Chapter published in:
Motion and Space across Languages: Theory and applications
Edited by Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano
[Human Cognitive Processing 59] 2017
► pp. 329–366

Verb-framed, satellite-framed or in between?

A L2 learner’s thinking for speaking in her L1 and L2 over 14 years

| National Louis University
Crosslinguistic research on motion events shows that Spanish and English speakers have different patterns of thinking for speaking about motion in speech and gesture (Stam 2015). Spanish speakers express Path linguistically and gesturally with verbs, while English speakers express Path linguistically and gesturally with satellites. This chapter investigates whether a second language learner’s thinking for speaking patterns about motion continued to change in her L1 (Spanish) and L2 (English) over a 14-year period. The results indicate that the learner’s gestural expression of Path changed in both her L1 and L2, and her gestural expression of Manner changed in her L2. This change suggests that a pattern acquired in childhood may not be resistant to change after all (Slobin 1996).
Keywords: English, gesture, L2 acquisition, motion events, Spanish, speech, thinking for speaking
Published online: 14 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.59.14sta
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