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Real and Fictive Motion Processing in Polish L2 Users of English and Monolinguals: Evidence for Different Conceptual Representations
Author(s) -
Tomczak Ewa,
Ewert Anna
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the modern language journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.486
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1540-4781
pISSN - 0026-7902
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2015.12178.x
Subject(s) - embodied cognition , motion (physics) , sentence , psychology , priming (agriculture) , cognition , cognitive psychology , perspective (graphical) , linguistics , action (physics) , cognitive science , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , botany , germination , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , biology
ABSTRACT We examine cross‐linguistic influence in the processing of motion sentences by L2 users from an embodied cognition perspective. The experiment employs a priming paradigm to test two hypotheses based on previous action and motion research in cognitive psychology. The first hypothesis maintains that conceptual representations of motion are embodied by sensory and motor systems (Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002; Zwaan & Taylor, 2006) and predicts that linguistic descriptions of motion will be susceptible to conceptual priming effects. The second hypothesis assumes that the processing of fictive motion sentences, such as The road runs through the forest (cf. Talmy, 2000a), involves additional mental simulation of motion (Matlock, 2004b; Richardson & Matlock, 2007) and predicts that fictive motion will be processed more slowly than real motion. The participants were groups of Polish and English monolinguals and Polish L2 users of English, who were students in an English‐medium university program. Sentence meaningfulness judgment and response time data were collected from the monolinguals and the L2 users tested in both languages. Sentence meaningfulness judgments were examined to see how the participants represent motion in language and response time data were analyzed for evidence of conceptual processing. The results showed expected differences in response times to various sentence types in all groups, but the priming effect was not observed in Polish monolinguals and only selectively present in the L2 users responding in both languages. The results of our experiment indicate that fictive motion processing is both embodied in physical experience of motion and modified by language.