Effects of second language on motion event lexicalization: Comparison of bilingual and monolingual children’s frog story narratives

Abstract

This study investigates how children lexicalize motion event patterns in their first and second languages, L1-Turkish and L2-English. English is a satellite-framed language that conflates motion with manner expressed in the main verb and path in a non-verbal element, whereas Turkish is a verb-framed language that conflates motion with path in the main verb and expresses manner in a subordinated verb. We asked whether (1) learning a second language had an effect on children’s event descriptions in their first language and (2) the effects were bidirectional. One-hundred-and-twelve 5- and 7-year-old monolingual (L1-Turkish) and bilingual (L1-Turkish; L2-English) children participated. Participants produced narratives for wordless picture book, Frog, where are you? Six scenes of the book were selected for coding purposes as they represented motion events: (1) Frog’s exit from the jar, (2) Dog’s fall from the window, (3) Gopher popping out of the hole, (4) Owl’s exit from a nest, (5) Boy and dog falling down and (6) Boy and dog landing in a pond. For L1 descriptions, 5-year-old bilinguals used more manner-only and less path-only descriptions than monolinguals; no difference was found for 7-year-olds. For L2 descriptions, bilingual children used less Manner-only and more Path-only expressions in their L2 narratives compared to L1 narratives. These findings suggest that for 5-year-olds, exposure to second language had an impact on how motion events are encoded. Results inform us about the early interactions between L1 and L2 in motion event lexicalization.

Keywords

• bilingualism
• motion event lexicalization
• thinking-for-speaking
• Turkish; English

References

1. Allen, S., Özyürek, A., Kita, S., Brown, A., Furman, R., Ishizuka, T., & Fujii, M. (2007). Language-specific and universal influences in children’s syntactic packaging of manner and path: A comparison of English, Japanese, and Turkish. Cognition, 102, 16–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.12.006
2. Ameel, E., Storms, G., Malt, B. C., & Sloman, S. A. (2005). How bilinguals solve the naming problem. Journal of Memory and Language, 53(1), 60-80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2005.02.004
3. Aveledo, F. E. (2015). Linguistic relativity in motion events in Spanish and English: a study on monolingual and bilingual children and adults. Unpublished Dissertation.
4. Aveledo, F., & Athanasopoulos, P. (2016). Second language influence on first language motion event encoding and categorization in Spanish-speaking children learning L2 English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 20(4), 403-420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006915609235
5. Bowerman, M. (1982). Reorganizational processes in lexical and syntactic development. Language acquisition: In E. Wanner & L.R. Gleitman (Eds.) The state of the art, 319-46. New York: Cambridge University Press.
6. Bowerman, M. & Levinson, S., eds. (2001) Language acquisition and conceptual development. Cambridge University Press.
7. Brown, A., & Gullberg, M. (2008). Bidirectional crosslinguistic influence in L1-L2 encoding of manner in speech and gesture: A study of Japanese speakers of English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(02), 225-251.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263108080327
8. Brown, A. (2015). Universal development and L1–L2 convergence in bilingual construal of manner in speech and gesture in Mandarin, Japanese, and English. The Modern Language Journal, 99(S1), 66-82. doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2015.12179.x

