Chapter 10. Thinking for speaking about motion in a second language

AbstractThis research paper takes and builds upon Slobin’s (1987) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis as a basis for exploring the notion of conceptual transfer from the L1 in the acquisition and production of motion events in an L2. This is achieved by investigating the extent to which L2 transfer presents itself in the expression of motion in inverse translation tasks carried out by 27 native English speaking learners of Spanish and 32 native Spanish speaking learners of English. The nature of this transfer is then investigated to establish whether or not it appears to be conceptual. The tasks presented to participants contained items based on Talmy’s (1985) research on cross-linguistic lexicalisation patterns in the expression of motion events, which, as Slobin (1987, 1996) later proposes, appear to dictate the conceptualisation of motion events in a language. Results reveal that cognitive parameters in the participants’ native language affected their performance in the production of motion events in their second language, in accord with Slobin’s (1987) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis. Finally, the study concludes with a summary of these results.

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Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events

Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies - European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics ◽

10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/004 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Noriko Iwasaki ◽

Keiko Yoshioka

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Motion Events ◽

Bilingual Speakers ◽

Event Description ◽

Motion Event ◽

Intermediate Learners ◽

English Speaking ◽

Thinking For Speaking ◽

Way Of Thinking

Speaking a second language (L2) involves another way of “thinking for speaking” (Slobin 1996). Adopting Talmy’s typological framework of motion event description, this study examined how learning Japanese as L2 restructures English-Japanese bilingual speakers’ thinking-for-speaking. Thirteen English-speaking intermediate learners of L2 Japanese described motion events in English and Japanese. The analysis focused on speech and gesture describing ‘rolling down’ and ‘swinging’ events, for which English and Japanese native speakers’ descriptions differ (Kita, Özyürek 2003). The results suggest some restructuring in their thinking-for-speaking.

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Thinking-for-speaking in early and late bilinguals

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728913000151 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 139-152 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

VICKY TZUYIN LAI ◽

GABRIELA GARRIDO RODRIGUEZ ◽

BHUVANA NARASIMHAN

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Age Of Acquisition ◽

Motion Events ◽

Event Classification ◽

Bilingual Speakers ◽

Similarity Judgments ◽

Thinking For Speaking ◽

Motion Versus ◽

Late Bilinguals ◽

Spanish Bilinguals

When speakers describe motion events using different languages, they subsequently classify those events in language-specific ways (Gennari, Sloman, Malt & Fitch, 2002). Here we ask if bilingual speakers flexibly shift their event classification preferences based on the language in which they verbally encode those events. English–Spanish bilinguals and monolingual controls described motion events in either Spanish or English. Subsequently they judged the similarity of the motion events in a triad task. Bilinguals tested in Spanish and Spanish monolinguals were more likely to make similarity judgments based on the path of motion versus bilinguals tested in English and English monolinguals. The effect is modulated in bilinguals by the age of acquisition of the second language. Late bilinguals based their judgments on path more often when Spanish was used to describe the motion events versus English. Early bilinguals had a path preference independent of the language in use. These findings support “thinking-for-speaking” (Slobin, 1996) in late bilinguals.

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Thinking for Speaking in Second Language Acquisition

The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal1213 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Teresa Cadierno

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Language Acquisition ◽

Thinking For Speaking

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Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-h-19-0074 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (12) ◽

pp. 4534-4543

Author(s):

Wei Hu ◽

Sha Tao ◽

Mingshuang Li ◽

Chang Liu

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Native Language ◽

Vowel Identification ◽

Vowel Perception ◽

Perceptual Distance ◽

Vowel Space ◽

English Vowels ◽

Chinese Counterpart ◽

Vowel Categories

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

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