Language and thought in a multilingual context: The case of isiXhosa

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMANUEL BYLUND ◽  
PANOS ATHANASOPOULOS
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Primary Education ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
Event Cognition ◽  
Grammatical Aspect ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Motion Event

Situated within the grammatical aspect approach to motion event cognition, this study takes a first step in investigating language and thought in functional multilinguals by studying L1 isiXhosa speakers living in South Africa. IsiXhosa being a non-aspect language, the study investigates how the knowledge and use of additional languages with grammatical aspect influence cognition of endpoint-oriented motion events among L1 isiXhosa speakers. Results from a triads-matching task show that participants who often used aspect languages and had greater exposure to English in primary education were less prone to rely on endpoints when categorising motion events.

scholarly journals Consistency in Motion Event Encoding Across Languages

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo Montero-Melis
Keyword(s):  
Motion Events ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Systematic Fashion ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Complex Events ◽  
Speech Planning ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Syntactic Frames

Syntactic templates serve as schemas, allowing speakers to describe complex events in a systematic fashion. Motion events have long served as a prime example of how different languages favor different syntactic frames, in turn biasing their speakers toward different event conceptualizations. However, there is also variability in how motion events are syntactically framed within languages. Here, we measure the consistency in event encoding in two languages, Spanish and Swedish. We test a dominant account in the literature, namely that variability within a language can be explained by specific properties of the events. This event-properties account predicts that descriptions of one and the same event should be consistent within a language, even in languages where there is overall variability in the use of syntactic frames. Spanish and Swedish speakers (N = 84) described 32 caused motion events. While the most frequent syntactic framing in each language was as expected based on typology (Spanish: verb-framed, Swedish: satellite-framed, cf. Talmy, 2000), Swedish descriptions were substantially more consistent than Spanish descriptions. Swedish speakers almost invariably encoded all events with a single syntactic frame and systematically conveyed manner of motion. Spanish descriptions, in contrast, varied much more regarding syntactic framing and expression of manner. Crucially, variability in Spanish descriptions was not mainly a function of differences between events, as predicted by the event-properties account. Rather, Spanish variability in syntactic framing was driven by speaker biases. A similar picture arose for whether Spanish descriptions expressed manner information or not: Even after accounting for the effect of syntactic choice, a large portion of the variance in Spanish manner encoding remained attributable to differences among speakers. The results show that consistency in motion event encoding starkly differs across languages: Some languages (like Swedish) bias their speakers toward a particular linguistic event schema much more than others (like Spanish). Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the typology of event framing, theories on the relationship between language and thought, and speech planning. In addition, the tools employed here to quantify variability can be applied to other domains of language.

How do Korean–English bilinguals speak and think about motion events? Evidence from verbal and non-verbal tasks

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hae In Park
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Behavior ◽  
First Language ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Immersion Experience ◽  
Verbal Tasks ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
L2 Speaking ◽  
Korean And English

AbstractThe present study compared both linguistic and non-linguistic representations of motion events in Korean–English sequential bilinguals sampled at varying proficiency levels (N = 80) against each other and against those of Korean and English monolinguals (N = 15 each). The bilinguals' L2 descriptions of motion events showed that their encoding patterns were influenced by both the first language (L1) and second language (L2) and also displayed unique behaviors that were not found in either monolingual norm. The non-verbal results on a triads-matching task demonstrated that bilinguals' categorization patterns followed L1-based patterns rather than L2-based patterns. The extent to which these bilinguals employed L2 encoding patterns in their motion event descriptions was largely modulated by L2 proficiency, whereas length of immersion experience in an L2-speaking country emerged as the only predictor of their non-verbal categorization patterns. These findings suggest that the bilinguals' verbal behavior seems more susceptible to change than their non-verbal behavior.

scholarly journals Motion event cognition and grammatical aspect: Evidence from Afrikaans

Linguistics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuel Bylund ◽  
Panos Athanasopoulos ◽  
Marcelyn Oostendorp
Keyword(s):  
Event Cognition ◽  
Grammatical Aspect ◽  
Motion Event

Going beyond motion events typology: The case of Basque as a verb-framed language

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano
Keyword(s):  
Motion Verbs ◽  
High Tolerance ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
Lexical Resources ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
Written Narratives ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
New Information ◽  
Different Types

AbstractThe concept of motion is present in all the world’s languages. However, the ways in which speakers of different languages codify motion do not seem to be so universal. Languages offer different types of structures to express motion, and speakers pay attention to different elements within the motion event. The goal of this paper is to examine in great detail how motion events are described and expressed in Basque oral and written narratives. This study focuses on three main areas: motion verbs, elaboration of Manner and elaboration of Path. Although Basque can be classified in Talmy’s terms as a verb-framed language, it is argued that it is not a prototypical example of this group with respect to the lexicalisation of Path. Unlike other verb-framed languages, the description of Path in Basque motion events is very frequent and detailed, not only in situations when it adds new information, but also in pleonastic cases. This characteristic seems to be related to Basque’s rich lexical resources for motion and space, as well as to its high tolerance for verb omission. On the basis of these data, the scope of Talmy’s binary typology is questioned. It is suggested that the verb- and satellite-framed language typology should be revised in order to account for these intra-typological differences.

