Speakers of different languages follow a three-way split in how they express motion events in speech—with a greater emphasis on manner in satellite-framed languages (English), path in verb-framed languages (Turkish), and comparable expression of manner and path in equipollently-framed languages (Chinese). According to the thinking-for-speaking account, these language-specific patterns can affect speakers’ representation of motion events but only when verbalizing the event. In this study, we asked whether language might influence learning novel words, particularly when the words were accompanied with gestures. We examined effects of language type (equipollent-framed: Chinese, satellite-framed: English, verb-framed: Turkish) and modality (speech-only, gesture+speech) on learning pseudowords for motion (manner, path). Our results showed that speakers of all three languages learned pseudowords for manner and path but with lower accuracy scores and slower rates of learning by Chinese speakers. Regardless of the language they spoke, participants learned manner words more accurately than path words, but with no added benefits of instruction with gesture+speech over speech-only. Taken together, our study extends the lack of language effect on nonverbal representation of events when not speaking to the domain of novel word learning across structurally different languages.

The present study investigates cross-linguistic differences in the description of motion events using Holistic Spatial Semantics (HSS) as a theoretical framework. In this study, six short video stimuli featuring various motion situations were used to elicit narratives from 35 speakers of French and 29 speakers of Swedish. The proportions of semantic category Path linguistically expressed did not vary significantly between the groups. However, the French narratives had significantly less Manner and Direction expression. Furthermore, they included significantly more unbounded non-translocative events compared to the Swedish narratives. Partly, this was due to the tendency within the Swedish group to construe situations as bounded events that were clearly shown as unbounded in the stimuli. There was also a tendency within the French group to distribute the information about the same situation over two clauses. These findings lend further support to the relevance of distinguishing between the Path and Direction categories, as well as other key features of the HSS framework, such as the distinction between non-verbal motion situations and their linguistic construals.

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.

This study explores the implications of Talmy's (2000) motion event typology and its subsequent articulations in relation to Slobin's (1996, 2006) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis for the early successive bilingual acquisition of Uyghur (verb-framed) and Mandarin Chinese (equipollently-framed). Specifically, it examines how 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-year-old bilingual children acquire motion expressions in their L1 and L2 respectively, and how cross-linguistic influence shapes their L2 acquisition process. Results show that, in their L1 Uyghur, bilinguals follow general developmental trajectories observed for children acquiring verb-framed languages. While sensitive to the equipollent Chinese system from early on, due to L1 and other factors, bilinguals fully converge on the Chinese pattern only at age 10, a feat in place in monolinguals from age 3. Our findings highlight that bilingual children do eventually come to develop language-specific thinking-for-speaking patterns in their L2, but they traverse a distinct developmental path.

Adults display cross-linguistic variability in their speech in how they package and order semantic elements of a motion event. These differences can also be found in speakers’ co-speech gestures (gesturing with speech), but not in their silent gestures (gesturing without speech). Here, we examine when in development children show the differences between co-speech gesture and silent gesture found in adults. We studied speech and gestures produced by 100 children learning English or Turkish (n = 50/language) – equally divided into 5 age-groups: 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, and 11–12 years. Children were asked to describe three-dimensional spatial event scenes (e.g., a figure crawling across carpet) first with speech and then without speech using their hands. We focused on physical motion events that elicit, in adults, cross-linguistic differences in co-speech gesture and cross-linguistic similarities in silent gesture. We found the adult pattern even in the youngest children: (1) Language shaped co-speech gesture beginning at age 3 years, showing an early effect of language on thinking for speaking (as measured by gestures that occur during the speech act). (2) Language did not affect silent gesture at any age, highlighting early limits on the effects language has on thinking and revealing a language of gesture that shows similarities across languages.

Focusing on the expression of manner and path in the ‘frog story’ narrations of Estonian native speakers, this study shows that Estonian – a morphologically rich satellite-framed Finno-Ugric language – is characterised by high manner and high path salience. Furthermore, when analysing one of the core qualities of manner – speed – we show that when the participants were asked to narrate a story as if the events developed slowly, they also spoke slowly and their stories tended to be long (both in time duration and word count) and include many details. When they were asked to tell the story as if the events developed fast, they also spoke faster and used more verbs of caused motion and verbs of vertical motion. Thus, the speed of motion in the physical world seems to be mimicked by speech rate, indicating mental simulation and iconic prosody. The exact nature of speed effects in linguistic choices for expressing motion remains to be studied in future works.

