Encorporer les langues vivantes : reconnaître la place du corps pour enseigner et pour apprendre

Abstract

This article brings together how three LPL researchers see the role of the body in teaching and/or learning a modern language, each one within a distinct but complementary theoretical framework – gesture studies, embodied cognition and cognitive science – and a specific area of interest: language didactics, education and psycholinguistics/neurolinguistics. In a three-voice exchange, we discuss our respective contexts and our research, highlighting our common points. We ask the following question: How do our different studies converge to show the fundamental role of the body in teaching and learning modern languages? 1. How do we define the body? In our research, we approach the body differently, according to our respective theoretical frameworks. For example, though focused mainly on the hands, facial expressions and head or eyebrow movements, gesture studies can also take into account posture, gaze and how space is occupied, as these are all aspects of pedagogical action (Azaoui, 2019; Tellier, 2008). In this context, it is important to observe body movements in relation to speech so as to understand how gesture is articulated with it in co-constructing meaning (McNeill, 1992; Azaoui and Tellier, 2020) and regulating interaction (Bavelas et al. 1995). In recent decades, and particularly since the unifying work of Aden (2004), the enactive-performative approach to language teaching (Eschenauer, 2019; Aden and Eschenauer, 2020) broke ground for Varela’s enaction paradigm (Varela et al., 1992) to be applied to artistic performance. Interdisciplinary work on embodied cognition is indeed paving the way for asserting that language links the body and the mind (Varela, 1989a). Researchers have observed that the mechanisms of resonance (automatic) and imitation (intentional) support language autonomy. These mechanisms are solicited by teachers and artists in a holistic approach to language that includes sensoriality, emotions (perceptive level), motor skills (mimo-gestures, body postures, movements in space, articulation), vocal variations, gaze and memorization. The awareness of this perception-action coupling as cognitive process through reflexive activities updates learning (Varela, 1988, 1989b; Trocmé-Fabre, 1987, 1999; Noë, 2006). Hence, learning always occurs in relation to oneself, to others and to the environment that generates a perception-action coupling. It would therefore seem important that the majority of the activities initiated by teachers not be static, including those involving adolescents or adult learners. Finally, cognitive science, takes into account the whole body and its interaction with the environment. The relationship between experience and conceptual representations is central here. In order to better understand it, studies have focused on the role of the body in language processing and learning. For example, in order to investigate how action and language processing influence one another, studies have observed the effects of hand/arm or leg/foot action preparation and execution on action language processing (Boulenger et al., 2006; Zappa et al., 2019). Importantly, in the context of embodied cognition, a strong link has been found between language processing and motor activation (Pulvermüller et al., 2005). 2. One’s own body and others’ bodies: the languaging body in interactions Studies have shown a link between empathy skills and the ability to switch between language registers (Aden, 2010; Eschenauer, 2014, 2018). Indeed, it would seem that the more a subject develops his or her ability to empathize, the more easily he or she navigates between his or her bodily and verbal repertoire, and vice versa (Eschenauer, 2017). Yet, the competence of empathy is complex: it is defined as the ability to put oneself in the place of another person while being aware of oneself (Decety, 2010; Thirioux et Berthoz, 2010). This self-other distinction is spatio-temporal, kinesthetic, sensory, emotional, and mental. For instance, observers recruit their own motor repertoire in order to understand others’ intentions (Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2006; Gallagher, 2011). Awareness of this bodily strategy is very useful for language learners, especially when they still lack lexicon (Eschenauer, 2020). Emotional literacy (Chisholm & Strayer, 1995; Mayer & Salovey, 1997) and aesthetic experience (Vischer, 1873) are also components of empathy that provide access to meaning in interactions. These results are consistent with gesture studies on adaptation to the interlocutor. For example, in exolingual interactions (with non-native speakers), pre-service teachers produce more frequent, more illustrative, larger and longer gestures with non-natives than with native interlocutors, in order to facilitate discourse comprehension (Tellier, Stam, & Ghio, 2021). 3. Methodological issues We then situate our research within our various methodologies. When using an ecological approach, classroom video-recordings are used to describe and qualitatively analyze how pedagogical gestures operate, their articulation with speech and their functions (Azaoui, 2019; Pavlovskaya, 2021; Tellier, 2008a). Within a semi-controlled approach, speakers are given the same instructions and their productions are collected; some variables are controlled such as experimental conditions and whether participants are observed in the first, second or third person (Depraz, 2014). Thus, subjective data can be objectified (Eschenauer, 2017, 2020). In an experimental approach, variables are more controlled, as are the experimental conditions and stimuli. In psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics in particular, measures such as reaction time, eye movements, or brain measures via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), or electroencephalography (EEG), for instance, are used to better understand the relationship between the body and language processing. For example, motor activation in the brain can be measured via EEG as participants hear action verbs, prior to preparing an action on a virtual object, in a controlled virtual environment (Zappa et al., 2019). In this article, we defend a circular vision of these methodological approaches, as well as their complementarity. For instance, one can opt for a mixed protocol integrating qualitative measures along with quantitative psychometric tests such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) empathy test (Davis, 1980) to compare data on a single subject with a population of the same age (Eschenauer, 2018a). In order to gain more control, declarative measures can be triangulated with physiological measures (spontaneous EEG, Heart Rate (HR) and/or electrodermal activity (EDA)) as is the case of the current CELaViE study protocol. In conclusion, although anchored in different theoretical frameworks and relying on various scientific methodologies, our research brings complementary insights regarding a common subject: the essential function of the body in foreign language teaching/learning. This synthesis of our independent work is also an opportunity to create a research community that can open up new avenues of investigation based on hybrid methodologies (qualitative and quantitative), such as the CELaViE (Creativity and Empathy by Modern Language Learning at School: a performative approach to language education) project or the AFLEX project (which addresses the flexible arrangement of classrooms to give the body a place in learning, particularly of modern languages).

Keywords

• body
• foreign languages
• teaching
• embodiment
• gesture
• embodied semantics