Chapter 2

Inter-(dis)fluency across languages and settings

The present chapter reviews a collection of studies in L1 and L2 fluency and gesture research. It explores the different variables affecting (dis)fluency and gesture use across languages and settings in order to formulate research questions for my two empirical studies (cf Chapters 4 and 5). I begin with a review of a collection of studies in Second Language Acquisition to better understand differences between L1 and L2 fluency and their relation to proficiency, then present other factors that may have an effect on (dis)fluency and gesture such as setting or language style, based on a review of the literature in different disciplines (psycholinguistics, second language acquisition, gesture studies, and conversation analysis).