Expressing Manner and Path in Motion Events in Spanish by Mandarin Chinese Speakers
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Chen, Chia-Ying
Abstract
The present study aims to investigate how adult language learners of Spanish whose L1 is Mandarin Chinese express motion events in the target language based on Slobin’s (1996a, 1996b) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis and Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) typological framework. In Mandarin Chinese, both Manner and Path can be conflated in the main verb co-occurring with a prepositional phrase that denotes a Goal in all motion events, while in Spanish only path verbs are allowed in most of the boundary-crossing events. Based on this observation, this study concerns the issue of Taiwanese learners’ choices for manner and path verbs in motion events, particularly in boundary-crossing motion events.
The elicitation task of the present study consists of 26 animated videos, half of which depicts boundary-crossing and the other half depicts non-boundary-crossing events. Fourteen Spanish native speakers, 15 Mandarin Chinese speakers and 31 Taiwanese learners of Spanish participated in the study. Learners’ proficiency levels in Spanish are also taken into consideration. Two major analyses - the conflation patterns and motion event constructions - are conducted to examine the data collected.
The findings are: (1) Learners behave differently from Spanish native speakers with respect to the conflation patterns and motion event constructions. (2) Learners’ conflation patterns are particularly non-target-like when describing boundary-crossing events. Learners overuse manner verbs, which may be ascribed to L1 transfer. (3) Learners seldom express Manner in the gerunds but conflate Manner in the main verb. They express the crossing of a boundary in a particle or a preposition, which often result in non-target-like sentences (e.g., *nadar de ‘swim off/from’) or sentences which deviate from the intended meaning (e.g., correr en ‘run in’). (4) The high proficiency level in the target language does not necessarily lead to successful acquisition of motion events. In this study, as learners become more proficient in the target language, they seem to deviate from target-like conflation patterns and the L1 transfer becomes more evident. One of the possible factors that suppress L1 transfer is learners’ lack of vocabulary to describe Manner. These findings are not only in line with Caroll and von Stutterhiem’s (2003: 398) statement concerning the retention of “principles of conceptual organisation as constituted in the course of L1 acquisition,” and Slobin’s (1996b) claim that the training on thinking-for-speaking patterns one receives in childhood is “exceptionally resistant to restructuring in adult second-language acquisition.”
Subjects
動態事件
語言習得
空間語言
Type
thesis
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