Gesturing the discourse marker entonces in native speakers and learners of Spanish

Abstract

This chapter presents the results of a study of gestures co-occurring with the Spanish discursive marker entonces (‘then’/‘so’) in the Spanish narrations of 15 native speakers and 15 learners of Spanish as a foreign language from Hong Kong with a proficiency level close to A2. Entonces is a multi- and polyfunctional discourse marker, with interactive, discursive, and logico-argumentative functions as well as being a temporal adverb (functions also found in its English translations ‘then’ and ‘so’). In general, novice speakers resort to this marker often, even from the initial levels, particularly with an interactive function but their gestures indicate other functions too.