Language can only be understood through being-in-the-world.
Stephen Priest (1998: 175)

1. Heading Off: An Introduction

This article discusses a practical project called “Experiencing the Word” that used group devising activities for additional language acquisition. The project consisted of four additional language learning workshops with adults in Basel, Switzerland. I analyse the role of the body and gesture for Second Language Acquisition (SLA) during the workshop series, including the use of the voice and breathwork with adult language learners. This is illustrated in three activities from the workshops that focus on different facets of the project: overt physicality, awareness of gesture, and breath and voice work. The article proposes that the use of devising, with its emphasis on physical theatre, creates a learning environment where there is a greater focus on the role of the body in communication. This is in contrast to more conventional SLA classroom techniques that have a “textbook-defined practice” (Akbari 2008: 647).

By using devising techniques with its emphasis on the role of the body, the learner becomes more physically relaxed and feels less anxiety in their use of a new language. Aligned with this emphasis on the body, a focus on the voice and breathing can improve desired pronunciation while also lessening anxiety in oral production for additional language learners. Furthermore, the practice and observance of gesture can increase the learner’s awareness of their own gestures and capability to choose appropriate gestures to accompany speech in the target language, aiding more precise communication. An overview of literature is provided, forming the theoretical basis of the article. It uses ideas from anthropology, philosophy and sociology, specifically the work of Bourdieu and Merleau-Ponty, and from the sociocultural movement in SLA theory. The three illustrated “moments” from the “Experiencing the Word” project are discussed in the context of these theories with an explanation of how discoveries from these moments add to the literature. An addendum provides an account of further application and investigation of physicality and breath and voice work for additional language acquisition in the time following the “Experiencing the Word” project.

2. All in the Mind? A Theoretical Framework

Within the structure of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus which, according to John Thompson, comprises “a set of dispositions” – a way of acting – acquired through inculcation into any social environment (Thompson 1991: 12), Bourdieu identifies a subset called linguistic habitus: the verbal and physical characteristics that we acquire when learning to speak within certain contexts (ibid. 82). He elaborates that this linguistic sense influences how we regard and value ourselves and our own acts of (linguistic and cultural) production and how these are exchanged with others, which is dependent on how we are conditioned by, and positioned in, society. This means that certain social and political positions can mediate “the usage of language” and the value appropriated to the “sense of one’s own social worth” and even “one’s whole physical posture in the social world” (ibid., italics in original). In his introduction to Bourdieu’s Language and Symbolic Power, Thompson explains that “[l]inguistic utterances or expressions are forms of practice […] to speak in particular contexts”, further concluding that the “linguistic habitus is also inscribed in the body” (ibid. 17). Bourdieu himself expands on this idea in relation to world saying:

Language is a body technique, and specifically linguistic, especially phonetic, competence is a dimension of bodily hexis in which one’s whole relation to the social world, and one’s whole socially informed relation to the world, are expressed. (ibid. 86)²

This idea is one readily familiar to adult language learners in the sensation that when we are using an unfamiliar “technique” like an additional language, we are incompetent, and our being-in-the-world is confused.

According to Rod Ellis, the main development in second language acquisition (SLA) in the last 25 years is the appearance of “sociocultural SLA”, which emphasises and involves socio-cultural considerations in language acquisition (Ellis 2008: xxi). This position situates the language learning process as inherently linked to the environment, with people’s ability to learn from experience through “the acquisition of other skills and knowledge” intrinsic in linguistic and cognitive development (Lightbown and Spada 2006: 19). Dwight Atkinson informs us that the fundamental contention of a sociocognitive approach to SLA is the need for an integrative combination of the cerebral, physical and the environmental aspects of language learning (Atkinson 2011: 143). Atkinson also challenges the dismissal of the importance of physicality by those that adhere solely to the cognitive approach to language acquisition by pointing out the empirically-proven, innate involvement of the body with cognition. This position of “extended, embodied cognition-for-SLA” (Atkinson 2010: 599) indicates a need for a more overt examination of the role of the body in language acquisition from within the language teaching community. In line with Helen Nicholson’s claim that “drama is unlike many other forms of learning because it has an aesthetic dimension and, as the aesthetic is a discourse on the body, it engages the senses” (Nicholson 2005: 57), I suggest that there are great benefits in involving the physicality of theatre and drama in the learning process.

This suggestion follows previous similar ideas by researchers and practitioners in the field. Introducing Body and Language: Intercultural Learning Through Drama, Gerd Bräuer situates his use of “drama” as “not limited to artistic work or pedagogical use, but rather it means the interplay between body and language in general that leads to doubts, questions, and insights for learners interacting with themselves and others and their linguistic and cultural identity” (Bräuer 2002: ix–x). The use of drama for SLA, for Bräuer, is not intended only for the purposes of art or teaching, but also for the “interplay between body and language” (ibid. x). He further elaborates, saying that “[t]he focus on (linguistic) signs and signals alone is not enough to convey language knowledge successfully. Communicating the physical language of things, ideas, and people is equally important for learning” (ibid.). By this I understand that increased emphasis should be placed in language learning on ways of communicating through various kinds of gesture that are learned by living in a certain place and culture and which are not readily understood or explainable – a tacit understanding.

Though different traditions of practice place different emphases on the body, physicality as a way of communicating is certainly embraced by theatre so it is surprising that there is not more literature dedicated to the investigation of the body in relation to language acquisition through drama, proportionately mirroring SLA literature in this respect. A case in point is the RiDE Special Edition on second language acquisition (Stinson & Winston 2011) which contains only one article addressing this area. In this issue, Julia Rothwell in ‘Bodies and Language’ (2011) examines the possibilities of the use of the physicality allowing the learner to become more aware of the role of the body in intercultural communication and aiding them to ‘wear different identities’ (ibid. 579). She acknowledges that in such a short study a comprehensive examination of kinaesthetic elements of (process) drama are limited, though this outing suggests that further research could open a valuable vein for investigation.

