What is it about?
The mentally effortful task of interpreting can be particularly challenging for novice interpreters, generating significant stress and physical tension. On the one hand, studies in non-verbal communication show that hand gestures can help relieve this stress and tension, support the process of finding the right words, and promote more fluent speech, especially in a foreign language. On the other hand, many academic traditions reprimand interpreting students for using vivid gestures, arguing that such movement makes them look unprofessional and gives the impression that they are struggling with the text. In this study, we decided to ‘tie’ both hands together and forbid fifty-seven interpreting students from moving their hands while interpreting. We observed that preventing students from using natural, spontaneous hand gestures made them hesitate, stammer and repeat themselves, leading to decreased performance. Hence, we argue that hand gestures should be viewed more as a friend than a foe in interpreting, as they can help novice interpreters speak more fluently when their brains are faced with the demanding mental task of switching between two languages.
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Why is it important?
Our study shows that some current methods of teaching interpreting, which present gestures as a negative element that should be restricted, actually do students a disservice, making the task more difficult and resulting in poorer performance. This research highlights the need for interpreting pedagogy to rethink its attitude towards hand gestures and embrace them as a natural part of the process of thinking and speaking – a component that should be understood and harnessed, rather than suppressed. Hopefully, it will contribute to a more holistic, body-friendly approach to teaching interpreting in the future.
Perspectives
When I started my studies in interpreting, I was surprised by how little attention was given to the adjacent elements of body and voice that are present in any language transfer context. I am happy to see that today my research is part of a broader movement bringing the non-verbal elements of interpreting to the fore. Today, especially with the advent of AI-powered interpreting tools, it is more important than ever to explore how the human body contributes to interactions, particularly as so many of them occur between people who do not share a common language. Now that I work as an interpreting lecturer myself, I hope my studies will help to shape a new approach to teaching interpreting, one that is less restrictive towards students and more conscious of how we can use our bodies to communicate more effectively and reassure the audience that we are in control not only of what we say, but also of how we deliver the message through our body and our voice.
Dr Monika Chwalczuk
University of East Anglia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Effects of gesture production on rendition fluency in dialogue interpreting, INContext Studies in Translation and Interculturalism, June 2026, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/ic.00157.chw.
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