Christiane von Stutterheim

Referential movement in descriptive and narrative discourse

Publisher Summary The structure of a text is constrained on both global and local levels by the nature of the question that the text in its entirety is produced to answer. These constraints include: (1) the partitioning of the text into main structure and side structures; (2) the filling of various possible domains of reference within each main structure utterance; (3) the assignment of specific meaning components to the topic or to the focus of each main structure utterance; and (4) the referential movement within the domains from one main structure utterance to the next. This chapter describes these notions. A coherent text, produced as an answer to a question, involves a referential movement within various semantic domains—domains of reference—such as persons, place, time, and others. This referential movement is reflected in the use of specific linguistic devices such as, for example, the use of anaphoric elements rather than the use of indefinite noun phrases, and in the choice of a particular word order, intonation contour, etc.

How grammaticized concepts shape event conceptualization in language production: Insights from linguistic analysis, eye tracking data, and memory performance

Abstract The role of grammatical systems in profiling particular conceptual categories is used as a key in exploring questions concerning language specificity during the conceptualization phase in language production. This study focuses on the extent to which crosslinguistic differences in the concepts profiled by grammatical means in the domain of temporality (grammatical aspect) affect event conceptualization and distribution of attention when talking about motion events. The analyses, which cover native speakers of Standard Arabic, Czech, Dutch, English, German, Russian and Spanish, not only involve linguistic evidence, but also data from an eye tracking experiment and a memory test. The findings show that direction of attention to particular parts of motion events varies to some extent with the existence of grammaticized means to express imperfective/progressive aspect. Speakers of languages that do not have grammaticized aspect of this type are more likely to take a holistic view when talking about motion events and attend to as well as refer to endpoints of motion events, in contrast to speakers of aspect languages.

Subjektwahl und Topikkontinuität im Deutschen und Englischen

SummaryCross-linguistic studies of event time structures which include Semitic (Algerian Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic), Germanic (English, German, Dutch, Norwegian), and Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish) reveal language-specific effects in the way events are construed, showing that the underlying principles are both perspective driven and linked to patterns of grammaticisation. In this paper a further syntactic domain will be investigated with respect to its functional implications for information organisation: the grammatical subject.We take a closer look at English and German, which differ with respect to the syntactic properties of the subject category. Using film-renarrations as the data base it can be shown that cross linguistic differences in the realisation of the subject category are systematic at the formal as well as at the functional level. These findings are explained on the basis of differences in information organisation which are driven by grammatical properties of the respective subject category and word order constraints such as V2.Against this background, very advanced learner languages English-German/German-English are analysed, using parallel elicitation methods. It can be shown that although the full range of expressive means are available for the L2 speakers, they have not identified the implications which a syntactic category such as the subject has for information organisation.

Principles of information organization in L2 use: Complex patterns of conceptual transfer

Abstract

Cross-linguistic differences in the conceptualisation of events

The paper reports on a series of empirical studies in which language-specific patterns in the construal of events are investigated. The background of the studies is given by crosslinguistic analyses of the verbalisation of events in film renarrations. The results for English, German, Spanish and Arabic suggest that grammaticised categories are relevant for the strategies which speakers of different languages rely on in verbalising information. These results are confirmed by three studies which approach the question from different aspects. In the first investigation speakers are asked to verbalise a sequence of unrelated events presented on a screen. The hypothesis was that speakers of different languages select different components of the depicted scenes for verbalisation. In the second study the voice onset times for these verbalisations are measured to see whether the different event constructions are reflected in the planning processes of the utterances. In the third study comprehension of sentences referring to events is tested, using a self paced reading experiment. The results of the individual studies converge in showing that the construal of events for verbalisation follows language specific patterns.

