Traces of L1 patterns in the event construal of Czech advanced speakers of L2 English and L2 German
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Barbara Schmiedtová
Abstract
This paper investigates the role of the underlying L1 perspective in the construal of goal-oriented motion and events with a resultant state in L2 production. Previous findings demonstrated that native Czech and German speakers have the same preferences for event construal (holistic perspective). The same holds true for Czech L2 speakers of German. Since L1 Czech and L1 German share the same preferences for motion event encoding, it is impossible to decide whether Czech learners of L2 German chose the holistic perspective because of L1 transfer or because they have restructured their conceptual preferences in the direction of the L2. This question can be resolved by examining data from Czech L2 speakers of English since L1 English, unlike L1 Czech, prefers taking a phasal perspective in motion event construal. The present data show that, for highly proficient L2 speakers, conceptual restructuring in the direction of the L2 is possible, however limited.
© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Strategies for linking information by German and Japanese native Speakers and by German learners of Japanese
- Masthead
- Introduction: Conceptualizing in a second language
- Traces of L1 patterns in the event construal of Czech advanced speakers of L2 English and L2 German
- Linkage in narratives: A comparison between monolingual speakers of French and Italian, and early and late French-Italian bilinguals
- Resolving ambiguous pronouns in a second language: A visual-world eye-tracking study with Dutch learners of German
- Aspectual perspective taking in event construal in L1 and L2 Dutch
- Principles of information organization in L2 use: Complex patterns of conceptual transfer
