Speaking and remembering in one or two languages: bilingual vs. monolingual lexicalization and memory for motion events

Abstract

The aim of this study is to test whether balanced English-Spanish bilingual speakers behave like monolinguals in each of their languages when describing and remembering complex motion events. The semantic domain in question is motion, because some components (namely the manner of motion) are more difficult to lexicalize in Spanish than in English because of typological constraints (see Filipovic´, 2007;Slobin, 1996Slobin, , 1997Talmy, 1985). As a result, performance on a recognition task involving motion verbs could be expected to vary depending on the language used in the experiment. English and Spanish monolinguals and bilinguals performed the recognition task. Results from the monolinguals indicate that there is a language effect based on this typological difference. Specifically, English monolingual speakers performed significantly better than their Spanish peers in the recognition task in both of our conditions, i.e., with verbalization and without verbalization. The bilingual results on the other hand strongly suggest that these speakers tend to adhere to a single lexicalization pattern that is acceptable in both languages, which is the Spanish one in this case. We discuss further implications of these results for language processing and for memory of motion events in general.

The effect of learning English as a foreign language on the temporal and spatial perception of Persian learners

“…There is a lack of research regrading grammatical or lexical discrepancies between Persian and English which yield to variations in conceptualization. However, while there does not seem to be any syntactic differences between the languages, such as the ones between English and Spanish (Filipović, 2011) and English and Japanese (Cook et al, 2006), which would lead to differences in construing events differently, the present results imply that there might be some crosslinguistic differences in how information is packed into lexical items in Persian and English. For example, it might be the case that there is a tendency in Persian to incorporate less semantic components in lexical units than English so that the lexical units would tend to represent more general conceptualizations or higher levels of construal.…”

The effect of language mode on motion event descriptions in German–French bilinguals

“…Many scholars hypothesize that differences in motion descriptions also represent differences in mental construal -either in the sense of Slobin's (1996) thinking for speaking hypothesis, or even more fundamentally, as, e.g., in the data discussed in Filipovic (2011), where the typological characteristics of the language spoken by participants influence their memory of visual stimuli. If language has an impact on thinking in any of these two perspectives, then bilinguals could be argued to have different world views, depending on their dominance configurations on the one hand and the language mode they find themselves in on the other hand.…”

Changes in Thinking for Speaking: A Longitudinal Case Study

“…In this regard, Slobin () has hypothesized that language patterns acquired in childhood are “resistant to restructuring in adult second language acquisition” (p. 89). A number of empirical studies have investigated this question (e.g., Athanasopoulos et al, ; Brown & Gullberg, , , ; Bylund, ; Bylund & Athanasopoulous, ; Bylund & Jarvis, ; Daller, Treffers–Daller, & Furman, ; Filipović, ; Flecken et al, ; Hendriks & Hickmann, ; Hijazo–Gascón, ; Larrañaga et al, ; Pavlenko & Volynsky, ; Tomczak & Ewert, ; Vulchanova et al, ; Wu, ; for reviews, see Cadierno, , ). The majority of these studies have concentrated on comparisons of speech alone while a few (Brown, , ; Brown & Gullberg, ; Choi & Lantolf, ; Kellerman & van Hoof, ; Lewis, , ; Negueruela et al, ; Özyürek, ; Stam, , , , , ) have looked at gesture in addition to speech, arguing that speech and gesture together provide a more complete picture of learners' thinking for speaking.…”