Chapter 3: Gesture’s Role in Learning Arithmetic

Mathematical concepts are traditionally viewed as abstract and formal. However, recent research suggests that there is an embodied component to these concepts––that notions like infinity, continuity, and number are metaphorical and grounded in our experience of the world (Lakoff & Núñez, 2000). The evidence for this view has largely come from analyses of mathematical language. But the spontaneous gestures that speakers produce when they talk about math have also been used to argue that mathematical concepts are metaphorical and embodied (Núñez, 2008). For example, gesture can reveal that a speaker construes a problem dynamically even when the speaker’s words focus exclusively on the problem’s static notation (e.g., Marghetis & Núñez, 2010).