Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in motion event conceptualisation in bilingual speakers of Spanish and English

Abstract

We investigated bidirectional cross-linguistic influence on motion event (ME) expressions in bilingual speakers of two typological different languages (Talmy’s typology), Spanish (as L1) and English (as L2). Specifically, we investigated whether bilingual speakers struggle to learn ME expressions in the L2, and whether this process affects ME uses in the L1. Potential effects of L2 proficiency and L2 AoA in both L1 and L2 was also studied. ME expressions elicited from 6-second video-clips were analysed for manner and path components at the level of the verb and of the clause. Results support the hypothesis of bidirectional cross-linguistic influence on motion event conceptualization. In bilinguals’ L2, we observed patterns of restructuring, convergence and L1 transfer. In bilinguals’ L1, we reported structural and conceptualization patterns that seem to emerge from the contact with the L2. Proficiency and AoA showed modulation in the use of manner verbs on both L2 and L1.

Uyghur–Chinese early successive bilingual children's acquisition of voluntary motion expressions

“…Aktan-Erciyes and colleagues explained that this was because the 5-year-olds had total immersion in L2 English (8 hours daily) whereas the 7-year-olds' quantity of L2 exposure dropped (2 hours daily) when they attended Turkishdominant schools. Somewhat related are findings from Aveledo (2015) and Aveledo and Athanasopoulos (2016) on Spanish-English child bilinguals (aged 5-7 vs. 8-9, AoO=3-4) in Venezuela: that only the older bilinguals showed an L2 to L1 influence due to their increased L2 exposure (16 hours weekly) compared to the younger bilinguals (8 hours weekly). Thus, shifts in language dominance, typically associated with the amount of relative exposure to a given language, shape CLI in bilinguals' motion expression.…”