It is possible, though, that mention of the body is due to the body being perceived as self-evidently a part of theatre and drama and, therefore, to explicitly address the use of the physicality in such a learning environment might be merely identifying the obvious. There are, however, some explicit examples of research into the role of the body for SLA, for instance, Gerd Bräuer’s Body and Language: Intercultural Learning through Drama (2002), mentioned above, contains a wide range of contributions from practitioners including Manfred Schewe who discusses “bodily-kinesthetic intelligence” (2002), and there are some notable recent exceptions, such as Erika Piazzoli’s Embodying Language in Action (2018) along with the work of Jean-Rémi Lapaire (2006, 2012, 2016), discussed later in this article. A prominent development in the field is the concept of performative teaching practice. Currently there is much discussion on the notion, and promotion, of performative language teaching and the artistry of the language teacher, originating from Schewe (2013) and elucidated by recent publications from John Crutchfield, Piazzoli, and Schewe himself (Crutchfield & Schewe 2017, Schewe 2017, Piazzoli 2018). Schewe and Fionn Woodhouse explicitly discuss the performative aspect, stressing that ‘form’ is not contrary but has a interdependent relationship with ‘meaning. ‘Form’ for them should not be understood in a solely linguistic way, “but also as an aesthetic category, implying the ways in which the body speaks and how sound, word, sentence and movement all interact with each other” (Schewe and Woodhouse 2018: n.p.). Along with these developments from the performative field, a corporeal technique to come from SLA, though used principally for beginners, is Total Physical Response (TPR). This has emerged from psychological theories that looked at learning from physical action. TPR is a method of language teaching in which students respond to verbal instructions with a corresponding physical movement. Its originator, James Asher, commenting on the method, has noted that ‘[i]n a sense, language is orchestrated to a choreography of the human body’ (Asher and Adamski 1993: 4). TPR has been somewhat overlooked since its initial appearance and seems to be limited to basic language acquisition, though it has re-emerged incorporating storytelling with more sophistication that could certainly be of value to future research (Davidheiser 2002, Alley & Overfield 2008, Lichtman 2018).

If discussion of the body is largely absent from the literature, the suggestion would be that, while acknowledging the exceptions above, it is absent from practice to the same degree. Therefore, my premise is that additional language development is lacking in something which would overcome some inherent weaknesses in the dominant cognitivist focus on the mind. Aligning with Bräuer’s position and the understanding “that learning is not all explicit and mediated by language, but often tacit and embodied” (Calhoun 2002: 15), I have begun to establish an approach, which echoes Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theoretical framework of the body “being-in-the-world” as a foundation for my research and my initial practical experiments. This approach is called “experiencing the word” and is based on the notion that, in Merleau-Ponty’s formulation, we “begin to understand the meaning of words through their place in a context of action, and by taking part in a communal life” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 208). Although an approach that seeks to place the learner in a “context of action” may appear obvious, it is still not a major consideration in language acquisition in formal education compared to the emphasis on learning vocabulary and lists of verbs, and in contrast with common text-based approaches, which emphasises the production of the written word.

Recognition of the more affecting parts of SLA – the intangible sense of understanding of what to say and do in unforeseen circumstances – and resolving the difficulties of social engagement, especially for adult language learners, is neglected in favour of the more measurable and academic elements of language learning; as the learner ages, the more exclusively cerebral education tends to become. This is problematic as adults form their expectations of how languages are learnt through these more rigid, text-based experiences such as learning lists of verbs or memorisation of grammar. Though these cognitive methods can certainly be an important aspect of language learning, approaches that consider the emotional factors are neglected and may even be unnerving for students. This wariness of addressing this aspect of language acquisition persists despite many commentators emphasising the intrinsic emotional nature of language learning. For example, Jane Arnold (1999) and Aneta Pavlenko (2006), have shown, in theory and practice, the need to engage with this side of additional language learning as it reflects the reality of additional language speakers’ context of action. Katherine E. Garrett demonstrates this point acutely, telling us that an immigrant shopping for food in a grocery store in New Jersey in the United States could not ask a simple question and found themselves in tears, explaining, “So I cried, not for the food, but because I was unable to express myself in English” (Garrett 2006: 5) This emphasises the significance of language and communication in terms of sustenance. Butler underlines this vulnerability and the complications involved in understanding a new linguistic habitus explaining, “The speech situation is thus not a simple sort of context, one that might be defined easily by spatial and temporal boundaries. To be injured by speech is to suffer a loss of context, that is, not to know where you are” (Butler 1997: 4). This loss of where we are, I surmise, also alludes to who you are.

It is perhaps this emotional vulnerability – one of the deepest inhibiting factors for language learners – that prevents the learner from taking the inevitable risks that must be taken in engaging with a new form of speaking or communicating. This impeding element might be addressed through a more integrated approach to balance conventional approaches with methods that consider environmental factors encountered in everyday life. Of equal significance are drama techniques focusing on physicality including rhythms and nuance of language, gesture and vocal production. Such techniques could give more control over various aspects of our engagement with others in differing environments aiding our ability to communicate more comfortably in new linguistic habitus and comprehend our being-in-a-(foreign)-world.

3. To the Heart of It All: Project Outline and the Research Design and Process

To investigate the connection between physical theatre, gesture, and vocal work and improving confidence and control in using an additional language I set up a pilot theatre workshop series to test the effects of these techniques. Ten participants attended a four-week theatre workshop series for English language acquisition. The duration of the project was one month (26th February – 19th March 2013), meeting for a two-hour session, one evening a week. During the process, the research subjects participated in various activities I led, based on developing an understanding of physicality. The activities explored non-verbal communication, the rhythm of the spoken word and, also, accompanying gestures. The participants discussed the possible effects that these activities have on heightening awareness of embodied knowledge and the role this plays in communication in relation to additional language acquisition, specifically English.

Attendees participated for a variety of reasons ranging from more exposure to the English language to being intrigued by something “different”. The group consisted of ten participants, made up of four females and six males. Seven of the participants were Spaniards, two from Venezuela and one from Romania, and there was a variety in the ages of the group, ranging from 26 to 44 years old (one was in their 20s and most were around 40-years-old). Six of the participants had relocated to Switzerland from Spain within the last three years to work at a large multi-national corporation with four being spouses or partners of employees relocated by the same company and were actively seeking employment in their own right. All the participants had received formal education to university level in their home countries and had developed strong literacy skills in their own language as well as in other languages. There was a range of ability level in English: two people had no recent practice in spoken English while others were quite capable and mostly intermediate/upper-intermediate learners (B1-C1 in the Common European Framework Reference scale). The group were made aware that there would be a difference in levels, though there were no concerns about this. The participants were asked to be interviewed individually before and after the workshop sessions; group interview-discussions at each session took place, though not as extensively as planned. This article mainly draws on the resonses from participants in the interviews and blog posts that expressly commented on the role of the body or breath and voicework. All the names of the participants have been anonymised. A pre- and post-project survey was sent out to the participants and a project blog was set up summarising each session and requesting responses after each session.

The activities and session concepts for the project were based upon those often used in theatre devising and geared towards the explicit use of the body in communication. They included mime, gestural work and vocalisation exercises and I discuss a selection of them in the following section. They were sourced in the work of Augusto Boal, Viola Spolin, Cicely Berry, Helen White, Tainan Jen, and other theatre practitioners along with my own experience and practice in theatre and drama in education. Each session was planned to stand individually within an overarching aim of familiarising the participants with a variety of techniques used in theatre. There were performative moments throughout each of the sessions, which were informally observed by the rest of the group. At the beginning of each workshop, participants were asked to be especially aware of themselves, the others in the group and the space they were in, specifically in relation to developing a heightened awareness of the role of physicality in communication.

My research tools to collect data were: video documentation of the sessions to complement my own reflections and observations on the sessions, a project blog, a pre- and post-project electronic survey, and audio-recorded semi-structured interviews. The data was collected and coded then compared with other data to find possible thematic links. The discussion-interviews were based on the electronic survey questions with space for discussion to grow allowing for possible surprise discoveries. Each participant was interviewed informally in the week before the four-workshop series began to establish English language ability, interest and ability in theatre and drama, understanding of the role of body language and the voice in communication, and expectations for the course. The participants were later interviewed for sixty minutes after the workshops were completed. The post-workshop interviews took place between the 18th April and 21st May 2013. All the individual interviews were in Spanish as it was the most comfortable language for the participants and were translated by me to English for this article. The group interview-discussions during each workshop session were in English. Apart from general questions about expectations of the project and experience in theatre, there were several pre-workshop questions related to the body and voice which were asked again after the workshops. Examples were:

• How much do you [now] consider body language (gestures, movement, mannerisms) and tone of voice in speaking English?

• [Now] how important for you is body language (gestures, movement, mannerisms) in relation to communication?

• Are you conscious of your body language and tone of voice when you speak in English

• Have you applied what you learned in your everyday life?

• What further support do you need in order to feel more comfortable speaking in a second language?

More general questions included:

• What was the most important learning or insight that you gained from the creative process?

• What has been your greatest challenge in working in a collaborative creative group?

• What suggestions would you make to improve the learning techniques and creative processes provided by this project?

The participant responses that are included in this article are mainly those that were closely related to physicality, gesture and breath and voice work.

4. The Body: Let Me Hear It Talk – The Story and Findings of the Project

To illustrate my findings, I describe a selection of activities from the workshops, discuss participants’ responses to them and explain how they connect to my theoretical framework. Although there are numerous elements to the study, I would like to focus on those that presented the most tangible discoveries concerning awareness of gesture, breathing and voice work, starting with a discussion of the overall approach and its possible effects.³

This describes part of a sequence where the participants, after preparatory exercises, played silently in groups of four with a large piece of silken fabric creating “sketches” or “snippets” which would be later reformed as a short scene. It is from the final workshop session called The Fabric of Language: Words and the Spaces In-between. It was adapted from a workshop of the Taiwanese theatre company Tainan Jen which was created to examine intercultural collaborative creation.⁴ For the purposes of the project, I modified the original session, which incorporates elements of collaboration, negotiation and exploration, along with the creative improvisational and playful aspects, and I placed an emphasis on additional language acquisition. Various performances by the participants were produced at the end of the session and this was the first time the participants collaboratively created a performance piece in the workshops, although there were improvised moments where participants watched each other throughout the four sessions.

In fact, the workshops were as much an introduction to theatre as anything else. This particular instance allowed participants to be freer with their gestures – the fabric acting as a kind of “distraction” – and it shares similar ideas to the work of Jean-Rémi Lapaire. Lapaire’s work is based on thinking of the anthropologist Marcel Jousse (1997) who believed human expression was rooted in gesture. This theory is supported by the conclusions of the anthropologists David Armstrong, William Stokoe and Sherman Wilcox (1995) on the relationship between language and physical action, who also posit that language is derived from and shaped by gestures and gesture is inseparable from language. This is supported from a pedagogical perspective by the educational drama practitioner and researcher Betty Jane Wagner who claims: “Gesture is a communication system even more basic to humans than language” (Wagner 2002: 11). Part of Lapaire’s work in gesture studies is to have learners play with the size of gesture then develop, compose and perform short pieces of choreography where “gestural forms are explored” and identifying “dimensions of movement, patterns and motifs” (Lapaire 2012: n.p.). This has been demonstrated by Lapaire to lead to increased level of comfort in language learners and make them more at ease in their new linguistic habitus. Lapaire’s approach is very precise whilst the more improvisational sequence I have described and work with creates “raw material” which is later sculpted into a short scene.

Using drama, there is a greater emphasis on the observation and self-awareness of what we are communicating non-verbally. Through this approach the participants can rehearse movements and gestures and from there can further articulate with the spoken word – the communicative act coming from the gesture rather than the gesture to accompany the word. Thus, the burden of making meaning only through words is taken away, which, in paying too much attention to word order, intonation and emphasis, can sometimes prevent fluency in the additional language learner. Carkin also feels there is much that drama can offer in this regard. He comments that, in the work of Shin Mei Kao and Cecily O’Neill, “paralinguistic elements of gesture and movement” allow participants to assume the “behavioral characteristics of the target culture, rehearse and experience the proxemics related to the environment of the fictional world within which they move and speak” (Kao & O’Neill 2007: 1). Norah Morgan and Juliana Saxton suggest that “[n]ot only do expression and gesture help to ‘fill out’ the words we are saying but they often express thoughts and feelings of which we may not be aware” (qtd. in Culham 2002: 101). The implication is that a freer use of the body from the typical restrictive sedentary position in the language learning environment would lead to an overall re-balancing of additional language learning with adult learners from a purely intellectual and mind-centred methodology to a more holistic process. A methodology that pays more attention to gesture and kinesics, which we find in devising processes, alleviates the need to produce fully formed “perfect” sentences immediately, and creates a strong corporeal framework on which to “hang” utterances giving more confidence to the speaker. Also, there is a greater emphasis on the observation and self-awareness of what we are communicating non-verbally. In the following section, I will develop this idea further examining a moment from the workshops.

These are impressions from an activity called “Poker Body” (listening without gesture) for which participants were asked to listen to their partner for two minutes without any physical or verbal response (no nodding, affirmations or typical reactions). “A” and “B” chose who went first by whoever had the longest eyelashes – this caused participants to look at each other’s physical aspects more closely. The exercise is followed by a discussion where everyone talks about how they felt in the roles of listener and speaker and how, or if, the exercise has made them more aware of their gestures. We did the activity twice during the project after some of the participants had expressed that they would like to do it again, as becoming conscious of a normally unconscious activity was inherently intriguing. In fact, the exercise, if not solely responsible, was certainly a catalyst for developing a keener sense for the participants of their own and others’ use of gesture.

It can be understood that language, along with its overt linguistic value, also has a symbolic quality (Bourdieu 1991). Then, if we accept the assertion that “theatre uses bodies in a way that mirrors or replicates the performative” (Conroy 2010: 62), the question can be asked: how can we remake “contact with the body and with the world” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 206) through drama given, as Bourdieu posits, we are “habituated”, the body moulded through inculcation? A line of inquiry is that of the use of gesture and the way it informs discourse and communication. Regarding “discourse”, James Paul Gee includes non-linguistic elements in his oft-quoted definition: “Discourses are ways of being in the world, or forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities, as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (Gee 1996: 127). Ray Birdwhistell who founded kinesics as a field of inquiry and research claimed, “all meaningful motion patterns are to be regarded as socially learned until empirical investigation reveals otherwise” (Birdwhistell 1952: 6). Birdwhistell is here referring to the motion of the body and his point has yet to be discredited and I have found no conclusive evidence to show otherwise. James Edie further stresses the same claim stating that, “[t]he body is expressive of meaning in many ways more fundamental than speaking” (Edie 1991: xiii). He later explains:

[T]he expression of our mental states into gestures, such as expressions of desire, frustration, concern, anger, pleasure, joy, etc., gives us […] the physical embodiment and expression of a meaning which is strictly inseparable from its bodily expression. (ibid. xiii-xiv)

This phenomenological point of view reflects the concerns of SLA theorists, Pavlenko and Atkinson, expressed above, and they regard physicality as a major area to be addressed in SLA practice and research.

The importance, and indeed inseparability, of gesture to thought and emotion also has support from other fields. For example, in So you think gestures are nonverbal? (1985), the psycholinguist David McNeill tells us, “We tend to consider linguistic what we can write down, and nonlinguistic everything else; but this division is a cultural artefact, an arbitrary limitation derived from historical evolution” (McNeill 1985: 350 italics in original). For McNeill, “gestures are an integral part of language as much as are words, phrases and sentences – gesture and language are one system” (1992: 2 italics in original); for Boal:

The human being is a unity, an indivisible whole. [...] ideas, emotions and sensations are all indissolubly interwoven. A bodily movement ‘is’ a thought and a thought expresses itself in corporeal form. (Boal 2002: 49)

This understanding of the inter-connectedness of the body in communication and “being-in-the-world” was noted in the reflections of the “Experiencing the Word” project participants after doing the exercises and activities from the workshops. One of the participants, Alfredo, is now observing people more by “paying more attention to this phenomenon”, creating what he believes is a better awareness of the behaviour of others and what they wish to express and this in turn has aided his comprehension (Alfredo). Another participant, Ricardo, wrote in response to the post on the first workshop: “For me [it] was shocking to discover with the poker face exercise the amount of unconscious gestures that we all do while speaking” (Ricardo), while Jeru commented that:

“The experience of talking or listening for some time without the slightest gesture was very difficult for me. I noticed the amount and frequency with which I communicate nonverbally. Although I found the two alternatives (talking or listening) difficult, I must admit that listening without indicating to my partner that I'm following them was the hardest part.” (Jeru)

Another of the group members, Diego, thought that the “Poker Body” activity aided understanding of “the weight of body language” (Diego) while Juan Carlos said that the act of not making gestures adversely influenced his ability to listen to his partner (Juan Carlos). This, I believe, brought about a more acute awareness of his way of being-in-the-world and the importance of physicality for him in expressing himself.

