Chapter 8. Spatial language and cognition among the last Ixcatec-Spanish bilinguals (Mexico)
-
Evangelia Adamou
Abstract
This paper discusses spatial language and bilingual cognition with evidence from the last four speakers of Ixcatec who have shifted to Spanish in their everyday life. Based on a free-speech corpus,Study 1shows that the Ixcatec spatial expressions are mainly intrinsic and geocentric, similar to what is reported for other Mesoamerican languages.Study 2investigates co-speech gesture in a localization task and reveals the predominance of the geocentric frame of reference (FoR) with a switch to the egocentric FoR triggered by the Spanish word ‘left’.Study 3is a nonverbal experiment which shows that the egocentric, geocentric, and intrinsic frames of reference are all available. To conclude, although the use of Spanish has added new spatial conceptualizations, the native ones are not lost.
Abstract
This paper discusses spatial language and bilingual cognition with evidence from the last four speakers of Ixcatec who have shifted to Spanish in their everyday life. Based on a free-speech corpus,Study 1shows that the Ixcatec spatial expressions are mainly intrinsic and geocentric, similar to what is reported for other Mesoamerican languages.Study 2investigates co-speech gesture in a localization task and reveals the predominance of the geocentric frame of reference (FoR) with a switch to the egocentric FoR triggered by the Spanish word ‘left’.Study 3is a nonverbal experiment which shows that the egocentric, geocentric, and intrinsic frames of reference are all available. To conclude, although the use of Spanish has added new spatial conceptualizations, the native ones are not lost.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. L1 effects as manifestations of individual differences in the L2 acquisition of the Spanish tense-aspect-system 9
- Chapter 3. The Typological Primacy Model and bilingual types 41
- Chapter 4. Knowledge of mood in internal and external interface contexts in Spanish heritage speakers in the Netherlands 67
- Chapter 5. Null objects with and without bilingualism in the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking world 95
- Chapter 6. The Compounding Parameter and L2 acquisition 123
- Chapter 7. Prosodic transfer among Spanish-K’ichee’ bilinguals 149
- Chapter 8. Spatial language and cognition among the last Ixcatec-Spanish bilinguals (Mexico) 175
- Chapter 9. Experimentally inducing Spanish-English code-switching 211
- Chapter 10. The influence of structural distance in cross-linguistic transfer 235
- Chapter 11. Obliteration after Vocabulary Insertion 261
- Chapter 12. Bilingual production of relative clauses in languages with opposite head-complement directionality 283
- Chapter 13. The global and the local 313
- Index 325
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. L1 effects as manifestations of individual differences in the L2 acquisition of the Spanish tense-aspect-system 9
- Chapter 3. The Typological Primacy Model and bilingual types 41
- Chapter 4. Knowledge of mood in internal and external interface contexts in Spanish heritage speakers in the Netherlands 67
- Chapter 5. Null objects with and without bilingualism in the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking world 95
- Chapter 6. The Compounding Parameter and L2 acquisition 123
- Chapter 7. Prosodic transfer among Spanish-K’ichee’ bilinguals 149
- Chapter 8. Spatial language and cognition among the last Ixcatec-Spanish bilinguals (Mexico) 175
- Chapter 9. Experimentally inducing Spanish-English code-switching 211
- Chapter 10. The influence of structural distance in cross-linguistic transfer 235
- Chapter 11. Obliteration after Vocabulary Insertion 261
- Chapter 12. Bilingual production of relative clauses in languages with opposite head-complement directionality 283
- Chapter 13. The global and the local 313
- Index 325
