Moving into motion events within film-based English and Hebrew narratives:
comparing native with advance learner language
Kupersmitt, Judy
University of Haifa
Abstract
The present study examines the linguistic encoding of motion events in the film-based
narratives written by native speakers of English and Hebrew in each language, compared
to those written in English by advanced language learners with Hebrew as L1. As
formulated by Talmy (1983; 2000), English is a typically ‘satellite-framed’ language,
with manner of motion encoded in the root verb and path indicated by satellites, whereas
Hebrew as ‘verb-framed’ lacks independent particles and typically encodes path of
movement by mono-lexemic verbs. Besides, English and Hebrew differ in grammatical
means to mark aspectual distinctions, since only English marks progressive and perfect
aspect on the verb (e.g., runs, is running, has run, has been running are all translated to
rac ‘run/s’). As recently shown, such differences are expected to affect the way speakers
select linguistic devices to represent motion events including basic aspects such as
trajectory, manner, and temporal framing of movement (Carroll, 2000; Hickmann &
Hendriks, 2006). Such assumptions are tested by analyzing a set of eight subsequent
motion events depicted in one of the scenes of a silent animation film (Quest by Thomas
Stellmacher) about a clay figure searching for water. After being shown the entire film, a
total of 70 written texts were elicited scene by scene in order to facilitate recalling.
Preliminary results show both quantitative and qualitative differences in expression of
motion events in both languages. Overall, from a total of 184 potential mentions in each
language, 104 events were mentioned in L1 English (0.56%), 86 in L1 Hebrew (0.46%),
and only 64 (0.34%) in L2 English. Interestingly, these differences increased when
considering the semantic features of motion events. While three-quarters of the texts in
English (L1 and L2) and Hebrew included motion events encoded by agentive verbs of
directed motion (e.g., he walked off in search of the dripping), non-agentive motion
events were more frequent in L1 English than in Hebrew and L2 English. Hebrew
speaker-writers in both languages preferred to describe non-agentive motion from an endstate perspective, such as describing the clay figure being ‘on the top of a rock’ (e.g.,
lefeta maca acmo al aremat avanim anaqyiot ‘suddenly (he) found himself on a piles of
giant rocks’) rather than being ‘moved or lifted up to the top of a rock’. Qualitative
differences reflected the typological differences between the languages and were most
marked in relation to voluntary motion to a goal. Hebrew speaker-writers in both
languages used verbs denoting the end-state of the movement (e.g., higi’a el maqom
nefilat tipot ha-mayim ‘(he) arrived to the place with falling water-drops’) and/or the end
of the path (e.g., he approached the puddle) whereas their L1 English counterparts
specified manner, path and goal of movement by combining manner verbs with particles
(e.g., he ran over to where the water had collected on the rock). The findings support the
notion of “thinking for speaking” (Slobin, 1987), as extended to “thinking for writing”
(2003, p.166), and are discussed in relation to the narrative task, underscoring the idea of
language-particular rhetorical styles among native and near-native speaker-writers.
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