ABSTRACT
Specific gestural forms/timings are associated with contexts of structural and scopal ambiguity. Gestures can also facilitate comprehension in such contexts in L1. This study examined whether the presence of gestural cues facilitates interpretation of sentences involving the ambiguity generated by the combination of negation (not) and quantification (all, many/most) among 27 CEFR-B1 versus 31 CEFR-B2/C1 L2 English users without training in ambiguity, and a group of eight mixed-proficiency L2 English users with training in the existence of ambiguity and communication of interpretations through prosody. Ambiguous target sentences were presented in either audio-only or audiovisual conditions. Analyses revealed mixed effects of presentation modality, with significantly more accurate interpretations of sentences with all in the audiovisual condition, especially among the group trained in ambiguity, and more accurate interpretations of sentences with many/most in the audio-only condition, mixed levels of interpretation accuracy depending on the quantifier (all versus many/most), and no effects of proficiency.
