Thinking-for-translating: acquisition of English physical motion constructions by Spanish translators in training (2015) (original) (raw)
Related papers
The translation of Motion events from Spanish into English: a cross-linguistic perspective
This study is based on the theoretical framework of conceptual transfer established by Jarvis (1998, 2007) and on the typology of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages developed by Talmy (1985, 2000). The relationship between conceptual transfer and the thinking for speaking hypothesis (Slobin, 1996b) is also considered. We show that conceptual transfer applies in the translation of lexicalisation patterns in Motion events from Spanish into English. Our informants are twenty Spanish speaking translation students who specialize in translation from Spanish/English, English/Spanish. They were faced with a series of ten sentences containing 7 examples including motion verbs and 3 distractors. The results seem to show that the translations from Spanish to English indicate a preference to follow the L1 lexicalisation pattern, coding Path in the main verb and Manner in a separate constituent, as opposed to the English lexicalisation pattern where Manner of Motion is conflated in a single lexical item and Path is indicated in a satellite. This misuse of the English pattern can be interpreted as an example of conceptual transfer. When conceptual transfer is at work non-target-like translations are produced. More attention needs to be paid to the different conceptual structures of motion events in both languages
Thinking for translating: a think-aloud protocol on the translation of manner-of-motion verbs (2015)
2015
Typological studies on the linguistic expression of motion are certainly of interest to translation scholars. The study of how motion is expressed across languages has indeed revealed some striking typological differences (e.g. Talmy 1985, 1991, 2000a, 2000b; Berman and Slobin 1994; Stromqvist and Verhoeven 2004), which can account for some of the strategies translators resort to when dealing with motion expressions (Slobin 1996; Ibarretxe-Antuñano 2003; Cifuentes- Férez 2006, in press a; Ibarretxe-Antuñano and Filipović 2013). However, the question still remains as to whether translators’ decisions are exclusively guided by such typological differences or whether there are other experience- or task-related factors that may explain their behaviour. This paper provides empirical evidence on the type of factors that guide translators’ decisions when translating manner-of-motion verbs, exploring the impact of different types of texts and the translator’s level of expertise. For this purpose, a pilot think-aloud protocol is implemented in order to examine the translation process of ten Spanish translators (five professionals and five graduate students without professional experience) when transferring manner-of-motion verbs from English into Spanish. Our results reveal that the way translators deal with manner information is mainly influenced by typological differences between the two languages. But differences in the translators’ level of professional expertise and in task-related constraints (e.g. the degree in which different type of texts focus on motion verbs) also have an effect on the strategy that translators choose to convey manner information.
This research paper takes and builds upon Slobin's (1987) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis as a basis for exploring the notion of conceptual transfer from the L1 in the acquisition and production of motion events in an L2. This is achieved by investigating the extent to which L2 transfer presents itself in the expression of motion in inverse translation tasks carried out by 27 native English speaking learners of Spanish and 32 native Spanish speaking learners of English. The nature of this transfer is then investigated to establish whether or not it appears to be conceptual. The tasks presented to participants contained items based on Talmy's (1985) research on cross-linguistic lexicalisation patterns in the expression of motion events, which, as Slobin (1987, 1996) later proposes, appear to dictate the conceptualisation of motion events in a language. Results reveal that cognitive parameters in the participants' native language affected their performance in the production of motion events in their second language, in accord with Slobin's (1987) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis. Finally, the study concludes with a summary of these results.
Epos : Revista de filología, 1999
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Learning verbs of movement in a Foreign Language: Spanish students of English in a formal context
Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 2013
Native speakers of different languages may conflate reality in different ways. One of the most illustrative examples of this idea is movement and the divergences in its lexicalization on the part of the native speakers of English and Spanish. The present study focuses on the lexicalization of motion events in the learners' interlanguage. We compare the use of Path and Manner verbs in two groups of native speakers of Spanish studying English at elementary and advanced levels. The way movement was conflated by the advanced group was reasonably close to the English way, whereas the elementary group was still far from the English lexicalization of movement. These results support the languagebased theories on cognition as they show that differences of L2 proficiency may have an influence in the way motion is lexicalized in the L2.
Thinking-for-Speaking to Describe Motion Events
Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies, 2020
Speaking a second language (L2) involves another way of “thinking for speaking” (Slobin 1996). Adopting Talmy’s typological framework of motion event description, this study examined how learning Japanese as L2 restructures English-Japanese bilingual speakers’ thinking-for-speaking. Thirteen English-speaking intermediate learners of L2 Japanese described motion events in English and Japanese. The analysis focused on speech and gesture describing ‘rolling down’ and ‘swinging’ events, for which English and Japanese native speakers’ descriptions differ (Kita, Özyürek 2003). The results suggest some restructuring in their thinking-for-speaking.
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
We investigated bidirectional cross-linguistic influence on motion event (ME) expressions in bilingual speakers of two typological different languages (Talmy’s typology), Spanish (as L1) and English (as L2). Specifically, we investigated whether bilingual speakers struggle to learn ME expressions in the L2, and whether this process affects ME uses in the L1. Potential effects of L2 proficiency and L2 AoA in both L1 and L2 was also studied. ME expressions elicited from 6-second video-clips were analysed for manner and path components at the level of the verb and of the clause. Results support the hypothesis of bidirectional cross-linguistic influence on motion event conceptualization. In bilinguals’ L2, we observed patterns of restructuring, convergence and L1 transfer. In bilinguals’ L1, we reported structural and conceptualization patterns that seem to emerge from the contact with the L2. Proficiency and AoA showed modulation in the use of manner verbs on both L2 and L1.
Crossed transposition in a corpus-based study of motion in English and Spanish
Languages in Contrast, 2017
The present paper reports on a translation-based teaching-oriented study of the expression of path and manner of motion (Talmy 1972) in English and Spanish. The aim is to explore contrastive differences by analysing translations, with special attention to crossed transposition (Molina and Hurtado Albir 2002), which implies a double shift of part-of-speech from the source text to the target text, and is the expected type of transfer between a satellite-framed language like English and a verb-framed language like Spanish. Two corpora have been used, a monolingual corpus of Children’s Short Stories, the CSS-corpus, and a parallel corpus English-Spanish, P-ACTRES 2.0. The results show a high tendency for implicitation of either path or manner and for compression in the translations into Spanish, whereas crossed transposition is preferred in the translations into English. Also, some pedagogical applications are suggested for including these motion expressions in TEFL to young learners th...
Intralinguistic variation in the expression of motion events in English and Spanish
The present analysis focuses on Talmy's well-known lexicalization patterns for the expression of motion events . Languages are divided according to the preferred pattern they use; English, a satellite-framed language, encodes manner in the verb and path in a satellite (The bottle floated into the cave), whereas Spanish, a prototypical verb-framed language, encodes path in the verb, and manner in an adverbial or gerundive element, La botella entró a la cueva flotando (the bottle moved-in to the cave). Recent studies show that languages may show both encoding options , Filipovic 2007. In this paper I analyze corpus examples of verb-framed patterns in English and satellite-framed constructions in Spanish, and compare them to the preferred pattern in the other language. It is argued that the different rhetorical structure of each lexicalization pattern conveys a significant difference in meaning. This may explain why both encoding options co-occur within one language type.
VERBS OF MOTION AND SENTENCE PRODUCTION IN SECOND LANGUAGE
2000
The current study examines production of sentences in which verbs of motion were used. Participants that were either French or English native speakers produced sentences in their second language (L2). Importantly, English is said to be dominantly manner framed while French is dominantly path framed language. This means that in English verbs of motion mainly carry information about manner in which action is performed while path is described by the syntactic frame (e.g. John walked up the hill). In French verbs of motion describe the path of motion while the manner can be added by a prepositional phrase (e.g. John ascends the hill by walking). Sentence production was elicited using custom made pictures that showed the action and all arguments of the verb. The results indicated that speakers of either language use the structures of their first language to produce sentences in the second language. Because manner framed verbs are much more flexible in the type of syntactic frame they permit native English speakers were more successful in applying this strategy to French verbs. As path framed verbs are not as flexible French speakers made many errors trying to use English verbs as if they were path framed. In addition to the type of language another important characteristic for sentence production was animacy of the sentence subject.