Series | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Edited book | European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics
Chapter | Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events
Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events
English-Japanese bilinguals’ L1 English and L2 Japanese Speech and Gesture
Abstract
Speaking a second language (L2) involves another way of “thinking for speaking” (Slobin 1996). Adopting Talmy’s typological framework of motion event description, this study examined how learning Japanese as L2 restructures English-Japanese bilingual speakers’ thinking-for-speaking. Thirteen English-speaking intermediate learners of L2 Japanese described motion events in English and Japanese. The analysis focused on speech and gesture describing ‘rolling down’ and ‘swinging’ events, for which English and Japanese native speakers’ descriptions differ (Kita, Özyürek 2003). The results suggest some restructuring in their thinking-for-speaking.
Submitted: Feb. 14, 2020 | Accepted: June 11, 2020 | Published July 3, 2020 | Language: en
Keywords English-Japanese bilinguals • Motion event description • Thinking-for-Speaking • Talmy’s typology • Gesture
Copyright © 2020 Noriko Iwasaki, Keiko Yoshioka. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-428-8/004
