Cover not available

In:Cognitive Linguistics and the Study of Chinese
Edited by Dingfang Shu, Hui Zhang and Lifei Zhang
[Human Cognitive Processing 67] 2019
► pp. 285–308

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 10
Linguistic and mental representations of caused motion in Chinese and English children

 | Shenzhen University
Published online: 20 November 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.67.12ji
This study examines (non)linguistic representations of caused motion by Chinese and English children in two cartoon-based experiments. Findings of the language production task reveal that typological properties influence the semantic density of children’s utterances. Regardless of age, children express denser semantic information in Chinese than in English. In the non-linguistic match-to-sample task, children of 3 years are found to be predominantly path-oriented, as evidenced by their significantly longer fixation on path-match (rather than manner-match) videos. The analysis of reaction time indicates that children of 8 years and adults show significant variations in spatial cognition that can be related to linguistic differences: English speakers tend to be more manner-oriented while Chinese speakers are equally manner- and path-oriented.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Representing motion events at linguistic and cognitive levels
  • 3.Representing caused motion events in English and Chinese
  • 4.Experiment 1: The elicited language production task
    • 4.1Research question and hypotheses
    • 4.2Methodologies
      • 4.2.1Participants
      • 4.2.2Stimuli
      • 4.2.3Procedures
      • 4.2.4Data coding
    • 4.3Results
      • 4.3.1A quantitative analysis of the semantically rich utterances
      • 4.3.2A qualitative analysis of participants’ responses
  • 5.Experiment 2: The similarity judgment task
    • 5.1Research question and hypothesis
    • 5.2Methodologies
      • 5.2.1Participants
      • 5.2.2Materials
      • 5.2.3Procedures
      • 5.2.4Data coding
    • 5.3Results
      • 5.3.1Categorical preferences and RT across participant groups
      • 5.3.2Categorical preferences as a function of language, age and test item
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix
  • Notes
  • References
References (47)
References
Allen, S., Ozyurek, A., Kita, S., Brown, A., Furman, R., Ishizuka, T., et al. 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berman, R., & Slobin, D. I. 1994. Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berthele, R. 2013. Disentangling manner from path: Evidence from varieties of German and Romance. In J. Goschler, & A. Stefanowitsch (Eds.), Variation and change in the encoding of motion events (pp. 55–76). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blomberg, J., & Zlatev, J. 2009. Linguistic relativity, mediation and the categorization of motion. In J. Zlatev, M. Andrén, M. Johansson Falck, & C. Lundmark (Eds.), Studies in language and cognition (pp. 46–61). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bohnemeyer, J., Eisenbeiss, S., & Narasimhan, B. 2004. Manner & path in non-linguistic cognition. Conference presentation, Language, Culture & Mind, Portsmouth.
Boroditsky, L. 2001. Does language shape thought? Mandarin and English speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43, 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boroditsky, L., & Gaby, A. 2010. Remembrances of times East: Absolute spatial representations of time in an Australian aboriginal community. Psychological Science, 21, 1635–1639. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. 1999. Learning how to structure space for language: A crosslinguistic perspective. In P. Bloom, M. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 385–436). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, J. 2007. The acquisition of verb compounding in Mandarin Chinese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, L. 2005. The acquisition and use of motion event expressions in Chinese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, L., & Guo, J. 2009. Motion events in Chinese novels: Evidence for an equivalently-framed language. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 1749–1766. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chief, L. 2004. Serialization of simultaneity in Mandarin. Conference Presentation. The 30th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley, CA.
Chu, C. 1987. The semantics, syntax, and pragmatics of the verbal suffix -zhe. Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association, 22(1), 1–41.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Durst-Andersen, P. 2011. Linguistic supertypes: A cognitive-semiotic theory of human communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Finkbeiner, M., Nicol, J., Greth, D., & Nakamura, K. 2002. The role of language in memory for actions. Journal of Psycholinguistics Research, 31(5), 447–457. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gennari, S., Sloman, S., Malt, B., & Fitch, W. 2002. Motion events in language and cognition. Cognition, 83, 49–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hendriks, H., Hickmann, M., & Demagny, A. C. 2008. How English native speakers learn to express caused motion in English and French. Acquisition et Interaction en Langue Étrangère, 27, 15–41.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hickmann, M. 2003. Children’s discourse: Person, space and time across languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. The relativity of motion in first language acquisition. In M. Hickmann, & S. Robert (Eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories (pp. 281–308). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hickmann, M., Hendriks, H., & Champaud, C. 2009. Typological constraints on motion in French and English child language. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, S. Ervin-Tripp, N. Budwig, Ş. Özçalışkan, & K. Nakamura (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 209–224). NJ, New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hohenstein, J. 2005. Language-related motion event similarities in English- and Spanish-speaking children. Journal of Cognition and Development, 6, 403–425. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. 1996. The architecture of the linguistic-spatial interface. In P. Bloom, M. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 1–30). London: Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ji, Y., Hendriks, H., Hickmann, M. 2011a. How children express caused motion events in Chinese and English: Universal and language-specific influences. Lingua, 121, 1796–1819. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2011b. The expression of caused motion events in Chinese and in English: Some typological issues. Linguistics, 49(5), 1041–1076. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ji, Y. 2015. The expression of motion events: Typological and developmental perspectives. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ji, Y., & Hohenstein, J. 2018. English and Chinese children’s motion event similarity judgments. Cognitive Linguistics, Vol. 29(1), 45–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. 2003. Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, C. N., & Thompson, S. A. 1976. The meaning and structure of complex sentences with -zhe in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 96(4), 512–519. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lucy, J. 1992. Grammatical categories and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lupyan, G. 2012. Linguistically modulated perception and cognition: The label-feedback hypothesis. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. 2000. The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandler, J. M. 1992. How to build a baby II: Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review, 99, 587–604. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McWhorter, J. H. 2014. The language hoax. Why the world looks the same in any language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Papafragou, A., Massey, C., & Gleitman, L. 2002. Shake, rattle, ‘n’ roll: The representation of motion in language and cognition. Cognition, 84, 189–219. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peyraube, A. 2006. Motion events in Chinese: A diachronic study of directional complements. In M. Hickmann, & S. Robert (Eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories (pp. 121–135). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pourcel, S. 2005. Linguistic relativity in cognitive processes. Conference Presentation, The 1st UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference, University of Sussex.
Slobin, D. I. 1996. From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 70–96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. 2004. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist, & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative Vol. 2: Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spelke, E. S. 2003. What makes us smart? Core knowledge and natural language. In D. Gentner, & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in mind: Advances in the investigation of language and thought (pp. 277–311). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, L. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical form. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description. Vol. 3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 36–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, L. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics. Vol. II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whorf, B. L. 1956. Language, thought and reality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolff, P., & Holmes, K. 2011. Linguistic relativity. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2, 253–265.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J. 2011. From cognitive to integral linguistics and back again. Intellectica, 56, 125–147.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J., & Blomberg, J. 2015. Language may indeed influence thought. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1631. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhao, Y. 2005. Causativity in Chinese and its representations in English, Japanese and Korean speakers’ L2 Chinese grammars. Doctoral dissertation. University of Cambridge.
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue