Cross-linguistic influence in the interpretation of boundary crossing events in L2 acquisition

Abstract

This paper analyses the interpretation of boundary-crossing events in second language acquisition (SLA) to determine whether L2 learners are able to select the target-like option for the interpretation of motion events or whether, on the contrary, their choice reflects cross-linguistic influence (CLI) of their L1. The two groups participating in the study -thirty Spanish learners of L2 English and sixteen English first language (L1) speakers -were subjected to an experiment involving an interpretation task with L2 boundary-crossing events pictures. Findings indicate that Spanish L2 learners selected three possible constructions (manner verb + path satellite, path in verb + manner in satellite and a combination of both) in clear contrast to English L1 speakers who only selected one construction (manner verb + path satellite). CLI has also been found to regulate the type of boundary-crossing event selected, primarily in cases of motion INTO a bounded space in the horizontal axis.

The roles of language mode and dominance in French–German bilinguals’ motion event descriptions

“…While findings show that proficient V-language speakers usually do not use manner verbs in these contexts (Cadierno & Lund, 2004), other scholars note that even at advanced levels, learners frequently use verbs encoding manner of motion (Larrañaga et al, 2011; Treffers-Daller & Tidball, 2015). However, difficulties in terms of manner verb use by learners of an S-language have been reported in several studies (Alcaraz Mármol, 2013; Alonso, 2011, 2013, 2016; Antonijević & Berthaud, 2009; Bauer, 2010; Brown & Gullberg, 2008; Cadierno, 2010; Carroll, Weimar, Flecken, Lambert & von Stutterheim, 2012; Hohenstein et al, 2006; Reshöft, 2011).…”

Path Under Construction: Challenges Beyond S-Framed Motion Event Construal in L2 German

“…PPs, directional adverbs, and their combinations can be used with manner verbs for translational bounded/telic (e.g., 1-3, 6-8) and non-translational/atelic motion events (9); there is thus no boundary-crossing constraint as discussed for Vlanguages (Özçalişcan, 2015;Alonso, 2016). Yet, translational and non-translational motion are still distinguished in German, namely by case assignment of two-way prepositions [so-called Wechselpräpositionen, such as auf 'on(to)' , in 'in(to)' , or unter 'under'], which call for accusative marking in translational motion events (e.g., 1, 7), whereas they call for dative marking in non-translational motion events (9) as well as in localization events.…”

Pensar para traducir. Análisis español>alemán/inglés con estudiantes, profesionales y traducción automática

“…Hoy en día existe una amplia literatura que muestra cómo las lenguas expresan los eventos de movimiento de diferentes formas (Talmy, 1985;Berman y Slobin, 1994;Strömqvist y Verhoeven, 2004) y los grandes retos que estas diferencias lingüísticas suponen para los traductores, especialmente, pero no de manera exclusiva, cuando se trata de lenguas tipológicamente diferentes (p. ej. Slobin, 1996;Ibarretxe-Antuñano y Filipović, 2013;Alonso, 2016Alonso, , 2018Rojo López y Cifuentes-Férez, 2017;Molés-Cases, 2018;Molés-Cases y Cifuentes-Férez, 2021). La conocida distinción de Talmy (1985Talmy ( , 1991Talmy ( , 2000 propone agrupar las lenguas en dos tipos partiendo del elemento morfosintáctico -el verbo o el satélite-, que normalmente codifica el Camino o la trayectoria en un evento de movimiento.…”