Some Discussions on Static and Dynamic Spatial Expressions in Czech and Chinese
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Some Discussions on Static and Dynamic Spatial Expressions in Czech and Chinese melissa Shih-hui Lin ABSTRACT: This study aims to present acomprehensive overview on Taiwanese Chinese-speaking students’ acquisition of static and dynamic spatial expressions in the Czech language, and to investigate the transfer and interference from their L1. It is assumed that this study can not only present and compare how these two languages express the spatial expressions, but also propose how to solve obstacles in L2 acquisition. This study will apply not only aqualitative but also aquantitative contrastive study of spatial expressions in Czech and Chinese, in an attempt to find out all the related patterns developed. This requires empirical analysis of some databases of authentic texts, mainly the error evidence provided during SLA. With the benefit of this insight, i.e. the typical error patterns found in learners’ interlanguage, amore complete interpretation of the semantic concepts in the target languages is to be concluded. KEY WORDS: spatial expressions, second-language acquisition, Czech, Chinese 1. INTRODUCTION Languages differ in their structuring of the spatial world (Talmy, 2000). According to Levinson (2003, p.690), different languages have different ways of expressing spatial relations, i.e. of explaining and describing where an object is, or explaining the spatial characteristics of such an object. For the spatial expressions in languages, there are many systematic schemas related, whilst the languages have different schemas which seldom match each other completely. According to Lyons (1977, p.694), space is used to identify location, or positional/static relation. Moreover, space may determine not only location, but also locomotion, or directional/dynamic relation. It is not easy to specify spatial expressions clearly in one language, because it is necessary to apply different dimensions. As aresult, spatial expressions in second-language acquisition (SLA) normally become one of the main obstacles for language learners. Through the process of SLA, some conceptual categories of L1 and L2 match completely, but some conceptual categories are only partially consistent, or even totally different. The first step in learning aL2 is to understand the degree of consistency of these concepts and the conceptual relations (Clark, 2005, p.461). On the other hand, the understanding and comparison of the differences between the conceptual categories in L1 and L2 can help SLA, and at the same time also highlights linguistic typological differences between these two languages. Therefore, it is assumed that the contrastive analysis in this study can not only present and compare the spatial expressions in OPEN ACCESS
72 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY Czech and Chinese, but also describe the similarities and dissimilarities between L1 and L2. In the following, Iwill first illustrate the definition of spatial expressions and demonstrate the schemas applied in this study. Second, the methodology adopted in this study will be introduced. Third, Iwill focus on and examine the Chinese-speaking Taiwanese students’ acquisition of Czech as L2, in order to understand the strength of the influence of L1 preferences for the spatial expressions on the acquisition of Czech as their second language, and will summarize the language data collected, especially the error patterns in their L2. Lastly, the conclusion will be presented. 2. SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS “What sets humans apart from other species is our ability to express spatial experience through language(s)” (Landau & Jackendoff, 1993, p.217). According to Landau & Gleitman (1985), spatial expressions refer to the encoding of the geometric properties of objects in the world and their spatial relationships. See Figure 1. In Figure 1, the external input of spatial information can be taken as information from vision, audition and the haptic system, which then provides information to the motor system and language. Furthermore, language of space will concern those words and simple phrases that encode the spatial expressions, which include objects, places and their relations. As Herzog (1995, p.2) indicates, “natural language provides agreat variety of expressions referring to space.” There are many related systematic patterns of spatial expressions in languages. In English, there are 151 spatial senses expressed by 78 prepositions (Litkowski & Hargraves, 2006). In Chinese, there are supposed to be 15 locative particles used for spatial expressions (Li & Thompson, 1981). In German, several lexical categories like nouns, adverbs, adjectives and verbs contribute to such expressions, but prepositions in their spatial use are likely to be the most important means for conveying spatial information (Wunderlich & Herweg, 1991). Furthermore, as mentioned in the first section, space is used not only to identify the location, or static relation, but also locomotion, or dynamic relation (Lyons, 1977, p.694). Astatic relationship refers to the relationship between the entity to be located and the reference object(s), and adynamic relationship is presented through the specification of the source, the goal, or the path of adirectional motion (Herzog, 1995, p.6). There are already abundant typological studies focused on the static and dynamic expressions across languages. One of them is Talmy’s cognitive-semantic Figure–Move–Path–Ground dynamic characterization (Talmy, 1975, 1983, 1985, 2000). According to Talmy, there are four internal components of adynamic/motion event, which are Figure, Move, Path and Ground. The Figure and Ground belong to aconceptual pair: “The Figure is amoving or conceptually movable object whose path or site is at issue. The Ground is areference frame, or areference object stationary within areference frame, with respect to which the Figure’s path or site is characterized” (Talmy, 2000, p.185). Based on Path, Talmy further proposed his viewpoints on language typology. Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000) proposed verb-framed languages (V-languages) and satellite-framed languages (S-languages). He tried to OPEN ACCESS
