Foreign language effect on personal narratives and the role of gesture production

Earlier research showed that using a second language results in more rational decisions, a phenomenon called the Foreign Language Effect (FLE). The underlying mechanism is open to discussion. This study examined the decreased emotionality account in autobiographical narratives of second language learners whose native language is Turkish, and second language is English. We also investigated whether using a foreign language was related to phenomenological characteristics (reliving, imagery, hearing, importance) of the autobiographical narratives. Last, we aimed to see the relation between gesture production, as being part of the multimodal language use, and the FLE on second language learners' autobiographical narratives We collected data from undergraduate students (N = 37) who have high proficiency in English and asked them to narrate 4 past personal experiences (2 in English, 2 in Turkish). Results showed that narrating personal experiences in English evoked more emotions; however, there was no effect of language on the phenomenological characteristics of the narratives. Moreover, neither total gesture frequency nor gesture types were related to emotionality. Finally, only representational gesture use while narrating negative personal experience in Turkish was related to only reliving of the experience, but not to the other phenological characteristics of the narratives. These findings suggest that FLE may not be related to information stored at the conceptual level of the memory and individuals with high proficiency in a second language may not benefit from gesture production for emotions and to experience phenomenological characteristics of the autobiographical narratives. Keywords: Foreign language effect, second language, autobiographical narrative, gesture.