These responses demonstrate what James Edie posits in the foreword to Merleau-Ponty’s Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language:

The body is expressive of meaning in many ways more fundamental than speaking [...] the expression of our mental states into gestures, such as expressions of desire, frustration, concern, anger, pleasure, joy, etc. gives us … the physical embodiment and expression of a meaning which is strictly inseparable from its bodily expression. (Merleau-Ponty 1991: xiii-xiv)

In relation to spoken language, the evidence was not entirely conclusive, yet has importance. The participants became much more aware of what their actual gestures were, though this did not particularly aid them in oral production. That said, if we consider other activities where gesture would include movements of the mouth and tongue with attention to the formulation of words, the participants noticed where some of their production challenges were. They became conscious that there were positionings that were not used in their mother tongues and so did not use in speaking English, which, in turn, had an adverse effect on certain pronunciations. Also, although somewhat alien to them, they now realised that with specific exercises these new positions could become more comfortable and, thus, enhanced awareness of gesture combined with exercises exploring new facial formations can lead to better vocal production. The following section, Voice and Breath Work, further explores this.

In Gesture and the Nature of Language (1995), Armstrong, Stokoe and Wilcox propose that language is derived originally from actions or gestures, arguing that meaning is based on body patterns or schemata. They cite various notions and models regarding speech and the body including William Mowery and Richard Pagliuca who claim that words are “complexes of muscular gestures” (qtd. in Armstrong, Stokoe and Wilcox 1995: 10). Armstrong, Stokoe and Wilcox concur explaining that “[t]he human vocal apparatus is capable of producing a vast array of sounds, just as the body as a whole is capable of producing an enormous number of visible movements” (ibid. 12). This scale and spectrum of the outwardly visible elements is complex, yet it is further complicated by discoveries in neuromuscular activity. William C. Stokoe, is seen as the initiator of American Sign Language linguistics and the study of both spoken and signed language production has led the inquiry for a neural basis of human communication and finding some vindication in the claims for mirror neurons (discussed below in the next section). Wilcox claims: “The model that encompasses both spoken and signed languages assumes that the key lies in describing both with a single vocabulary, the vocabulary of neuromuscular activity” (Wilcox 1990: 141-142), though whether this reveals anything more about the “importance of hands, the visual system, and upright posture in the development of language” (Armstrong, Stokoe and Wilcox 1995: 19) is beyond the remit of this article. That said, the inextricable nature of physicality and speech directs us towards an approach to language acquisition with a greater emphasis on the body rather than the currently favoured cognitive orientation in SLA. While imitating a target culture might be less than desirable from the perspective of the debate around the ‘ideal speaker’, a greater emphasis on the observation and self-awareness of what we are communicating non-verbally should be welcomed.⁵

This vignette describes one of the moments when working on awareness and control of breathing with these exercises being beneficial to most of the group and to two of the participants in particular, as their responses on the blog and interviews demonstrate. Joaquin used the breathing exercises and they had a significant effect, as he explains: “I exercised the 1 up to 10, breath in, hold and breath out for a presentation I run [sic] today, and I have to say that it works. Made me feel more concentrate[d]” (Joaquin, writing in English on the blog). Jeru states that she now also uses the techniques and feels it is working for her too, though in a different manner. She feels that she starts everything in a calmer fashion whereas before in meetings and discussions in English she started speaking rapidly and then accelerated, though she still finds herself “trying to speak English more slowly but start slow and finish fast talking as always [...] It's something more to practice” (Jeru). Listening to Jeru’s response reminds us that altering “one’s whole physical posture in the social world”, to recall Bourdieu’s phrase above, or even a small gesture is not done easily. However, as Jeru’s responses also show, increased self-awareness and having techniques, such as those from breath and voice work, that are incorporated into learner’s autonomous additional language practice can be beneficial.

A further discovery for Jeru is an awareness that how you act influences others – when she spoke too quickly she sensed that this affected others to become more agitated, which in turn caused her to feel less relaxed. Jeru describes one instance of her using the breathing techniques “not [...] before the meeting but I have used them (as discretely as possible) during a meeting” (Jeru). She explains that during a disagreement:

“I have not breathed waiting for the opportunity to explain my position. In doing so, I realise that I am tongue-tied – I guess that not breathing normally worsened the situation – and I cannot express what I want to say. So, I decided to wait for a small gap and breathe in the meantime. In the end, I was able to communicate in a clearer manner which made me quite happy.” (Jeru)

In contrast, Juan Carlos, talking about applying the techniques to German, another additional language he was learning, rather than English, thought that perhaps right now he would not be able “to maintain a conversation and at the same time think if my breathing is correct!” (Juan Carlos). These instances demonstrate the participants’ need to become comfortable in a foreign linguistic habitus where control of breathing, and by extension, better command of the voice allows speakers to acquire a desired gravitas.