Every day people see, describe, and remember motion events. However, the relation between multimodal encoding of motion events in speech and gesture, and memory is not yet fully understood. Moreover, whether language typology modulates this relation remains to be tested. This study investigates whether the type of motion event information (path or manner) mentioned in speech and gesture predicts which information is remembered and whether this varies across speakers of typologically different languages. Dutch- and Turkish-speakers watched and described motion events and completed a surprise recognition memory task. For both Dutch- and Turkish-speakers, manner memory was at chance level. Participants who mentioned path in speech during encoding were more accurate at detecting changes to the path in the memory task. The relation between mentioning path in speech and path memory did not vary cross-linguistically. Finally, the co-speech gesture did not predict memory above mentioning path in speech. These findings suggest that how speakers describe a motion event in speech is more important than the typology of the speakers’ native language in predicting motion event memory. The motion event videos are available for download for future research at https://osf.io/p8cas/.

Simultaneous bilingual children sometimes display crosslinguistic influence (CLI), widely attested in the domain of morphosyntax. It remains less clear whether CLI affects bilinguals’ event construal, what motivates its occurrence and directionality, and how developmentally persistent it is. The present study tested predictions generated by the structural overlap hypothesis and the co-activation account in the motion event domain. 96 English–French bilingual children of two age groups and 96 age-matched monolingual English and French controls were asked to describe animated videos displaying voluntary motion events. Semantic encoding in main verbs showed bidirectional CLI. Unidirectional CLI affected French path encoding in the verbal periphery and was predicted by the presence of boundary-crossing, despite the absence of structural overlap. Furthermore, CLI increased developmentally in the French data. It is argued that these findings reflect highly dynamic co-activation patterns sensitive to the requirements of the task and to language-specific challenges in the online production process.

In the context of theories of statistical learning, frequency of encounter is viewed as a major driving force in L2 acquisition. The present paper challenges this position with respect to core components at the level of language competence which relate to language-specific patterns in cognitive construal. Empirical evidence from very advanced L2 speakers (L1 French, L2 English and L2 German) shows that forms and constructions which are highly frequent in the target languages in the expression of motion events are not used in a target-like form by L2 speakers. The study shows how the basis for language use which is not target-like lies at the level of event construal: conceptual frames, which are language-specific and are deeply anchored in the course of L1 acquisition, drive allocation of attention and the extraction of forms in L2 acquisition. Findings in the domain of spatial cognition show that motion event frames based on the L1 take precedence over frequency of occurrence of forms in the target language as a factor in L2 use.

Juggling with structurally and semantically different language systems leads to constructions that differ from the typical patterns in a language. Typical patterns in the domain of motion are characterized by more verbs encoding path in French; and more verbs encoding the manner of motion in German. An increase of manner verbs in French, for instance, can be ascribed to an influence from German. The extent of typical or reversed patterns depends on interrelated factors such as speaker-related idiosyncrasies, language dominance configurations, and – arguably – the degree of language activation. Drawing on data from 154 French–German bilinguals who described motion events in different language modes, this paper combines interrelated questions on the role of language dominance, language mode manipulation and how these factors interact. Quantitative analyses on the use of motion verbs do not show the expected effects. The null results are discussed by comparing preceding studies showing contradictory findings.

The present study compared both linguistic and non-linguistic representations of motion events in Korean–English sequential bilinguals sampled at varying proficiency levels (N = 80) against each other and against those of Korean and English monolinguals (N = 15 each). The bilinguals' L2 descriptions of motion events showed that their encoding patterns were influenced by both the first language (L1) and second language (L2) and also displayed unique behaviors that were not found in either monolingual norm. The non-verbal results on a triads-matching task demonstrated that bilinguals' categorization patterns followed L1-based patterns rather than L2-based patterns. The extent to which these bilinguals employed L2 encoding patterns in their motion event descriptions was largely modulated by L2 proficiency, whereas length of immersion experience in an L2-speaking country emerged as the only predictor of their non-verbal categorization patterns. These findings suggest that the bilinguals' verbal behavior seems more susceptible to change than their non-verbal behavior.

When do the gestures do and do not follow the patterns of the language one speaks? We examined this question by studying 10 Turkish-English bilingual adults (Turkish as L1) in comparison to 10 monolingual English and 10 monolingual Turkish adults as they described motion events either in speech with gesture (co-speech gesture) or only in gesture without speech (silent gesture). All speakers – monolingual and bilingual – showed cross-linguistic differences in co-speech gesture but not in silent gesture. Moreover, bilinguals followed L1 co-speech gesture patterns even when speaking L2, suggesting that acquisition of native-like gesture patterns does not co-occur with the acquisition of native-like speech patterns in bilinguals.

Languages differ in how they encode events. Some languages (e.g., English) encode manner of motion (e.g., hop) in verbs while others (e.g., Spanish) encode the path of motion (e.g., descender-descend) (Talmy, 1985). This study examines verb construal in Japanese bilingual adults (L1-Japanese, L2-English). Maguire, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Imai, Haryu, Vanegas, Okada, Pulverman and Sanchez-Davis (2010) suggest that although Japanese is traditionally considered a path language, manner plays an important role in Japanese verbs. Bilinguals completed two verb construal tasks (one in English; one in Japanese). Results showed that the Japanese bilinguals construed a novel verb as encoding manner for English and chose path for Japanese. This differs from Maguire et al. (2010) who found that Japanese monolinguals construed a novel verb as encoding manner. Bilinguals may find it useful to highlight differences between Japanese and English to keep the two languages distinct. Bilingual verb construal may be influenced by the linguistic typology of bilinguals’ L1 and L2.

Situated within the grammatical aspect approach to motion event cognition, this study takes a first step in investigating language and thought in functional multilinguals by studying L1 isiXhosa speakers living in South Africa. IsiXhosa being a non-aspect language, the study investigates how the knowledge and use of additional languages with grammatical aspect influence cognition of endpoint-oriented motion events among L1 isiXhosa speakers. Results from a triads-matching task show that participants who often used aspect languages and had greater exposure to English in primary education were less prone to rely on endpoints when categorising motion events.

This study investigates L1–L2 convergence among bilinguals at an intermediate (CEFR-B2) level of L2 proficiency, focusing on the clausal packaging of Manner and Path of motion. Previous research has shown cross-linguistic differences between English and Japanese in this domain (Allen et al., 2003; Kita & Özyürek, 2003, though note Brown & Gullberg, 2012). We compared descriptions of motion from monolingual English and Japanese speakers to L1 and L2 descriptions from Japanese users of English as a second (ESL) and foreign (EFL) language. Results showed no significant difference between the monolinguals, who predominately used single-clause constructions packaging Manner and Path. However, bilinguals, both ESL and EFL speakers, used significantly more multi-clause constructions in both their L1 and L2. Following Pavlenko (2011a), findings are interpreted as evidence for L1–L2 convergence. We discuss potential bi-directional cross-linguistic influences underpinning the L1–L2 convergence and implications for the restructuring of bilingual systems.

The finding that speakers of aspect languages encode event endpoints to a lesser extent than do speakers of non-aspect languages has led to the hypothesis that there is a relationship between grammatical aspect and event conceptualization (e.g., von Stutterheim and Nüse, 2003). The present study concerns L1 event conceptualization in 40 L1 Spanish – L2 Swedish bilinguals (all near-native speakers of Swedish). Spanish and Swedish differ as regards grammatical aspect: whereas Swedish lacks this grammatical category, Spanish conveys aspect through verbal morphology and periphrasis. The principal aim of the study was to explore the relationship between productive event conceptualization patterns and receptive decoding proficiency related to aspectual contrasts. The participants were asked to provide oral L1 Spanish descriptions of video clips projecting motion events with different degrees of endpoint orientation (see von Stutterheim, 2003). In addition, they took a grammaticality judgment test concerning verb and gender agreement, verbal clitics and aspectual contrasts. Compared with baseline data from monolingual Spanish speakers, the results on endpoint encoding show that the bilinguals mention the endpoints of motion events to a higher degree than the Spanish control group does. Moreover, it was shown that the weaker the bilinguals' discrimination of aspectual errors on the grammaticality judgment test, the more prone they were to encoding endpoints. This result consequently furthers the hypothesis about the interconnectedness between grammatical aspect and event conceptualization. The results were further interpreted as indicating that the bilinguals are influenced by the Swedish-like tendency to attend to the boundedness rather than the ongoingness of events.