Italians speaking English: the contribution of verbal and non-verbal behavior

This paper reports the preliminary findings of an investigation of the transfer and interpretation of non-verbal features from the L1 to the L2, focusing in particular on Italian speakers of English. The following hypotheses were tested: 1) Italian speakers of English transfer non-verbal features (i.e., gestures) from their L1 into the L2; 2) the transferred non-verbal features are not understood correctly by non-native Italian speakers. The paper also presents a protocol for eliciting the production and evaluation of emblems in L2 communication. 10 (Northern) Italian speakers of English were filmed during two speech tasks that were expected to elicit their use of emblems, that is: 1) the retelling of a fable; and 2) the enactment of a short dialogue. From these audio-video recordings, short video clips were extracted to create the stimuli for a two-part visual perception study aimed at getting evaluations of the speakers' gestures. In the first part, Italian native speakers (INS) and English native speakers (ENS) watched muted productions of INSs and were asked to tell what language was spoken in the clips. In the second part, the same subjects were asked to choose the correct meaning of selected gestures presented in the clips. The results suggest that INS recognize and correctly understand the meaning of the gestures produced by Italians when speaking English. ENS, however, do not interpret the meaning of Italian emblems correctly. This may lead to misunderstandings in L2 communication.