In Voice and the Actor (2008), Cicely Berry says in relation to relaxation and breathing that “[t]he voice is incredibly sensitive to any feelings of unease. In everyday life, if you are slightly nervous or not quite on top of the situation this condition reacts on the voice”; for Berry, the breath is the root of the sound (ibid. 18). Most people, especially speakers of a language which they do not totally control, will recall moments where the situation affected the way they spoke – an inadvertent quaver, perhaps a garbled sentence and certainly, if presenting in some way, a dry mouth. In contrast to my emphasis on general physicality, Berry places the most importance in communication on the voice as “it is through the speaking voice that you convey your precise thoughts and feelings” with gesture and movement only giving an “impression” – an almost anti-theatrical bias – along with dress and posture in terms of importance to human communication systems. However, she does point out the need for muscular awareness and freedom to increase ease of expression (ibid. 7).

Therefore, as part of our general warm-ups, we followed the breathing exercises with vocal warm-ups. In the end, the participants wanted to return to these activities to practise elements of pronunciation and enunciation, and much of that was due to the obvious benefits that they could see on their vocalisation in the target language, English. The benefits included reassuring themselves that a particular word was delivered with sufficient clarity and certain pronunciations that Spanish speakers typically find difficult along with more individual pronunciation and enunciation difficulties. This suggests that exercises that use repetition on the specific physical formation of the mouth and tongue are welcomed by students and might be more regularly employed. This focus on the actual mechanics of vocal production is not commonly in use in SLA learning and teaching and the idea that these skills could be improved or obtained surprised most of the group. This is understandable as when we speak about the role of the body in communication it is easy to forget that the actual mouth and tongue are part of the body too.

Specifically concerning this area of the body, and drawing on new developments in neurology, sociocognitive approaches to language learning point to the key discovery of mirror neurons which are “cerebral neurons that fire both when observing others performing specific actions and when performing those same actions oneself” (Atkinson 2011: 145).⁶ Barbara Ehrenreich also comments on the significance of mirror neurons. She discusses the muscular actions of the tongue – how the sticking out of a tongue by a parent is imitated when perceived by the child is her example – and the way we use the tongue to formulate (perhaps mirroring others) the shapes necessary to create sounds (Ehrenreich 2007: 26). This is worth considering in the additional language learning context as accents are a product of how the tongue, throat and lips move and produce what Bourdieu (citing Pierre Guiraud’s coining of the phrase) calls the “articulatory style” (Bourdieu 1991: 86). This relates intrinsically to which accent we learn, forming part of Bourdieu’s “linguistic habitus” and how that differentiates our social status, and was certainly an important aspect of language learning for some of the group. For example, Diego (2013) strongly believed that the tone of Spaniards speaking in English is dull, almost monotone, which was surprising to me, though it indicates the sense of inferiority that many language learners have with their vocal production.

Taken as a whole, the premise of gestural and physically orientated language learning is validated by the findings of the research project, though, with some reservations. In the example concerning voice and breath work, I have shown how a more deliberate focus on technical elements of vocal production can be beneficial for SLA learners by allowing the learner an introduction to new and perhaps unknown sounds in the target language, gaining the ability to then produce and perceive those utterances, along with more subtle nuances of intonation and stress. The work on breath control also had the effect of reducing apprehension in stressful moments where the participants had felt out of their element, though, on occasion, a focus on breathing could adversely affect concentration on what is actually being said inhibiting expression.

The findings also suggest that the demonstrated use of theatre-based non-verbal activities lend themselves to an approach to language learning with a focus on language learning as an embodied experience. With most of the group there was better awareness of the role of body language and non-verbal communication, especially on the importance of gesture. This, of course, only indicates the possibilities of this approach allowing the group to feel comfortable “performing” with their body in front of others in an explorative way, and what effect this had on oral production is unclear.

To draw concrete conclusions in such a short study would be foolhardy. There are too many factors that might come into play in longer studies or ones with other groups. For example, students could tire of such repetitions or become frustrated with not being able to alter the muscular formation of the mouth and tongue, especially in the case of adults. With a different set of students, group dynamics or cultural tendencies influencing the way individuals might react in doing something unusual such as these exercises could come into play.⁷ I believe such an endeavour needs investigation over a longer period of time rather than the culmination of just four weeks work as immediate changes are not readily observed. That said, as Ricardo told me:

“Self-awareness and awareness of the others is something that I’ll use in the future in meetings and presentations. It was clear during the workshop that it requires some practise and effort to make it right; it is not that simple to notice what is happening around you.” (Ricardo)

From this, we can address Bourdieu’s notion of linguistic habitus saying that despite the sometimes very marked differences between habitus, with practice and observation, rehearsal, and perhaps imitation, a speaker can acquire the ability not only to feel comfortable in new linguistic habitus but also to be able to affect the codes necessary to inhabit different habitus.

Indeed, if we agree with Bourdieu that language is socially conditioned, this means that to become conditioned means participating not only with the mind but with the body too; use of drama for SLA can allow us to try on these roles in languages new to us – perhaps in a way not even possible in our native ones. Getting to know a new linguistic habitus, nurtured unconsciously in our native upbringing, can be awkward and perhaps impenetrable to outsiders, especially adult language learners. This nurturing and constant attention that native speakers receive in the context of social action needs to be created somehow in the additional language learning environment and, though somewhat artificial, by directly addressing and resolving linguistic challenges through the techniques mentioned. This is accompanied by creating an experimental setting which recognises need for learners to find their feet in a new linguistic habitus – a gradual acclimatisation to being in a foreign world – allowing the mind, body, and world to function integratively, and learners can try on habitus for size, perhaps adapting better to them.⁸

5. Further Reflection and Conclusion

After the series of workshops there was a lot of interest for the participants in learning techniques that have a direct effect on language skills, and the more obviously successful activities in this regard were breathing and voice work. This explicitness I found to be the main thing that the participants looked for. Because of adults’ time demands there is more of an imperative to have a clearly defined purpose for doing something: what can a technique be directly used for? An explicit explanation of the rationale for each activity is necessary, especially ones that had no clear connection to language learning or were in place to develop skills within the overarching purpose of the project – the results need to be evident. A longer research period would make it easier to gauge the effectiveness of the activities or, at least, for the participants to see progress in their own linguistic development; concentration on breathing and voice work will become more integral perhaps in the area of rhythm, as an area where theatre and excels.

[Normal0] The call for work on accents, and in the participant Amelia’s (2013) coinage “marco de la voz” (“frame of the voice”), is ripe for further investigation. This could be achieved through voice techniques used in theatre such as those of Cicely Berry who proposes that by “exercising its physical resources” you can “open up the possibilities of your voice” and address this area of vulnerability explaining, “[b]ecause it is such a personal statement, criticism of your voice is very close to criticism of yourself, and can easily be destructive” (Berry 2008: 8). While attention to Phonetics is occasionally given in SLA, it is generally approached without consideration of other factors in vocal production (for example, breathing or the role of the whole body) and is shown merely through pictoral diagrams of how the mouth, jaw and throat should look like when making a certain sound. With a more overall physical approach and employing warm-up techniques, the voice can be strengthened, and a better range of sounds produced in a more natural fashion. Outcomes of this may be better recognition of rhythmic and tonal differences between certain language along with increased ability to adapt to these new rhythms and tones. These strengthened abilities allow the speaker to feel more comfortable in varying linguistic habitus which could range from academia to the corporate world to the bar on the corner.

6. Addendum

This addendum demonstrates the implementation of the ideas and challenges that emerged from the initial parts of my research, which is discussed in the main part of this article, particularly regarding breath and voice work.

The pilot research project named ‘Experiencing the Word’ was designed to investigate the use of ensemble devising techniques and activities for second language acquisition. The prominence of physicality in group devised theatre meant that there was a specific focus on the role of the body in additional language development and communication. In this regard, the ‘Experiencing the Word’ case study generated intriguing findings especially the participants’ interest in breathing and voice work. This led to further research and experimentation with voice work techniques and during this time I found the voice practitioner Kristin Linklater’s method (Linklater Voice Training) readily adaptable to the work on additional language development. The reasons for using this particular approach are expanded on below.

For research purposes and part of further establishing my practice, I designed a course (a workshop series) for adults called ‘Confident Communication for International English Speakers’ to assess the effectiveness of voice and breath work in a context that was aimed at beneficially influencing confidence and communicative ability. I ran the course three separate times: from spring to summer March-July 2014; in the autumn of 2014 from September-December; and in spring 2015 from February-May 2015. All the courses took place in Basel, Switzerland. Each session was for two hours per week (32 hours in total for the first two courses and 24 for the last one). This time scale reflects the typical duration of current language programmes offered to adult learners by established language schools in the local area. The last of these courses ran concurrently with my main doctoral research project (called ‘Performing Languages’).

During the course, consisting of three modules, each workshop was planned to stand individually within an overarching aim of developing an awareness of the role of the voice and breathing in the communicative process along with a variety of techniques with a physical focus. The activities explored breathing exercises and voice work, non-verbal communication, the rhythm of the spoken word and, also, accompanying gestures. There were performative moments throughout each of the sessions, such as short presentations and involved side-coaching from me as facilitator. These were informally observed by the rest of the group, and their observations and subsequent discussion developed a heightened awareness of the role of physicality in communication. The participants discussed the possible effects that these activities have in the way they communicated in relation to speaking English, which was a second language to all but one of the participants.

[Normal0] The activities used for this purpose sought to affect participants’ linguistic ability beneficially and increase awareness of their vocality as part of the ongoing research process. I adapted the Linklater Voice Training techniques (Linklater 2006) – which are based on elements from the Alexander technique and the work of Feldenkrais – to provide a practical and theoretical framework for the workshops. This approach, paying particular attention to voice work, provided pragmatic exercises to address tensions in vocal production in speakers of an additional language. This involved addressing physical aspects of communication and voice work in seven different sections as proposed in The Language Teacher’s Voice by Alan Maley (2000), one of the first practitioners to look at using drama for language learning. These seven aspects are: Relaxation, Posture, Breathing, Voice Resonance, Articulation, Modulation, and Volume. All these factors focus on vocal production to give more understanding of various aspects of our engagement with others in differing environments, aiding our ability to communicate with more confidence, comfort and clarity. Following this line of thinking, the main potential outcomes regarding voice and breath work were that by using an overall physical approach and employing warm-up techniques, the voice could be strengthened, and develop a larger and more nuanced range of sounds. This affords the speaker a better awareness of rhythmic and tonal differences in the target language and increases their ability to adapt to these new rhythms and tones. These strengthened abilities allow the speaker to feel more comfortable in varying linguistic habitus.

In my practice, I aimed at being an intermediary, interpreting and incorporating voice work aimed at actors (and other non-language learners) and introducing it to people who are mainly concerned with language learning. Rather than merely being used as ‘warm-up’ exercises, the workshops were centred on the voice work methods. The participants were involved in voice work from the beginning with a specific focus on affecting their confidence beneficially. This contrasted with the ‘Performing Languages’ project where breath and voice work was planned to be only one facet of the research design. How this worked in practice is explained below. It is interesting to note that although the description of the course was not aimed at non-native speakers, all the participants, bar one, identified English as an additional language to them.⁹ Although no planned interviews were conducted before, during or after the Confident Communication courses, there were many engaged discussions with the participants during and after the sessions which gave substantial insight into the various effects that work on gesture and the voice had on the participants.