Source-Goal (a)symmetry in Romanian

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiana Papahagi
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Motion Path ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
Motion Event

Abstract According to Talmy (2000), a motion event has four conceptual components: Figure, Motion, Path and one or more Grounds. Path can be further decomposed into Source, Medium and Goal (or: departure, passing and arrival). In many languages, intuitive pairs of motion events such as come/go seem to indicate that Source and Goal are equally able to build the image of the Path. However, numerous studies have pointed to an asymmetry in favor of Goal in motion descriptions. Using the corpus elicited during the Trajectoire project, this paper explores Source-Goal asymmetries in Romanian; this concerns adposition inventories (which are symmetrical for Source and Goal), adposition-verb combinations, and the attention payed by speakers to Source viz. Goal-oriented motion. The paper postulates possible semantic causes of Source-Goal asymmetry not identified in previous literature, such as the bounded nature of the Ground, and motion being associated with a particular human activity.

Translation and contact languages

Babel ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-555
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Rottet
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Good Exemplar ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Celtic Languages ◽  
Different Types ◽  
History Of

In this study we use a translation corpus of English novels translated into two closely related Celtic languages, Welsh and Breton, as one way of shedding light on the extent to which languages can influence each other over time: Welsh has a long history of contact with English, and Breton with French. Ever since the work of Leonard Talmy (1991, 2000 etc.), linguists have recognized that languages fall into a small number of types with respect to how they prefer to talk about motion events. English is a good exemplar of the satellite-framed type, whereas French exemplifies the verb-framed type. Translation scholars have observed that translating between languages of two different types raises interesting questions (Slobin 2005; Cappelle 2012), and the topic is also of interest from the perspective of language contact: is it possible for a language of one type, in a situation of prolonged and intense bilingualism with a language of another type, to be influenced or perhaps even to change its own rhetorical preferences? The translation corpus provides a body of data which holds constant the starting point – the cue in each case was an English motion event in the source text. We do indeed find that Welsh and Breton have diverged in important ways in terms of their preferences for encoding motion events: Breton is revealed to have moved significantly in the direction of French with respect to these preferences.

Broken Promises: Constitutional Litigation for Free Primary Education in Swaziland

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-442
Author(s):  
Ann Skelton ◽  
Serges Djoyou Kamga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Primary Education ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Original Order ◽  
Free Primary Education ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Subsequent Application ◽  
The Right

AbstractSwaziland's Constitution of 2005 promised that every Swazi child would have the right to free primary school education, within three years of the constitution coming into operation. That date having passed, a civil society group took the matter to court. The case initially fared well, but in a subsequent application for performance on the original order, the court balked at making an immediately enforceable order, citing lack of resources as an obstacle. That approach was upheld by the Supreme Court. This article examines the courts’ pronouncements within the Swazi constitutional context. It discusses judicial deference, avoidance and pragmatism. Swaziland's free primary education judgments are compared with those of courts in South Africa. The remedial orders of those courts demonstrate that, although educational goods and services cannot be delivered overnight, creativity and oversight by the courts can ensure that an immediate start is made towards delivering on the constitutional promise.

Tracing trajectories

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Carroll ◽  
Katja Weimar ◽  
Monique Flecken ◽  
Monique Lambert ◽  
Christiane von Stutterheim
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Spatial Concepts ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Video Clips ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Motion Event Descriptions

Although the typological contrast between Romance and Germanic languages as verb-framed versus satellite-framed (Talmy 1985) forms the background for many empirical studies on L2 acquisition, the inconclusive picture to date calls for more differentiated, fine-grained analyses. The present study goes beyond explanations based on this typological contrast and takes into account the sources from which spatial concepts are mainly derived in order to shape the trajectory traced by the entity in motion when moving through space: the entity in V-languages versus features of the ground in S-languages. It investigates why advanced French learners of English and German have difficulty acquiring the use of spatial concepts typical of the L2s to shape the trajectory, although relevant concepts can be expressed in their L1. The analysis compares motion event descriptions, based on the same sets of video clips, of L1 speakers of the three languages to L1 French-L2 English and L1 French-L2 German speakers, showing that the learners do not fully acquire the use of L2-specific spatial concepts. We argue that encoded concepts derived from the entity in motion vs. the ground lead to a focus on different aspects of motion events, in accordance with their compatibility with these sources, and are difficult to restructure in L2 acquisition.

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