Abstract
Slobin’s thinking-for-speaking (TFS) hypothesis suggests that speakers are habitually attuned to aspects of an event that are readily codable in the language while they are formulating speech. This TFS process varies considerably cross-linguistically and can be observed in all forms of production and reception including listening for understanding or mental imagery. This study explored whether second language learners (L2) engage in mental simulation of deictic paths while processing motion language online. Forty Chinese native speakers (NSs) and eighty English-speaking learners of L2 Chinese participated in an online judgment task. They listened to motion sentences containing deictic paths while simultaneously watching a motion display of a toward- or away-direction. Since simultaneous presentation of the sentence and the display of the same directionality require the same neural structures to process competing inputs, interference effects are expected and the reaction time to respond should take longer. Results of repeated measures ANOVA show interference effects for the NSs, but not for the L2 learners of both heritage and foreign language backgrounds, suggesting that while the NSs were sensitive to the deictic cues and automatically performed mental simulations of the deictic paths, the L2 learners’ listening for imagery did not pattern with the NSs. The results added to our understanding of L2 learners’ development of TFS in the new modality of listening for imagery.
Highlights
The extent to which language influences thinking has been a focus of study for decades in the fields of anthropology, linguistics and first language (L1) acquisition, psychology, and recently in second and bilingual acquisition research
Focusing on L1 and L2 thinking-for-speaking hypothesis (TFS), the present study aims to explore whether or how well L2 learners of heritage and foreign language backgrounds engage in mental simulation of deictic paths while processing motion language online
Similar to findings reported in Wheeler and Stojanovic [28] and Shoen [31], comparisons of the mean reaction times between the L1 and L2 groups showed that the L2 learners spent longer time to make a response than did the native speakers (NSs)
Summary
The extent to which language influences thinking has been a focus of study for decades in the fields of anthropology, linguistics and first language (L1) acquisition, psychology, and recently in second and bilingual acquisition research. Focusing on the influence of language on online thinking, Slobin’s thinking-for-speaking hypothesis (TFS) [1,2,3] has provided new insights into this topic and attracted substantial research that explores issues pertaining to conceptual changes in language learning (e.g., [4,5,6,7,8]). This hypothesis suggests that speakers are habitually attuned to aspects of an event that are readily codable in the language while they are formulating speech. It remains unclear whether or how well L2 learners can acquire the thought patterns of the L2 while processing the language online
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