Motion Event Similarity Judgments in One or Two Languages: An Exploration of Monolingual Speakers of English and Chinese vs. L2 Learners of English

Abstract

Languages differ systematically in how to encode a motion event. English characteristically expresses manner in verb root and path in verb particle; in Chinese, varied aspects of motion, such as manner, path and cause, can be simultaneously encoded in a verb compound. This study investigates whether typological differences, as such, influence how first and second language learners conceptualize motion events, as suggested by behavioral evidences. Specifically, the performance of Chinese learners of English, at three proficiencies, was compared to that of two groups of monolingual speakers in a triads matching task. The first set of analyses regarding categorisation preferences indicates that participants across groups preferred the path-matched (rather than manner-matched) screens. However, the second set of analyses regarding reaction time suggests, firstly, that English monolingual speakers reacted significantly more quickly in selecting the manner-matched scenes compared with monolingual speakers of Chinese, who tended to use an approximately equal amount of time in making manner- and path-matched decisions, a finding that can arguably be mapped onto the typological difference between the two languages. Secondly, the pattern of response latency in low-level L2 learners looked more like that of monolingual speakers of Chinese. Only at intermediate and advanced levels of acquisition did the behavioral pattern of L2 learners become target-like, thus suggesting language-specific constraints from the L1 at an early stage of acquisition. Overall, our results suggest that motion event cognition may be linked to, among other things, the linguistic structure of motion description in particular languages.

Cognitive restructuring in the bilingual mind: motion event construal in early Cantonese–English bilinguals

“…The conceptual changes bilinguals have are gradient and exhibit various forms, such as the co-existence of L1-and L2-based concepts (Hohenstein, Eisenberg, & Naigles, 2006;Sachs & Coley, 2006), convergence (Brown & Gullberg, 2013;Cook, Bassetti, Kasai, Sasaki, & Takahashi, 2006), shift to L2-based concepts (Athanasopoulos, Damjanovic, Burnand, & Bylund, 2015b;Park & Ziegler, 2014) and the attrition of L1-based concepts (Bylund, 2009;Bylund & Jarvis, 2011). The degree of cognitive restructuring may be modulated by various long-term learning effects, such as L2 proficiency (Ji, 2017;Park, 2019) , age of L2 acquisition (Boroditsky, 2001;Lai, Rodriguez, & Narasimhan, 2014) and language contact (Bylund & Athanasopoulos, 2014a.…”

Cognitive restructuring in the multilingual mind: language-specific effects on processing efficiency of caused motion events in Cantonese–English–Japanese speakers

“…In other words, frequent language use will strengthen the language-specific form-meaning associations whereas infrequent language use will weaken the associations. In addition, the degree of cognitive restructuring of language-specific associations can be modulated by other extra-linguistic factors such as age of L2 acquisition (Athanasopoulos, 2009; Boroditsky, 2001; Lai et al, 2014), L2 proficiency (Athanasopoulos et al, 2015b; Ji, 2017; Park & Ziegler, 2014), language context (Filipović, 2011; Montero-Melis et al, 2016) and length of immersion in an L2-speaking community (Cook et al, 2006; Daller, Treffers-Daller & Furman, 2011; Park, 2019).…”

English and Chinese children’s motion event similarity judgments

“…To what extent can they remould their cognitive disposition as a result of additional language learning? What is the nature of the dynamic relationship between progress in L2 acquisition and the shifting cognitive state of an L2 speaker (as discussed in Athanasopoulos 2015: 953−954, andJi 2017: 1−2)?…”