Linguistic Encoding Research Articles

Conceptualisation of event roles in L1 and L2 by Japanese learners of English: a cross-linguistic comparison of perspectives of event construal

Abstract Events can be perceived from different perspectives. Langacker, Ronald W. (1990. Subjectification. Cognitive Linguistics 1. 5–38) typologically categorised the perspectives in event construal as subjective construal and objective construal based on how egocentric a perspective is. Compared with Western languages, such as English, Japanese is argued to be a language that favours subjective construal. However, little empirical work has tested this assumption directly. We investigated whether Japanese and English construe events from different perspectives by focusing on the linguistic encodings of event roles “agent” and “patient”. Our findings show that when selecting event roles as sentence subjects, Japanese speakers prioritised animacy over agency whereas English speakers emphasised agency (while also considering animacy). This can be attributed to the different preferences of the two languages for the degree of egocentricity in event construal. Furthermore, we explored how L1-based conceptualisation of event roles influences the linguistic expressions of event roles in L2. Our results demonstrate that Japanese learners of English had difficulty reconceptualising event roles in L2 English. This study adds a piece of quantitative evidence to the cognitive linguistics theory on subjective construal in Japanese and questions the universality of the agent-first hypothesis in the Thematic Hierarchy.

Linguistic encoding of women’s agency in the German political discourse on abortion: A diachronic Critical Discourse Analysis

This research, rooted in the Critical Discourse Analysis framework, employs a mixed-methods approach to examine debates on abortion legislation in the German Bundestag. Focusing on the attribution of agency to women through semantic role assignment in the context of abortion procedures, the study utilises both qualitative analysis and quantitative data analysis techniques. Five debates spanning the 1970s, 1990s and 2010s were examined using the qualitative analysis tool MAXQDA. Results consistently indicate that arguments referring to women are predominantly assigned semantic roles associated with passivity and relatively low agency. This pattern persists regardless of the ideological stance, transcending divides between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. This perpetuates and reinforces the societal perception of women as passive, upholding a traditional gender stereotype within the discourse. A larger number of arguments referring to women were found in the pro-choice data compared to the pro-life data, indicating a greater emphasis on women within the argumentation of pro-choice speakers. The study underscores the enduring impact of language on shaping perceptions of women’s agency in the context of abortion legislation debates.

Multimodal encoding of motion events in speech, gesture and cognition

Abstract How people communicate about motion events and how this is shaped by language typology are mostly studied with a focus on linguistic encoding in speech. Yet, human communication typically involves an interactional exchange of multimodal signals, such as hand gestures that have different affordances for representing event components. Here, we review recent empirical evidence on multimodal encoding of motion in speech and gesture to gain a deeper understanding of whether and how language typology shapes linguistic expressions in different modalities, and how this changes across different sensory modalities of input and interacts with other aspects of cognition. Empirical evidence strongly suggests that Talmy’s typology of event integration predicts multimodal event descriptions in speech and gesture and visual attention to event components prior to producing these descriptions. Furthermore, variability within the event itself, such as type and modality of stimuli, may override the influence of language typology, especially for expression of manner.

“Dividing the labor”: Lexical verbs and the linguistic encoding of physical support in 2- to 4.5-year-old children

Infants reason about support configurations (e.g., teddy bear on table) and young children talk about a variety of support relations, including support-from-below (e.g., apple on table) and many other types (e.g., Band-Aid on leg, picture on wall). Given this wide variation in support types, we asked whether early differentiation of the semantic space of support may play a key role in helping children to learn spatial language in this domain. Previous research has shown such differentiation with 20-month-olds mapping the basic locative construction (BE on) to support-from-below (cube on top of box), but not to a mechanical support configuration (cube on side of box via adhesion). Older children and adults show the same differentiation, with preferential mapping of BE on to support-from-below and lexical verbs to mechanical support. We further explored the development of this differentiation by testing how children aged 2 to 4.5 years map lexical verbs to a wide variety of support configurations. In Experiment 1, using an intermodal preferential pointing paradigm, we found that 2- to 3.5-year-olds map a lexical verb phrase (“sticks to”) to mechanical support via adhesion. In Experiments 2 and 3, we expanded the range of mechanical support relations and used production and forced-choice tasks to ask whether 2- to 4.5-year-olds also encode mechanical relations using lexical verbs. We found that they do. These findings suggest continuity between infancy and childhood in the way that children use spatial language to differentially map to support-from-below versus mechanical support and raise new questions about how mechanical support language develops.

