Cover not available
Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 11:5 (2021) ► pp.669–699

Children’s thinking-for-speaking

Bidirectional effects of L1 Turkish and L2 English for motion events

ORCID logo | Kadir Has Üniversitesi
ORCID logo | Koç University
ORCID logo | Boğaziçi University
| Boğaziçi University

This study investigates how children lexicalize motion events 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 three questions: (1) Does early L2 acquisition in an L1 dominant society affect motion event lexicalization in L1? (2) Is the effect of L2 on L1 subject to change due to decline in L2 exposure? (3) Do L1 vs. L2 lexicalizations differ within the bilingual mind? One hundred and twelve 5- and 7-year-old monolingual and bilingual children watched and described video-clips depicting motion events. For L1 descriptions, 5-year-old bilinguals used more manner structures than monolinguals. No difference was found for 7-year-olds. For L2 descriptions, 7-year-old bilinguals used more manner-only constructions compared to their L1 descriptions. For 5-year-old bilinguals no difference was found. Findings suggest that early exposure to a second language had an impact on how motion events are packaged, while decline in L2 exposure dampened the effects of L2.

Keywords: motion events, bilingualism, thinking-for-speaking, Turkish-English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Theoretical background
    • 1.2Motion event conceptualization: Crosslinguistic differences
    • 1.3Bilingualism and motion event conceptualization
    • 1.4Encoding of motion events in Turkish and English
    • 1.5The present study
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Materials
      • 2.2.1Motion event description task
    • 2.3Procedure
    • 2.4Coding
      • 2.4.1Motion event descriptions: Path and manner expressions
      • 2.4.2Types of linguistic structures
    • 2.5Reliability
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Effects of L2 on L1 motion event lexicalization: Manner-only, path-only, path-and-manner categories
    • 3.2Effects of L2 on L1: Linguistic structures used in L1 motion event lexicalization
    • 3.3Comparison of L2-English vs. L1 Turkish motion event lexicalization in bilinguals
    • 3.4Relations between vocabulary competence and motion event lexicalization
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1L2 influence on L1
    • 4.2L1 influence on L2
    • 4.3Bidirectional influence of L1 and L2: Thinking-for-speaking
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 23 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.19027.akt
References
Akhavan, N., Nozari, N., & Göksun, T.
(2017) Expression of motion events in Farsi. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 32(6), 792–804. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aksu-Koç, A.
(1994) Development of linguistic forms: Turkish. In R. Berman & D. Slobin (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study, (pp. 329–385). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Aktan-Erciyes, A. & Göksun, T.
(2019) Early event understanding predicts later verb comprehension and motion event lexicalization. Developmental psychology, 55(11), 2249–2262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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(1), 16–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aveledo, F. E.
(2015) Linguistic relativity in motion events in Spanish and English: a study on monolingual and bilingual children and adults. Unpublished dissertation, Newcastle University.Google Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benazzo, S., Flecken, M., & Soroli, E.
(2012) Typological perspectives on second language acquisition. In S. Benazzo, Flecken, M., & Soroli, E. (Eds.), Typological perspectives on second language acquisition: “Thinking for Speaking” in L2 (special issue). (pp. 163–172). Language, Interaction, and Acquisition, 3(2). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, R., & Slobin, D. I.
(1994) Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Berument, S. K., & Guven, A. G.
(2010) Turkish Expressive and Receptive Language Test: Receptive Vocabulary Sub-Scale (TİFALDİ-RT). Turkish Psychological Society.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M.
(1982) Reorganizational processes in lexical and syntactic development. Language acquisition: In E. Wanner & L. R. Gleitman (Eds.), The state of the art (pp. 319–346). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1994) From universal to language-specific in early grammatical development. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 346(1315), 37–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, A.
(2007) Crosslinguistic influence in first and second languages: Convergence in speech gesture. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.Google Scholar
(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 logoGoogle Scholar
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(2), 225–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in event conceptualization? Expressions of Path among Japanese learners of English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(1), 79–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012) Multicompetence and native speaker variation in clausal packaging in Japanese. Second Language Research, 28(4), 415–442. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) L1–L2 convergence in clausal packaging in Japanese and English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16(3), 477–494. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bylund, E.
(2009) Maturational constraints and first language attrition. Language Learning, 59(3), 687–715. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bylund, E., & Jarvis, S.
(2011) L2 effects on L1 event conceptualization. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(1), 47–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cadierno, T.
(2004) Expressing motion events in a second language: A cognitive typological perspective. In M. Achard & S. Niemeier (Eds.), Cognitive Linguistics, second language acquisition and foreign language teaching, (pp. 13–49). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cadierno, T., & Ruiz, L.
(2006) Motion events in Spanish L2 acquisition. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 4(1), 183–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, L., & Guo, J.
(2009) Motion events in Chinese novels: Evidence for an equipollently-framed language. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(9), 1749–1766. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Choi, S., & Bowerman, M.
(1991) Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: The influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns. Cognition, 41(1–3), 83–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Choi, S., McDonough, L., Bowerman, M., & Mandler, J. M.
(1999) Early sensitivity to language-specific spatial categories in English and Korean. Cognitive Development, 14(2), 241–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cook, V.
(2016) Transfer and the relationships between the languages of multicompetence. In R. Alonso (Ed.), Crosslinguistic influence in second language acquisition (pp. 24–37). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, D. M.
(2015) Peabody picture vocabulary test: PPVT 4. Pearson.Google Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Filipović, L., & Vidakovic, I.
(2010) Typology in the L2 classroom: Acquisition from a typological perspective. In M. Pütz & L. Sicola (Eds.), Inside the learner’s mind: Cognitive processing in second language acquisition (pp. 269–291). Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gentner, D., & Bowerman, M.
