The expression and conceptualization of motion through space and manner of motion in Arabic and English: A comparative analysis

Abstract

This paper is a comparative analysis of English and Arabic expressions of motion events using narratives of Chafe’s (1980) Pear Story elicited from native speakers of both languages. The native‐speaker English narratives were elicited by Feiz (2007). A discourse analytic approach is used to examine how speakers of Arabic and English indicate motion through path, manner, and ground. The data consist of 45 elicited oral narratives. The narratives are all based on Chafe’s (1990) Pear Film, which is a 6‐minute film with many characters, but no dialogue. Fifteen of these are in Arabic, fifteen in English by Arabic speakers, and fifteen in English by native English speakers. The findings of this study indicate that Arabic is a verb‐framed language (Talmy, 2007). It has a variety of path verbs such as yadheh “fall,” yamer “pass,” and yenzel “descend.” Furthermore, the stative verb is used frequently in Arabic by all the Arabic speakers to describe a static location (Feiz, 2007). The total number of uses of the stative verb in Arabic is 71 tokens. In addition, the verb yati “come” is used in Arabic to introduce newcomers, as it is in English (Feiz, 2007). However, the use of the manner verbs in Arabic, such as etkhardhaf “tumbles,” is rare. English is considered a typical satellite‐framed language. It has a large number of manner verbs (Slobin, 2003). Some deictic verbs are used with path satellites (e.g., comes along). Manner verbs are also used with path satellites (e.g., climb down and walk back). Multiple path satellites also appear in English (e.g., came down off and climbed back up in).