the need to involve the use of body movementsin classroom interactions.As early as the 1970s,scholars like Asher(1969)havealready viewed language learning and embodied action as interconnected,generatingthe discussion of the Total Physical Response(TPR)learning approach in whichstuden本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。