(2009) Why some spatial semantic categories are harder to learn than others: The typological prevalence hypothesis. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, S. Ervin-Tripp, N. Budwig, S. Özcaliskan, & К. Nakamura (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 465–480). New York: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Göksun, T., Lehet, M., Malykhina, K., & Chatterjee, A.
(2015) Spontaneous gesture and spatial language: Evidence from focal brain injury. Brain and Language, 1501, 1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Göksun, T., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Michnick Golinkoff, R.
(2010) Trading spaces: Carving up events for learning language. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(1), 33–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gullberg, M., Hendriks, H., & Hickmann, M.
(2008) Learning to talk and gesture about motion in French. First Language, 28(2), 200–236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hohenstein, J., Eisenberg, A., & Naigles, L.
(2006) Is he floating across or crossing afloat? Cross-influence of L1 and L2 in Spanish–English bilingual adults. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9(3), 249–261. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A.
(2008) Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ji, Y., Hendriks, H., & Hickmann, M.
(2011) How children express caused motion events in Chinese and English: Universal and language-specific influences. Lingua, 121(12), 1796–1819. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lai, V. T., Rodríguez, G. G., & Narasimhan, B.
(2014) Thinking-for-Speaking in early and late bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(1), 139–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayer, M.
(1969) Frog, where are you?. New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar
Montrul, S.
(2001) Agentive verbs of manner of motion in Spanish and English as second languages. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23(2), 171–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Negueruela, E., Lantolf, J. P., Jordan, S. R., & Gelabert, J.
(2004) The “private function” of gesture in second language speaking activity: A study of motion verbs and gesturing in English and Spanish. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(1), 113–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nicoladis, E. & Brisard, F.
(2002) Encoding motion in gestures and speech: Are there differences in bilingual children’s French and English? In E. V. Clark (Ed.), Space in language. Location, motion, path, and manner. The Proceedings of the 31st Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 60–68). Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Oh, K. J.
(2003) Language, cognition, and development: Motion events in English and Korean. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş.
(2016) Do gestures follow speech in bilinguals’ description of motion. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(3), 644–653. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan, ¸ S., & Slobin, D. I.
(1999) Learning how to search for the frog: Expressions of manner of motion in English, Spanish, and Turkish. In H. L. A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield, & C. Tano (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Vol. 21 (pp. 541–552). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., & Slobin, D. I.
(2003) Codability effects on the expression of manner of motion in Turkish and English. In A. S. Özsoy, D. Akar, M. Nakipoglu-Demiralp, E. Erguvanli-Taylan, & A. Aksu- Koç (Eds.), Studies in Turkish Linguistics (pp. 259–270). Istanbul, Turkey: Boğaziçi University Press.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A.
(1999) New approaches to concepts in bilingual memory. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2(3), 209–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2005) Bilingualism and thought. In A. M. B. De Groot & J. F. Kroll (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 433–453). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2010) Verbs of motion in L1 Russian of Russian–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(1), 49–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011) Thinking and speaking in two languages. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pavlenko, A., & Volynsky, M.
(2015) Motion encoding in Russian and English: Moving beyond Talmy’s typology. The Modern Language Journal, 99(1), 32–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, D. I.
(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.Google Scholar
(2000) Verbalized events: A dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism. In S. Niemeier & R. Dirven (Eds.), Evidence for linguistic relativity (pp. 107–138). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2003) Language and thought online: Cognitive consequences of linguistic relativity. In D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in mind: Advances in the investigation of language and thought (pp. 157–191). Cambridge, MA: MIT PressGoogle Scholar
(2004) The many ways to search for a frog. Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Stromqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
(2005) Relating narrative events in transladtion. In D. Ravid & H. B. Shyldkrot, (Eds.), Perspectives on Language and Language Development: Essays in Honor of Ruth A. Berman (pp. 115–129). Kluwer, Dordrecht: Springer US. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006) What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse and cognition. In M. Hickman & S. Robert (Eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories (pp. 59–81). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stromqvist & L. Verhoeven
(2004) Narrative development in a multilingual context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Stam, G.
(2006) Thinking for speaking about motion: L1 and L2 speech and gesture. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 44(2), 143–169. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010) Can a L2 speaker’s patterns of thinking for speaking change? In Z. Han & T. Cadierno (Eds.), Linguistic relativity in L2 Acquisition: Evidence of L1 thinking for speaking (pp. 59–83). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soroli, E., Sahraoui, H., & Sacchet, C.
(2012) Linguistic encoding of motion events in English and French: Typological constraints on second language acquisition and agrammatic aphasia. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 3(2), 261–287. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, L.
(1985) Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (Vol. III1). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(2000) Toward a cognitive semantics. Volume 1: Concept Structuring Systems, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M.
(1995) Language is not an instinct. Cognitive Development, 101, 131–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
von Stutterheim, C., Nüse, R., & Murcia-Serra, J.
(2002) Cross-linguistic differences in the conceptualisation of events. In H. Hasselgård, S. Johansson, B. Behrens & C. Fabricius–Hansen (Eds.), Information structure in a cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 179–198). Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whorf, B. L.
(1956) Language, thought and reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wolff, P., & Holmes, K.
(2011) Linguistic relativity. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2,253–2,265.Google Scholar
Zacks, J. M., & Tversky, B.
(2001) Event structure in perception and conception. Psychological Bulletin, 127(1), 3–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar