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SUMMARY:Adults' Expression of Voluntary and Caused Motion Events in Chines
 e and in English - Henriette Hendriks and Yinglin Ji\, RCEAL
DTSTART:20091020T150000Z
DTEND:20091020T163000Z
UID:TALK20590@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Chris Cummins
DESCRIPTION:The domain of space presents some interesting properties. On t
 he one hand\, spatial understanding of human beings is said to be universa
 l and to share the same biological heritage\; one the other hand\, the lin
 guistic systems encoding spatial information vary strikingly. This paradox
  raises fundamental questions\, among other things\, for the issue of lang
 uage typology. In the typological framework inspired by cognitive linguist
 ics (i.e. Talmy’s verb-framed vs. satellite-framed languages)\, English 
 is unanimously considered as a typical satellite-framed language whereas t
 he exact status of Chinese is much debated (cf. Slobin’s equipollently-f
 ramed languages).  \n\nIn this context\, this talk examines adults’ expr
 ession of motion events in Chinese and English in a controlled experimenta
 l situation in which subjects are shown animated cartoons involving volunt
 ary motion events on the one hand and caused motion events on the other. A
 spects of motion expressions in Chinese and English are compared with the 
 aim of illustrating the specific status of Chinese in motion event typolog
 y. \n\nResults of our voluntary motion task reveal that speakers of Chines
 e show clear similarities to speakers of English. But verb-framed characte
 ristics of Chinese are systematic and pronounced in caused motion expressi
 ons\, where Chinese strikingly differs from English in terms of both infor
 mation locus and the overall distribution pattern of multiple information 
 components across an utterance.  \n\nOn the basis of these findings\, we a
 rgue that\, contrary to the traditional classification of both English and
  Chinese as unequivocally satellite-framed languages\, it is better to des
 cribe Chinese as an "equipollent" language standing midway along a verb-fr
 amed/satellite-framed continuum\, in accordance with Slobin’s (2004) pro
 posal.  \n
LOCATION:GR-06/07\, English Faculty Building
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