9. Brown, A., & Chen, J. (2013). Construal of Manner in speech and gesture in Mandarin, English, and Japanese. Cognitive Linguistics, 24(4), 605-631. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2013-0021
10. Bylund, E. (2011). Language-specific patterns in event conceptualization: Insights frombilingualism. In A. Pavlenko (Ed.),Thinking and speaking in two languages(pp. 108–142). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters
11. Cadierno, T., & Ruiz, L. (2006). Motion events in Spanish L2 acquisition. Annual review of cognitive linguistics,4 (1), 183-216. https://doi.org/10.1075/arcl.4.08cad
12. Cook, V. (Ed.). (2003). Effects of the second language on the first (Vol. 3). Multilingual matters.
13. Filipović, L. (2011). Speaking and remembering in one or two languages: Bilingual vs. monolingual lexicalization and memory for motion events. International Journal of Bilingualism, 15(4), 466-485. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006911403062
14. Filipović, L., and I. Vidakovic. 2010. Typology in the L2 classroom: Acquisition from a typological perspective. In Inside the Learner’s Mind: Cognitive Processing in Second Language Acquisition, M. Pütz & L. Sicola (Eds.), 269–291. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins
15. Flecken, M., Carroll, M., Weimar, K., & Von Stutterheim, C. (2015). Driving along the road or heading for the village? Conceptual differences underlying motion event encoding in French, German, and French–German L2 users. The Modern Language Journal, 99(S1), 100-122. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2015.12181.x
16. Hasko, V. (2010). The role of thinking for speaking in adult L2 speech: The case of (non)unidirectionality encoding by American learners of Russian. In Z-H. Han & T. Cadierno (Eds.), Linguistic relativity in second language acquisition: Thinking-for-speaking (pp. 34–58). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
17. Hohenstein, J., Eisenberg, A., & Naigles, L. (2006). Is he floating across or crossing afloat? Crossinfluence of L1 and L2 in Spanish–English bilingual adults. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 249–261. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728906002616
18. Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1981). A functional approach to child language: A study of determiners and reference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19. Lai, V. T., Rodríguez, G. G., & Narasimhan, B. (2014). Thinking-for-Speaking in early and late bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(01), 139-152. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728913000151
20. Mayer, M. (1969). Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Press.
21. Meisel, J. M. (2004). The bilingual child. In T. K. Bhatia & Ritchie, W. C. (Eds.), The handbook of bilingualism (pp. 91–113). Oxford: Blackwell.
22. Meisel, J.M. (2007). The weaker language in early child bilingualism: Acquiring a first language as a second language? Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 495-514. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716407070270
23. Naigles, L. R., Eisenberg, A. R., Kako, E. T., Highter, M., & McGraw, N. (1998). Speaking of motion: Verb use in English and Spanish. Language and cognitive processes, 13(5), 521-549. https://doi.org/10.1080/016909698386429
24. Özçalışkan, Ş. (2016). Do gestures follow speech in bilinguals’ description of motion? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Advance online publication. doi:10.1017/S1366728915000796
25. Özçalışkan, S., & Slobin, D. I. (1999). Learning “how to search for the frog”: Expression of manner of motion in English, Spanish, and Turkish. Proceedings of the 23rd annual Boston University conference on language development, 23, 541-552. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
26. Özçalışkan, Ş., & Slobin, D. I. (2003). Codability effects on the expression of manner of motion in Turkish and English. In Studies in Turkish Linguistics. Istanbul: Boğaziçi University.
27. Pavlenko, A. (2009). Verbs of motion in L1 Russian of Russian–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(1), 49-62. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728909990198
28. Pavlenko, A., & Volynsky, M. (2015). Motion encoding in Russian and English: Moving beyond Talmy's typology. The Modern Language Journal, 99 (S1), 32-48. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12177
29. Slobin, D.I. (1985). Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In D.I. Slobin (Ed.). The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2: Theoretical issues. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Slobin, D.I.
30. Slobin, D. (1996). From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking.” In J. Gumperz & S. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 70–114). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
31. Slobin, D. I. (2004). The many ways to search for a frog. Relating Events in Narrative. Vol, 2, 219-257.
32. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. Language typology and syntactic description, 3, 57-149.
33. Unsworth, S., & Blom, E. (2010). Comparing L1 children, L2 children and L2 adults. In S. Unsworth, & E. Blom (Eds.), Experimental methods in language acquisition research (pp. 313-336). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
34. Wolff, P., & Holmes, K. (2011). Linguistic relativity. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2,253–265. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.104
35. Whorf , B. L. (1956). Language, thought and reality. ( J. Carroll , Ed.) . Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.