A typological approach to the encoding of motion events

Wojciech Lewandowski

A typological approach to the encoding of motion events

Wojciech Lewandowski

Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study reports on findings from an elicited narrative task in which native speakers of three genetically different languages, German, Polish, and Spanish, were asked to describe motion scenes from an extract of Chaplin's City Lights. The results show that linguistic typology has an important predictive power as far as narrative style is concerned; however, since typological generalizations usually refer to tendencies rather than sharp divisions between languages, it is crucial to pay attention to the specific resources of a given language available for describing a particular conceptual domain. Specifically, although German and Polish pertain to the same typological group (satellite-framed), as opposed to Spanish (verb-framed), they exploit their predominant lexicalization pattern in a different way, and this has an enormous impact on the narrative style.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	The Construction of Discourse as Verbal Interaction
Editors	María de los Ángeles Gómez González, J. Lachlan Mackenzie
Number of pages	30
Place of Publication	Amsterdam
Publisher	John Benjamins Publishing Company
Publication date	2018
Pages	45-74
ISBN (Print)	9789027201416
ISBN (Electronic)	9789027263568
Publication status	Published - 2018

Series	Pragmatics and Beyond New Series
Volume	296
ISSN	0922-842X

Cite this

A typological approach to the encoding of motion events. / Lewandowski, Wojciech.

The Construction of Discourse as Verbal Interaction. ed. / María de los Ángeles Gómez González; J. Lachlan Mackenzie. Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018. p. 45-74 (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series, Vol. 296).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review

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A typological approach to the encoding of motion events

Abstract

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