Gender is conceptualized in different ways across cultures

AbstractGender can be considered an embodied social concept encompassing biological and cultural components. In this study, we explored whether the concept of gender varies as a function of different cultural and linguistic norms by comparing communities that vary in their social treatment of gender-related issues and linguistic encoding of gender. In Study 1, Italian, Dutch, and English-speaking participants completed a free-listing task, which showed Italians and Dutch were the most distinct in their conceptualization of gender: Italian participants focused more on socio-cultural features (e.g., discrimination, politics, and power), whereas Dutch participants focused more on the corporeal sphere (e.g., hormones, breasts, and genitals). Study 2 replicated this finding focusing on Italian and Dutch and using a typicality rating task: socio-cultural and abstract features were considered as more typical of “gender” by Italian than Dutch participants. Study 3 addressed Italian and Dutch participants’ explicit beliefs about gender with a questionnaire measuring essentialism and constructivism, and consolidated results from Studies 1 and 2 showing that Dutch participants endorsed more essentialist beliefs about gender than Italian participants. Consistent with socio-cultural constructivist accounts, our results provide evidence that gender is conceptualized differently by diverse groups and is adapted to specific cultural and linguistic environments.

Time-course of phonetic (motor speech) encoding in utterance production

ABSTRACT Speaking involves the preparation of the linguistic content of an utterance and of the motor programs leading to articulation. The temporal dynamics of linguistic versus motor-speech (phonetic) encoding is highly debated: phonetic encoding has been associated either to the last quarter of an utterance preparation time (∼150ms before articulation), or to virtually the entire planning time, simultaneously with linguistic encoding. We (i) review the evidence on the time-course of motor-speech encoding based on EEG/MEG event-related (ERP) studies and (ii) strive to replicate the early effects of phonological-phonetic factors in referential word production by reanalysing a large EEG/ERP dataset. The review indicates that motor-speech encoding is engaged during at least the last 300ms preceding articulation (about half of a word planning lag). By contrast, the very early involvement of phonological-phonetic factors could be replicated only partially and is not as robust as in the second half of the utterance planning time-window.

Examining interlanguage pragmatics from a relevance-theoretic perspective: Challenges in L2 production

AbstractThis paper explores three pragmatic challenges that learners of Japanese as L2 encountered during their study abroad programs and work placements in Japan. These challenges are examined within the framework of Relevance Theory. Research on interlanguage pragmatics of L2 Japanese is limited in scope, as studies mostly focus on speech acts and other sociolinguistic and interactional strategies. As a result, researchers have yet to formally establish how learners of Japanese have difficulties in regard to their production of meaning. This study draws on open-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to determine the pragmatic competence of L2 students across two Irish universities. The study demonstrates that learners have difficulties with processing both linguistic encoding and phenomena that involve inference. That is, learners’ inability to activate their pragmatic competence hinders their ability to produce communicative acts. Findings lend support to the need to enhance pragmatic competence among L2 learners through specific cognitive processes. This paper also contributes to the need for interlanguage pragmatics to be pursued in conjunction with current developments in Relevance Theory. It is argued that ideas developed within Relevance Theory can be particularly beneficial to the teaching and learning of pragmatic competence in the L2 classroom.

Exploring the relationship of working memory to the temporal distribution of pausing and revision behaviors during L2 writing

AbstractThis study examined the extent to which L2 writers with varied working memory display differential pausing and revision behaviors at different periods during writing. The participants were 30 advanced Chinese L2 users of English, who wrote an argumentative essay. While composing, participants’ keystrokes and eye-gaze movements were recorded to capture their pausing, revision, and eye-gaze behaviors. The working memory battery included tests of phonological and visual short-term memory and executive functions. We divided the writing process into five equal periods. The results revealed that participants’ pausing and revision patterns were consistent with previous findings that planning, linguistic encoding, and monitoring processes dominate the initial, middle, and later composing periods, respectively. Various working memory components had differential effects on pausing depending on period, largely reflecting the predictions of Kellogg’s (1996, 2001) model. However, we identified no differences in the temporal distribution of revision behaviors contingent on working memory.

