L1 and L2 conceptualization and expression of motion events: the case of Korean and Russian
Hakyung Jung (Professor, Department of Russian, Seoul National University, Korea)
Hyug Ahn (Associate Professor, Department of Russian, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea)
Jacee Cho (Associate Professor, Department of English and Language Sciences, UW-Madison)
Abstract
Languages across the world differ with respect to conceptualization and expression of motion. For example, the event of a dog running into a house would be described differently by speakers of different languages (e.g., “The dog ran into the house” in English; “The dog entered the house” in Spanish; “The dog went in the house running” in Korean; “The dog into-ran in the house” in Russian). Such language-specific lexicalization patterns arguably influence how speakers think about and express reality and may be transferred across languages (Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008). In this talk, we will discuss our recent study examining how motion events are described in Korean and Russian by L1 versus L2 speakers.