Each participant reported that, to some degree, applying breath and voice work methods in the workplace or everyday life, they improved their poise when presenting and communicating in English in front of their colleagues and/or with people they did not know previously. This individual use of voice work outside the workshops ranged from a longer warm-up routine of up to 15 minutes to just one minute of breath work to ease their ‘jitters’. Although anecdotal this feedback provides some evidence that the techniques that were learnt and applied were beneficial for a sense of competent and confident communication, for example, in dealing with nervousness associated with giving presentations. That said, one participant, Lara (a German female and very fluent English speaker), perceived only a minor improvement to her confidence during and after the first course. This was despite the appearance to her audience during in-course presentations that she had presented much more confidently at the end of the course training compared with how she began. This indicates the precarious nature of self-confidence and self-efficacy which can be brittle in even the most fluent of speakers. This perhaps relates to the sensation of never being able to attain the ‘complete’ status of the ideal native speaker in the target language. Lara signed up to a second workshop, after which she reported that her self-efficacy and feelings about her competence in presenting had improved. Her perception about how she ‘performed’ only altered slightly but her awareness of her body and gestures grew and she found herself, in her words, ‘consciously competent’, echoing the ‘conscious competence’ stage learning model used in education, psychology and by Adrian Underhill in SLA teaching (Underhill 1992).

I now describe the use of breath and voice work in the main research project and case study, ‘Performing Languages’, and the challenges that this presented practically in a group devised theatre project.

Voice Work in the ‘Performing Languages’ Research Project

A gradual introduction of breath and voice work is in line with voice work specialist Rebekah Maggor’s explanation that, ‘[u]nderstanding the reasoning and desired result behind each exercise builds trust and encourages risk taking’ (Maggor 2011: 182). So, while the intention with voice work is to avoid the superficial application of vocal exercises, implementing the spectrum of exercises is best done over time so that each exercise is understood in context. The incorporation of breath and voice work into the devising project, however, did not work as planned. Indeed, due to some of the group participants’ schedules, my plans to start each session doing voice work were undone. This was due to problems of punctuality caused by the changing of timetables at the university and, on occasion, the participants’ other commitments.

In the initial stages of the ‘Performing Languages’ project, only two or three students were able to arrive on time for the official start of the workshop sessions. They were reluctant to start the voice work knowing other delayed members of the group would be coming into the session 20 or 30 minutes late. This was as, even in the initial stages of the project, the participants wanted to work as a group. Also, interruptions to the voice work led to a mutual sense of awkwardness both for the exercise participants and the late arrivals as it was difficult to integrate the people arriving and disruptive for those already committed to the exercises. Waiting for the whole group to be present before starting the voice work was unfeasible as it would have meant delaying or neglecting the devising work which was the project’s overall goal. Therefore, after discussion with the group the participants agreed that it was more important and beneficial to prioritise creating material for the final performance. This meant that we engaged in voice work during the ‘Performing Languages’ project much less than I had anticipated.

The group’s decision to focus on collective creation proved to be correct in the sense that the time gained allowed the group to concentrate more time on developing their language skills through group devising methods which led to a performance of which they were delighted and proud. Making this decision also meant that we were adhering to the egalitarian ethos that was a fundamental aspect of the research practice. Perhaps in so short a project with its constraints on time and punctuality it was too much to expect the successful incorporation of breath and voice work. We did, however, do a 40-minute set of voice work exercises prior to each of the two performances the group gave. This was done to address some of the nervousness that most participants felt prior to the show as it was their first time performing a theatre piece in front of an audience. The group later told me that they had enjoyed the voice work we had done in the project and, in retrospect, some of the group regretted that we chose to reduce the use of voice work. Several of the group told me they found it helpful for their performance and in academic presentations that happened during or after the project. That said, the voice work that was done cannot be seen to have been universally beneficial, even in one case having both beneficial and unfavourable effects. Pre-show nerves may have been abated but one of the participants, Julie, had two very different experiences, which shows the volatility of the work. Julie revealed in the interviews that followed the performance that she panicked in front of people and that she, ‘nearly cried ahead of the first show’. When asked to elaborate she said that it was when she, ‘was lay on the floor doing the relaxation stuff [referring to the breathing exercises] and had tears in my eyes and they were forming, and I was like “No! no!”’. Asked whether the relaxation helped she replied, ‘not the first time, but the second, yes’.

This conflicting response from Julie indicates that adaption of voice work methods to non-actors and in a language development context evidently needs further research and development in practice as it is in its infancy (though other researchers, for example Piazzoli, have made some progress).¹⁰ It also demonstrates how emotionally powerful such exercises can be. For Julie it was the breathing aspect of voice work that she found provoked such a strong response, yet as breath work is integral to the method (Linklater places even more emphasis on this aspect than other voice work practitioners). Heightened awareness of the body and the voice can be a volatile state and much care must be taken when working with such exercises. Furthermore, there are other considerations one of which was identified in the notion of the ‘marco de la voz’ (‘frame of the voice’) from the main article above. Katherine Meizel explains this as, ‘What a voice carries [is] not only lexical meanings and emotion, but also vital information about culture, identity, and the dynamics of power that suffuses human communication’ (Meizel 2011: 267).

Separately, voice work, if not incompatible, can add strain to what can be the time-consuming process of a group devised project. Certainly it was the case in the ‘Performing Languages’ project which adhered to Oddey’s assertion that ‘every project generates its own working process’ (Oddey 1994: 25). Effectively, it was impractical to implement the voice work to the extent that I had initially planned due to reluctance, at times, from the participants and the overarching need for the ensemble to concentrate on devising for the performance guided where the research went. What might be suggested is that in future research separate dedicated sessions to breath and voice work be scheduled into the group devising process. This means that the necessary time is dedicated to fully implement techniques that harbour such potential.

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