A Study Of Conceptual Transfer On Motion Events Of Chinese Learners Of English

Conceptual transfer hypothesis(Jarvis,2007)holds that learners ' language use reflects the concepts and conceptual patterns of the acquired language.And the concepts and conceptual patterns acquired by learners influence all languages that are used by learners.Conceptual transfer research is about how thought influences language.In other words,it is about how the concepts of one language acquired by learners influence the usage of another language(Jarvis,2015).Conceptual transfer includes eight domains,of which the domain of motion is about speakers' different expressions on the process and results of motion,that is,about the salience of manner and path.Talmy(2000)classified languages into two classes:satellite-framed language and verb-framed language.For the satellite-framed language,the path of motion events is expressed by verbs,while for the verb-framed language,particles and prepositions etc are used.Later,Slobin(2004)revised Talmy's typology by adding a new language class,equipollently-framed language,in which the manner and path of motion events are expressed by the same grammatical forms.Speakers from different language classes have different salience of manner and path,as is shown by different expressions of motion events.The present research employs the domain of motion as the main research contents,aiming at examining whether Chinese learners of English(CLEs)are influenced by Chinese in the process of expressing motion events in English on the aspects of manner and path.20 intermediate CLEs,20 advanced CLEs,20 Chinese monolinguals(CMs)and 10 English monolinguals(EMs)were investigated in the present research.Both a verbal task and a nonverbal task were employed to explore the following research questions:1.Do CLEs differ from EMs on the verbal expressions of motion events? If so,what difference exists?2.Do CLEs differ from EMs and CMs in the nonverbal tasks of motion events?If so,what difference exists?3.Does English proficiency play a role in both verbal and nonverbaltasks? If so,what is the role of English proficiency?The research findings are summarized as follows.1.The expressions on motion events of the CLEs are different from those of the EMs as a result of the conceptual transfer.The EMs use more manner verbs to express motion events,and they can use some advanced manner words with more details.However,the CLEs use fewer manner verbs than the EMs,as well as more path verbs in their expression than the EMs.2.The salience of manner and path between the CMs and the EMs is different.The salience of manner and path of the CMs is nearly the same,while the EMs pay more attention to manner.The salience of manner and path of the CLEs is different from the CMs and the EMs.But the CLEs have similar salience to the EMs.3.Wit h the development of English proficiency,the expressions of the CLEs are more similar to those of the EMs.With the development of English proficiency,the salience of manner and path of the CLEs is significantly different from the CMs.Although the advanced CLEs salience of manner and path is more similar to that of the EMs,they are still influenced by Chinese conceptual transfer.