| Motion event,one of the most fundamental events in human cognition,has long been a key issue in cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition.Studies on second language acquisition of motion event mainly focus on voluntary motion events,and fewer studies concentrate on caused motion events.In terms of task types,researchers mainly depend on verbal tasks and few scholars use non-verbal tasks to explore the spatial motion event cognition.Taking this into account,the present study uses non-verbal tasks to investigate Chinese EFL learners’ spatial cognition of caused motion events.More specifically,it explores the following two research questions:(1)what are the differences between Chinese EFL learners and Chinese monolinguals in the judgments of motion events?(2)Does English proficiency have any impact upon Chinese EFL learners’ spatial cognition of motion events?Based on Talmy’s motion event typological framework and Slobin’s “Thinking for Speaking” hypothesis,the present study adopted a mixed research design to investigate 90participants’ cognition of caused motion events in the motion event similarity judgment task,including Chinese monolinguals,Low and Advanced Chinese EFL learners.By the analysis of the participants’ preferences and reaction time in the motion event similarity judgment task,the main findings are as follows:(1)in terms of the overt preferences,all participants are significantly inclined to path-matches(rather than manner-matches)in the judgment of motion events.However,on the implicit reaction time,Chinese EFL learners are more effective than Chinese monolinguals,indicative of the Chinese typological effect(i.e.,Equipollently-framed language).(2)The higher their English proficiency is,the less the number of path-matches is,and the faster their response is.This suggests that English learning has an impact upon Chinese learners’ spatial cognition of motion events.The implications of this study are twofold: theoretically,it lends support to Slobin’s“thinking for speaking” hypothesis and sheds light on the relationship between language and thinking.It shows that second language learning affects Chinese EFL learners’ cognition to some extent.Pedagogically,it discusses the influence of typological differences and proposes that the similarities and differences between languages should be fully considered in teaching,and the teaching should be carried out according to Chinese EFL learners’ English proficiency. |
