Expression of caused motion events by Chinese-English bilinguals: a comparison between L1 speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese

In the study of motion event based on the typology proposed by Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000), languages are typically classified into two main categories based on the locus of the conflated path information. In verb-framed languages (V-framed languages, such as Spanish), the verb usually conflates path information, while manner or cause of motion is optionally expressed in adverbials and gerunds. In satellite-framed languages (S-framed languages, such as English), the verb usually conflates manner or cause of motion, while path information is usually conflated in a verb external element, named as a satellite (e.g. particles or affixes).This current study aims to compare the expression of caused motion event between Cantonese-English and Mandarin-English bilinguals in both their L1 and L2. This study focuses on the comparison of intra-typological or diatopic variation of languages, instead of a traditional comparison between S-framed and V-framed languages. Caused motion event was chosen for several key reasons. Firstly, it is the type of motion that provides maximum contrast between Cantonese and Mandarin (Yiu, 2013), as the former allows the use of single directional verb as full path verb, which is a characteristic of V-framed languages. Secondly, Cantonese allows the combination of three simple directional complements in the formation of compound directional complement. The resulted triple directional complement specifies the movement has a source-returning path where the source and the goal/endpoint of motion are the same. More importantly, there is still limited research focusing on Chinese (e.g. Ji & Hohenstein, 2014) in the domain of motion event, not to mention studies which focus on varieties in Chinese. Therefore, the current study makes a novel attempt by first comparing L1 expressions in caused motion event before examining the potential influence in L2, with reference to expressions by native English speakers.In terms of research methodology, a video elicitation task was employed for the collection of data in the current study. A total of 38 participants were recruited for the current study, which included 14 Cantonese-English bilingual speakers and 14 Mandarin-English bilingual speakers with intermediate to advanced levels of English proficiency. 10 native English speakers were also included as the reference group for the current study. 48 short video clips were produced and used as stimuli for the current study. The video clips covered four directions of movement and they were designed to illustrate the mentioned differences between Cantonese and Mandarin. Furthermore, in line with Paul (2013), the targeted caused motion mainly involved the agent and the object taking a different trajectory (DT), but not the same trajectory (ST) as seen in previous studies. Coding and analysis of the Chinese and English verbal data were based on the framework by Ji & Hohenstein (2014), with slight revisions in order to better address the research goals for the current study.Results of the current study indicated some major differences between Cantonese and Mandarin in the expression of caused motion events. In addition, intricate differences in L2 expression across both bilingual groups were also found, especially in the expression of source-returning movement. The path-salient features of Cantonese were found in the L1 data but only relatively small influence could be observed in the L2 data. Last but not least, the results also showed that although both bilingual groups could acquire and use the target lexicalization pattern in English flexibly without too much difficulty, the divergence between the bilingual groups and the native English group could be found in various dimensions, such as the expressed event granularity level. Therefore, the current study provides further support to the importance of research on languages based on intra-typological or diatopic variation in L2 motion event expression. More research on this area could also contribute to a better understanding of the developmental trends and factors that are crucial to second language acquisition.在位移事件表達的研究當中，Talmy(1985,1991,2000)所提出的語言分類方式是現今最廣為人了解及參考的框架之一。在這套框架中，語言可因應路徑的(path)表達的方式而被納入不同分類。如果路徑是由動詞表達，該類語言稱為動詞框架語言，例如西班牙語。若路徑是由衛星所表達該類語言則稱為衛星框架語言，例如英語。在動詞框架語言中，位移事件的表達方式(manner)或原因(cause)可以用狀語或動名詞表達。而在衛星框架語言中，位移事件的表達方式(manner)或原因(cause)多於動詞中表達。研究以致移事件作為中心的原因，是因在不同類形的位移事件中，只有致移事件的表達最能反映廣東話及普通話之間的區別(姚玉敏,2013)。其一，普通話只能使用伴隨動詞及趨向補語的組合表達致移事件，是一種具衛星框架特性的表現。反之，廣東話除了能利用同樣的衛星框架表達，它亦能利用趨向動詞表達致移事件中的路徑，是一種運用了動詞框架的表達方式。另一方面，在複合方向補語的構成中，廣東話能夠使用最多三種的簡單方向補語組合組成三重複合方向補語，用作表達路徑的起點及終點均為同一地點的位移事件。同樣地，此類複合方向補語亦未能於普通話中使用。建基於此兩原因，本論文的研究要旨為比較廣東話-英語以及普通話-英語雙語者中在表達致移事件中的不同，尤其於第二語言英語中的表達差異。有別於傳統的動詞框架語言及衛星框架語言比較研究，本研究能立足於廣東話及普通話作為同源語言但具地域差異之基礎上對致移事件作出研究，以彌補現今研究上的不足。在研究方法上，本研究運用影片描述實驗收集所有參加者的口述資料。實驗一共招募了38位參加者，分別為14位廣東話-英語雙語者14位普通話-英語雙語者，以及10位英語為母語的參加者。實驗中使用了48段短片作為主要刺激材料，而短片是利用了上述有關廣東話及普通話之差別作為設計基礎。另外，本實驗亦因應Paul(2013)的建議而集中展示主語及受事賓語動作路徑不同的致移事件，用以與其他研究作比較。研究的分析分法則參考了Ji&Hohenstein(2014)並因應此實驗的研究目的及性質作出了部份的改動及添加。研究結果顯示，廣東話及普通話對致移事件表達有明顯的分別而此分別亦對雙語者在英語上的表達有所影響，當中廣東話在三重複合方向補語的路徑表達對雙語者在使用英語表達同等類型的路徑時之影響較大，而動詞框架表達方式之影響則較為輕微。另外，英語為母語的參加者亦顯示了他們與雙語者在致移事件中表達的不同，由以對事件描述的精細程度最為明顯。故此，本研究認為此方面有關相近或同源語言對雙語者之影響實為有助加深我們對第二語言習得之了解，而位移事件之研究則為一個良好的出發點。Yau, Siu Ho."December 2020."M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2021.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 252-265).Abstracts also in Chinese; appendix 4b includes Chinese.Title from PDF title page (viewed on July 8, 2022)