More Than Words: An Integrated Framework for Exploring Gestures’ Role in Bilinguals’ Use of Two Languages for Making Mathematical Meaning

Gestures play a role in perception, production, and comprehension of language and have been shown to differ cross-linguistically and cross-culturally in aspects of performance and form-meaning relationships. Furthermore, gestures can serve as analytical tools to access tacit embodied-imagistic mathematical meanings that add to verbal-linguistic dimensions of meaning. At the same time, language plays important roles in interaction and cognition, influencing bilinguals’ learning of mathematics. Still, there is only very little research attending to the use of gestures of multilinguals as means to better understand the relationships between their language use and their mathematical thinking. This paper builds on research on multilingualism and on gestures—related and unrelated to mathematics education—to motivate and develop a framework for understanding better mathematics thinking and learning of multilinguals through integrating gesture analysis as related to languages, culture, and the use of registers. The application of this framework will be illustrated through two case studies in which we analyse interview data of a bilingual student and a bilingual mathematics teacher—focusing on gestures and language use while talking about the mathematical concept of ‘power’—or exponents—in Farsi (Persian) and in English. From analyzing the gestures’ form-meaning relations and their functions as related to hybrid language practices, we hypothesize on the vernacular and mathematical context as activated in both speech and gesture and on how it relates to mathematical meaning. From this, we draw practical implications for multilingual mathematical learning contexts and discuss implications for research on multilinguals’ mathematical thinking and learning.