Exploring color metaphor with Behavioral Profiles: A usage-based analysis on the metaphorical meanings of the Chinese color term bái “white”

This paper conducts a usage-based, cognitive-semantic study on semantic relations between the twelve metaphorical meanings of the Chinese color term, bái 白 “white”, with the Behavioral Profiles approach. The contextual variations of the twelve metaphorical meanings of bái are captured by 51 contextual features, including collocational patterns, morphosyntactic and semantic properties, and discourse information. With a dataset consisting of 1200 instances, two statistical methods are adopted to explore the semantic relations of these meanings, namely Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. The results show that the twelve metaphorical senses of bái fall into four clusters, and their semantic relations can be empirically distinguished based on the proposed contextual features. Furthermore, we found that the identified semantic relations can be explained by mutually related conceptual metaphors based on the perceptual experiences of the white color regarding its three perceptual properties – absence of hue, highest brightness, and zero colorfulness. The present study ultimately demonstrates how the semantic relations among the twelve metaphorical meanings of bái can be empirically distinguished based on their linguistic encodings and explained by cognitive principles in line with the Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

How Does English Encode ‘Tight’ Vs. ‘Loose-fit’ Motion Events? It’s Complicated

ABSTRACT Linguistic encoding of spatial events has long provided a forum for examining how languages encode space, how children learn their native encodings, and whether cross-linguistic differences affect non-linguistic representations of space. One prominent case concerns motion events in which objects are moved into tight or loose-fit relationships of containment or support. Seminal findings from Bowerman showed that young children learning Korean regularly use specific verbs to encode tight/loose fit across containment and support relationships, whereas children learning English use prepositions to encode containment or support (e.g. in/on) across the tight/loose fit distinction. Others have asked how these early-acquired differences affect non-linguistic encoding of similar events. Many of these studies have focused on the lexical differences between the two languages – verbs (in Korean) and/or prepositions (in English). Here, we ask whether this focus might underestimate how English encodes these events by closely examining the range of options used by English speakers to encode loose and tight-fit motion events. In Experiment 1, 3-year-old and adult English speakers described joining and separating events which culminated in loose or tight-fit end-states. Participants’ use of lexical verbs together with their syntactic frames differentiated among the event types, especially between “loose-fit” events with asymmetric motion between objects (e.g. a block being put into a bowl) vs. “tight-fit” events with symmetric motion (e.g. two Legos being brought together at the same time). In Experiment 2, we replicated the basic findings using events portrayed with more complex of objects. Our findings show that English affords both children and adults rich resources to encode motion events culminating in tight and loose fit end-states; these devices include both lexical items and syntactic frames. The findings raise important questions about how to examine effects of language on non-linguistic spatial cognition in children and adults.

Conceptual Metaphors and the Smell Perception in English and Arabic

Perception has long been seen as a basis for understanding abstract concepts and experiences and their linguistic encoding. Conceptual metaphor is considered a cognitive link between physical and sensory experiences and abstract mental representations. The olfactory perception has been treated as peripherical in contrast to other sense modalities. The purpose of the study is to establish how the smell sense is conceptually structured in Arabic in comparison with English and to examine conceptual metaphors based on our olfactory perception. Using the theory of conceptual metaphor, the study sought to compare the conception of smell and its metaphorical extensions in both languages. The data collected for this study was Modern written Standard Arabic acquired from online Arabic corpora and the total number of sentences searched is 3400 sentences. The study demonstrated that smell is used as a source domain to express suspicion, knowledge, and emotions. Arabic expresses a few extra metaphors including experiencing and anticipating. The domain of emotions in Arabic is closely connected to the smell sense more than English is. On the other hand, the most prevalent conceptual metaphors that employ smell as their target domain are INTENSITY OF SMELL IS EFFECT STRENGTH and SMELL IS A PHYSICAL FORCE, which exist in both languages equally. Besides, the study demonstrated that the sense of smell is not peripheral to cognition as it was previously believed. It is hoped that this study has contributed to further appreciation of the smell domain and its function in cognition.

Encoding transfer of possession events

The present study focuses on the linguistic and non-linguistic encoding of giving and taking events. For both English and Mandarin Chinese speakers, we find that the linguistic encoding of these transfer events respects the Thematic Hierarchy and the Source-Goal asymmetry (Exp.1 and 2): Agents are mentioned more often than Patient; Goals are encoded more often than Sources. However, in non-linguistic representation, the bias against Sources is not observed (Exp.3 and 4): Giver, Givee, Taker and Takee are equally prominent in memory. Taken together, our results support linguistic theories extending Source/Goal paths to Transfer of Possession events and call for a finer-grained account of homology between linguistic and non-linguistic encoding of events.

