Pictures Meet Words: Learners of English Describing Motion Situations

Abstract

This paper analyses the choices of English learners describing the opening scene of Mayer's (1969) Frog, where are you? which depicts a frog escaping from a jar. A number of results were later tested using drawings that portray a person climbing. Speaking multiple languages might allow adjustment to ways of thinking, when formulating utterances and pointing to different details when describing pictures (Thinking for Speaking Hypothesis, Slobin 1996). The present paper contends that fewer contexts evoke mental images of climbing for speakers of Italian and Ladin who are learning English than for German-speaking English-learners, due to different cross-linguistic influences.

Applying typological insights in a minority-language context: Motion event lexicalisations in Ladin, Italian, German and English texts compiled by Ladins

“…klettert / steigt aus dem Wagen 'climbs out of the car', klettert / steigt aus der Wanne 'climbs out of the bathtub'. 8 The English and German verbs climb and klettern are acquired by learners at a beginner level, but their wide context of use becomes familiar to them at a much later stage, as confirmed by Irsara (2017a).…”