HOW TO SOLVE A COMPLEX VERBAL TASK: TEXT STRUCTURE, REFERENTIAL MOVEMENT AND THE QUAESTIO

Speaking und understanding a language, be it the first or second, does not mean knowing its inflectional paradigms or its phrase structure. It means knowing how to transform, upon a given occasion, a complex thought into soundwaves and vice versa. It means being able to solve a more or less complex verbal task, which, in turn, involves many subtasks. And learning a language means learning a particular way in which such tasks are typically solved by a social community. This is not the way in which linguists tend to look at linguistic competence. Over two and a half millenia, a tradition was formed according to which this competence can be segregated into various types of structural components, such as phonology, morphology, syntax, or the lexicon. This is surely not false; after all, solving a complex verbal task such as telling a story, arguing with someone about a rise in salary, or giving directions as to the best way to reach the best restaurant in the neighbourhood, involves all of this structural knowledge. But it should be clear that conventional wisdom, as enshrined in traditional as well as in modern linguistic theory, reflects only one possible perspective on this capacity. As with any particular perspective, it tends to focus on some specific aspects and to ignore others; moreover, it is determined by certain methods which appeal to grammaticality judgments, for instance, and certain analytic processes such as distributional analysis or systemic contrasts between certain morphemes. In this paper, we sketch a somewhat different way of looking at what a speaker must be able to do – we look at how he or she solves a complex verbal task, or more precisely, on how the way in which he or she solves such a task is constrained. This perspective is not incompatible with the conventional view; it just highlights other aspects. We not only believe that it adds another dimension to what is usually done but that it allows a better understanding of what is going on in the process of language acquisition, and second language acquisition in particular. Sections 1-4 are devoted to the general framework; in section 5, it is applied to data from second language learners.

Durch die Grammatik fokussiert

The present crosslinguistic study relates to narratives based on a film retelling task and focuses on the way speakers of German, English, and French proceed at the level of macrostructural planning. The type of information organisation required in carrying out a task of this kind can be described at different levels of analysis. There are questions involving information selection (deciding what to say), thematic continuity (e. g. topic assignment), referential framing, which relates to predicate-argument structures and how they are anchored with respect to times, worlds, and spaces. In order for a sequence of propositions to be coherent, these referential properties have to be related in consistent terms across utterances. The study presents evidence for a hierarchy of factors and associated constraints at the level of macrostructural planning that are both grammatically based and perspective driven.

Introduction: Conceptualizing in a second language

Abstract

Grammaticalized temporal categories, language specificity, and macroplanning in expository texts

Abstract The linguistic knowledge which is brought to bear in carrying out a complex task such as a narrative or route directions has been at the centre of a series of studies on language-specific patterns in the organization of information for expression. Analyses of oral and written texts in German, Standard Arabic, and Russian show different patterns in macro-structural organization and macroplanning that correlate with grammatical features of the respective languages. The findings for expository texts present evidence for a hierarchy of factors in the organization of information that are linked to grammaticalized temporal categories and their role in guiding options in perspective taking and information organization at text level. We assume that inflectional categories function as a scaffold in organizing content for expression since concepts that have paved their way into the grammar of a language will have prominence in language use, given their obligatory status in associated domains of reference. Global planning principles allow the speaker or writer to integrate knowledge from different sources on a systematic basis and thus meet constraints with respect to text coherence without having to solve core issues for each sentence anew.

From time to space: The impact of aspectual categories on the construal of motion events: The case of Tunisian Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic

Abstract Motion events and their linguistic form have been studied extensively over the past decades from a typological as well as a psycholinguistic point of view. While many studies take Talmy’s (1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, vol. 3, 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge: MIT Press) distinction as the starting point of their theoretical considerations, this twofold, lexicon-based typology has since been extended to capture the range of variation which languages display. Although the specifics of motion event conceptualization entail other factors in addition to space and lexical form, there are few studies on the implications of temporal categories. The aim of the present study is to document the role of aspectual categories in the construal of motion events, as observed in Tunisian Arabic (TA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), two closely-related varieties with relevant contrasts in the types of verbal aspectual categories they encode. The analysis is based on descriptions of different types of motion events elicited on the basis of video clips. The findings reveal basic differences in the spatial and temporal categories selected for encoding-differences which are rooted in the respective linguistic systems: while TA, in contrast to MSA, has fewer forms to express directed motion via spatial concepts (path verbs, prepositions), its aspectual system is richer. The comparison indicates how the expression of directed motion in spatial terms in MSA is conveyed via temporal aspect (progression) in TA. In conclusion, the study outlines the case for the inclusion of temporal categories, in particular grammaticalized aspect, in approaches to the typology of motion events.