Multilingual learning and cognitive restructuring: The role of audiovisual media exposure in Cantonese–English–Japanese multilinguals’ motion event cognition

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Can learning additional languages affect what we perceive to be similar events? The current study explores the impact of learning a second language (L2) and a third language (L3) on how motion is categorized in functional Cantonese–English–Japanese multilinguals. Specifically, it examines the extent to which L1 speakers of Cantonese (equipollent-framed) with an L2-English (satellite-framed) and an L3-Japanese (verb-framed) restructure their lexicalization and conceptualization of voluntary motion through audiovisual media exposure to the target language. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 150 participants were recruited and divided into five groups: three groups of monolinguals in Cantonese, English, and Japanese as well as Cantonese–English bilinguals and Cantonese–English–Japanese multilinguals. Participants were given a linguistic encoding task and a non-linguistic similarity judgement task. Data and analysis: Mixed-effects modelling was used to compute participants’ encoding patterns and categorical preferences, as well as the correlation between audiovisual media exposure and the degree of cognitive restructuring. Findings/conclusions: Multilinguals’ L1-based verbalization and categorization showed reverse transfer from both L2 and L3. The degree of cognitive restructuring was modulated by audiovisual media exposure to TV watching in English and Japanese. Originality: This study extends the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis from bilingualism to multilingualism and explores the language–thought interface through reverse cross-linguistic influence. It focuses on how functional Cantonese–English–Japanese multilinguals with partially overlapping language systems encode and gauge similarity of voluntary motion in their L1, which is a rarely studied language combination. Significance/implications: Looking at the cognitive effects of additional language learning can shed light on the mechanism of cognitive restructuring in the thinking-for-speaking perspective, and inform the language learning question of how learners integrate both linguistic and non-linguistic experience to recalibrate their cognitive dispositions when given sufficient multimodal input.

A socially anchored approach to spatial language in Kalaallisut

Abstract In this article we demonstrate the fundamental relationship between the linguistic encoding of spatial relations and the topography of Greenland as an island, more specifically as a large island with considerable inland ice, and social engagement with that space. Kalaallisut (or Greenlandic, ISO 639-3 kal) uses an absolute frame of reference and a cardinal direction system that arises from an environmentally anchored coastal orientation system. Sociocultural knowledge and experiences play an important role in this system. It is deeply rooted in the geophysical environment, and changes to that environment can and do affect the linguistic encoding of space. Crucially, changes in people’s relationship with the environment affect how it is conceptualized in language. This is part of a broader pattern of Inuit language usage in changing Arctic environments and societies.

Second language acquisition of evidentiality in French and English in a narrative task

AbstractEvidentiality, i.e. the linguistic encoding of the mode of access to information (direct perception, inference, hearsay), despite not being fully grammaticalized in English and French, is expressed through a variety of means. This paper seeks to determine how a relatively non-salient concept in the source and target languages can be acquired by L2 learners. Using an oral elicited narrative task, we determine what markers of direct perception and inference are commonly used by native speakers of French (n = 10) and English (n = 10) and L2 learners of those two languages (at three levels of proficiency,n = 10 per group), and at which level they emerge. Our results point to a much more frequent use of inferential markers than direct perception markers, to slightly different patterns of evidential marking in French and in English, and to a late emergence of evidential markers in the speech of learners, who display sensitivity to their discursive functions, with types and tokens increasing as a function of proficiency level.

Eyes and speech in English, Finnish and Czech children’s literature

This study explores cross-linguistically, in English, Czech and Finnish, eye-behaviour that occurs in children’s fiction in the vicinity of character speech. We explore how authentic eye behaviour, as an important part of non-verbal communication, is rendered in fictional worlds. While there are more similarities than differences across the languages in the characteristics and narrative functions of fictional eye-behaviour, the linguistic encoding differs substantially due to typological differences between the languages. The same semantic roles are often expressed by divergent syntactic means. The divergence is reflected primarily in the relative weight of different word-order principles, the different means of indicating simultaneity, as well as the role of inflection in Finnish and Czech.

