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Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 11:5 (2021) ► pp.669–699

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Children’s thinking-for-speaking

Bidirectional effects of L1 Turkish and L2 English for motion events

ORCiD logo with link | Kadir Has Üniversitesi
ORCiD logo with link | Koç University
ORCiD logo with link | Boğaziçi University
 | Boğaziçi University
Published online: 23 March 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.19027.akt
Abstract
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.
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
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