The present chapter discusses Slobin’s (1996) thinking for speaking hypothesis and Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) motion event typology in relation to the field of second language acquisition (SLA). The chapter is divided into four sections. After the introduction, I provide an overview of the theoretical and empirical bases of thinking for speaking in relation to the semantic domain of motion. Then, I classify previous work on motion and SLA on the basis of a series of criteria, and I review some of the main findings of this research. Finally, I suggest future lines of research in this area of investigation.
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