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Download - EnglishAgenda - British Council

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LolaJohnBut when you, when you were onThursday and you teach us in thelecture, I could understand muchbetter.Oh, that’s good, I’m glad to hear thatyeah, urm, ok that’s good, and thiswas the first time you’d come acrossthese things like Chomsky and thingslike thatLH moves laterally to left andback (‘when you were’)Later, open LH moves left toright with beats (‘much better’)Open RH facing self movesoutward with slight rotation(repeating on ‘comeacross’,’Chomsky’, ‘things like’)Although John’s use of a forward gesture to indicate a past event is incoherentwith the timescale, it does highlight, through repetition, Lola’s notion of a firstencounter with these ideas. For Lola, the timescale appears more important andit serves more of a structuring function. This exchange reflects the fact that timeis metaphorically constructed and is not something that is objectively ‘out there’.When people with different conceptualisations of time come together there may ormay not be misunderstandings. There do not appear to be any misunderstandingshere. Finally, it is interesting to contrast John’s ‘bringing together’ gesture in thefollowing extract with Lola’s ‘joining’ gesture mentioned above:http://youtu.be/YIKtcRWtEmoJohnAnd you’ll bring them together andyou’ll see whether you agree ordisagree and compare themBrings his two hands togetherso that the fingers interlock.The way in which John neatly brings his hands together here contrasts sharplywith Lola’s more complex gesture that accompanies the same concept of bringingtogether other people’s ideas in the context of an academic essay.Another gesture mismatch relates to the amount of gesture used by each of theinterlocutors. Whereas Lola uses a large amount of gesture, John uses very little:http://youtu.be/d8L-UbTCUe8366 | International Students

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