Effects of the 4/3/2 activity revisited: Extending Boers (2014) and Thai & Boers (2016)

Whereas scholars have extensively researched the pedagogical potential of 4/3/2 activities (i.e. increasing time pressure in task repetition) for enhancing second language (L2) fluency, its impact on L2 accuracy remains unclear. To help L2 learners improve both fluency and accuracy, the present study examined the effects of adding accuracy enhancement (AE) as a form of delayed metalinguistic correction to the 4/3/2 activity on the development of L2 fluency (speed, breakdown, repair) and accuracy (the acquisition of irregular and regular forms of English past tense). A total of 36 university-level students participated in three 20-minute dyadic sessions. They were randomly divided into three groups: Control, 4/3/2 and 4/3/2+AE. Whereas the 4/3/2 group repeated a monologue task three times with increasing time pressure (4 → 3 → 2 minutes), those in the 4/3/2+AE received metalinguistic correction from the researcher during the 4/3/2 activity. According to the results, a combined approach, 4/3/2+AE, simultaneously impacted learners’ overall fluency and accuracy across different topics. However, certain aspects of their fluency and accuracy development, especially those related to linguistic encoding (reduction in pauses within clauses; regular past tense forms), remained unchanged.

Ideological representation of fear and hope in online newspaper reports on COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia

This study examines the ideological representation of fear and hope in online newspaper reports on COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia. The study adopts critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Van Dijk's tripartite framework of news text structure and production at microstructure level and Fairclough's insights on the interactivity between language and social cognition in the process of producing and interpreting texts. The data for this study is samples of online news on COVID-19 reported in two English Saudi website;Saudi Gazette and Arab News, six from each journal. The samples cover the period between March 4 and August 14, 2020, and are purposefully chosen to understand the language of the news reports on a specific issue over a period of time. A qualitative analysis of the data is carried out so that the perceived effect of the linguistic encoding of the news events is examined. The findings show that most of the reports on COVID-19 heavily rely on foregrounding evidentiality of statistics of new and cumulative infections as well as recoveries and deaths. Evidentiality strategy often overlaps with categorization strategy as proof of the threat of the virus which is broken down into units, each with its features and evidence. Authority strategy is used to support statistics with verifiable sources. Similarly, in representing hope to the populace, two strategies of evidentiality and authority are often used. Evidentiality strategy is employed to clear off doubts through for grounding statistics of growing recoveries, comparisons and underrepresentation of infection cases and mortalities and sometimes choice of verbs plays a role in imparting hope in the residents. Authority strategy is deployed in order to give some weight to the ideology inherent in the report.

Cognitive restructuring in the multilingual mind: language-specific effects on processing efficiency of caused motion events in Cantonese–English–Japanese speakers

AbstractThe current study explores how multilingual speakers with three typologically different languages (satellite-framed, verb-framed and equipollent-framed) encode and gauge event similarity in the domain of caused motion. Specifically, it addresses whether, and to what extent, the acquisition of an L2-English and an L3-Japanese reconstructs the lexicalization and conceptualization patterns established in the L1-Cantonese when the target language is actively involved in the decision-making process. Results show that multilingual speakers demonstrated an ongoing process of cognitive restructuring towards the target language (L3) in both linguistic encoding (event structures and semantic representations) and non-linguistic conceptualization (reaction time). And the degree of the restructuring is modulated by the amount of language contact with the L2 and L3. The study suggests that learning a language means internalizing a new way of thinking and provides positive evidence for L3-biased cognitive restructuring within the framework of thinking-for-speaking.

From language to meteorology: kinesis in weather events and weather verbs across Sinitic languages

Interactions among the environment, humans and language underlie many of the most pressing challenges we face today. This study investigates the use of different verbs to encode various weather events in Sinitic languages, a language family spoken over a wide range of climates and with 3000 years of continuous textual documentation. We propose to synergise the many concepts of kinesis that grew from Aristotle’s original ideas to account for the correlation between meteorological events and their linguistic encoding. It is observed that the two most salient key factors of weather events, i.e., mass of weather substances and speed of weather processes, are the two contributing components of kinetic energy. Leveraging the linguistic theory that kinesis underpins conceptualisation of verb classes, this paper successfully accounts for the selection of verbs for different meteorological events in all Sinitic languages in terms of both language variations and changes. Specifically, weather events with bigger weather substances and faster weather processes tend to select action verbs with high transitivity. The kinesis driven accounts also predict the typological variations between verbal and nominal constructions for weather expressions. The correlation between kinesis and the selection of verbs is further corroborated by an experiment on the perception of native Sinitic language speakers, as well as analyses of regional variations of verb selections that do not follow general typological patterns. It is found that such typological exceptions generally correspond to variations in meteorological patterns. By explicating the pivotal role of kinesis in bridging weather events and the linguistic encoding of weather, this study underlines the role of cognition as the conceptualisation of physical and sensory inputs to sharable knowledge encoded by language.