Cognition 98 (3):75-87 (2006)
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Abstract |
How do we talk about events we perceive? And how tight is the connection between linguistic and non-linguistic representations of events? To address these questions, we experimentally compared motion descriptions produced by children and adults in two typologically distinct languages, Greek and English. Our findings confirm a well-known asymmetry between the two languages, such that English speakers are overall more likely to include manner of motion information than Greek speakers. However, mention of manner of motion in Greek speakers' descriptions increases significantly when manner is not inferable; by contrast, inferability of manner has no measurable effect on motion descriptions in English, where manner is already preferentially encoded. These results show that speakers actively monitor aspects of event structure, which do not find their way into linguistic descriptions. We conclude that, in regard to the differential encoding of path and manner, which has sometimes been offered as a prime example of the effects of language encoding on non-linguistic thought, surface linguistic encoding neither faithfully represents nor strongly constrains our mental representation of events
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DOI | 10.1016/j.cognition.2005.05.005 |
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References found in this work BETA
From “Thought and Language” to “Thinking for Speaking”.Dan I. Slobin - 1996 - In J. Gumperz & S. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge University Press. pp. 70--96.
Learning to Express Motion Events in English and Korean : The Influence of Language Specific Lexicalization Patterns.Soonja Choi & Melissa Bowerman - 1992 - In Beth Levin & Steven Pinker (eds.), Lexical & Conceptual Semantics. Blackwell. pp. 83-121.
Language and Thought.Lila Gleitman & Anna Papafragou - 2005 - In K. Holyoak & B. Morrison (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. Cambridge University Press. pp. 633--661.
Shake, Rattle, 'N' Roll: The Representation of Motion in Language and Cognition.Anna Papafragou - 2002 - Cognition 84 (2):189-219.
View all 6 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Does Language Guide Event Perception? Evidence From Eye Movements.Anna Papafragou, Justin Hulbert & John Trueswell - 2008 - Cognition 108 (1):155.
When We Think About Thinking: The Acquisition of Belief Verbs.Anna Papafragou - 2007 - Cognition 105 (1):125.
Containment and Support: Core and Complexity in Spatial Language Learning.Barbara Landau, Kristen Johannes, Dimitrios Skordos & Anna Papafragou - 2017 - Cognitive Science 41 (S4):748-779.
The Cross-Linguistic Categorization of Everyday Events: A Study of Cutting and Breaking.Asifa Majid, James S. Boster & Melissa Bowerman - 2008 - Cognition 109 (2):235-250.
A Developmental Shift From Similar to Language-Specific Strategies in Verb Acquisition: A Comparison of English, Spanish, and Japanese.Mandy J. Maguire, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Mutsumi Imai, Etsuko Haryu, Sandra Vanegas, Hiroyuki Okada, Rachel Pulverman & Brenda Sanchez-Davis - 2010 - Cognition 114 (3):299-319.
View all 13 citations / Add more citations
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