Linguistic and imagistic representations of motion events

Abstract

This study investigates the linguistic and imagistic representations of motion events in Chinese discourse. First, manner is most usually conveyed and in the form of single manner verbs, but information of this type is rarely gestured. Second, speakers also mention path very often by means of manner-path-deictic verbs and prepositional phrases indicating location, source, and goal. Speakers more commonly gesture path in contrast to manner. Similar results can be found in English, showing that the way people gesture motion events does not have to do with linguistic typology. However, in a single gesture, while manner and path can be conveyed simultaneously in Chinese and English, manner-ground gestures are found in Spanish. Such difference suggests various conceptualizations of motion event across different languages. Finally, gesturing the reference object and the moving object, being linguistically represented by nominal phrases, has to do with new information.