mELISSA SHIH-HUI LIN 73 categorize languages based on their expressions of motion events. The formulations of V-languages and S-languages are shown in the following: V-language: Path Verb + Manner Adverb S-language: Path satellite + Manner Verb V-languages express Path of motion events mainly with independent verbs. Spanish, French, Turkish and Italian, for example, belong to V-languages. S-languages express Path with satellite elements, such as affixes or prepositional phrases. English, Russian, Czech and German belong to S-languages. Originally, Talmy classified Chinese as an S-language, however this argument was challenged many times (Tai, 2003; Lamarre, 2003). Slobin (2004, p.219) later proposed athird language type based on Talmy’s proposal, which is equipollently framed languages, including serial verb languages and macro-event languages. Their formulations are shown below: Serial verb language: Path Verb + Manner Verb Macro-event language: [Path Affix + Manner Affix] Verb According to Slobin, Chinese belongs to serial verb languages, which express the path of motion events with the serial verbal constructions (ibid., p.228; Huang & Tanangkingsing, 2005; Chui, 2009). In the following, Iam going to present the spatial expressions in Chinese and in Czech, and then, through the error analysis of the data collected, to investigate the typological differences between these two languages. 3. SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS IN CHINESE AND CZECH 3.1 SPATIAL EXPrESSIONS IN cHINESE In Chinese, spatial expressions can be classified into the static specification, which can be exemplified by zai…li ‘in’, or zai…shang ‘on’, and the dynamic specification, which can be exemplified by wong…shang ‘going upward’ or wong…qian ‘going Linguistic representation Spatial representation Auditory information Haptic information Visual information Motor information Figure 1:Spatial representation (adapted from Landau & Jackendoff, 1993, p.218). OPEN ACCESS
74 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY forward’. In other words, Chinese uses apreposition, such as zai ‘to be located’, along with alocalizer, such as li ‘in; interior’ and shang ‘on; up’, to express spatial static relations. For the dynamic relations, verbal elements are applied in Chinese, such as the predicate wong ‘toward’, which is also regarded as apath preposition, and the localizers shang ‘above’ and qian ‘front’. The localizers in Chinese are used to denote the source, path, goal and the place where the trajectory is located. For example, the localizer li ‘in; interior’ is used to denote the interior of the landmark, and shang ‘on; up’ is used to denote the surface of the landmark (Miao, 2017, p.22). Let us take the situation in Figure 2 as an example. When Figure 2 refers to astatic expression, it might be described in Chinese as shown in (1). (1) zai zhuozi shang (mian) at table on; up (surface) ‘to be on [the] table’ When Figure 2 presents adynamic expression, it might be described in Chinese as shown in (2). (2) fang dao zhuozi shang (qu) put to table on; up (go) ‘put (it) to the above of table’ In the examples (1) and (2), the spatial relationships are expressed through asystem of adpositions, such as the combination of zai ‘at; to be located’ or dao ‘to’ with alocalizer or locative particles, such as shang ‘on; up’, mian ‘surface’ or qu ‘go’, to attribute afocal object. These adpositions are frequently used to represent time, space, boundaries and/or conditions of an ongoing action or status (Liu et al., 1996, p.280). In other words, Chinese applies adouble system of spatial expression: alimited system of locative prepositions is used in combination with localizers to express the spatial static relationships. For the dynamic relationships, path prepositions are used Figure 2:An example of static and dynamic expressions. OPEN ACCESS
mELISSA SHIH-HUI LIN 75 in combination with either locative particles or localizers. According to Liu (2008, p.42), “Chinese as awhole is a‘caseless’ language. All the meanings and functions indicated by the means of morphological cases in other languages are expressed in this language by analytical means or simply left unmarked. This caseless state also holds true in spatial category.” 3.2 SPATIAL EXPrESSIONS IN cZEcH According to Čermák (1996, 2010), one of the meanings expressed by Czech prepositions is spatial specification, which is consistent with the argument proposed by Oravec (1968) that prepositions have asignificant spatial meaning. Čermák (1996) also points out that the correlation of the prepositional and case systems can imply various meanings, and one of them refers to the spatial specification. As mentioned in other grammatical references, such as Příruční mluvnice češtiny (2003, pp.342–345) and Mluvnice současné češtiny (2010, pp.283–288), Czech prepositions are generally classified based on their connection to the case system. Namely the directional/dynamic meaning can be expressed by prepositions associated with the genitive, dative and accusative cases of the head noun, and the local/static meaning can be expressed by prepositions with locative and instrumental cases. Furthermore, Hirschová (2007, p.191) points out that the specification of spatial relations in Czech is mostly distributed over the whole sentence, not only within the prepositional phrases. Verbal affixes and related prepositions are utilized, plus the case system of the head noun. Let us take the same situation shown in Figure 2 as an example. When Figure 2 refers to astatic expression, it might be described in Czech as shown in (3). (3) Byl na stole. be.3PERS,SG,PAST on table.SG,LOC ‘(It) was on (the) table.’ When Figure 2 refers to adynamic expression, it might be described in Czech as shown in (4). (4) Položila to na stůl. put.3PERS,SG,PAST at table.SG,ACC ‘(She) put it on (the) table.’ In the example (3), the static expression is presented by the preposition na ‘on’ associated with the locative case of the head noun stůl ‘table’. The dynamic expression in the example (4) is distributed over the verbal prefix poof položila ‘put’ and the related prepositional phrase, which utilizes the preposition na ‘to; onto’ with the accusative case of the head noun stůl ‘table’. In Czech, both positional and directional spatial relations can be expressed by prepositional phrases. Furthermore, the description of spatial relations can be seen as multi-dimensional since the semantics of lexical items depending on prepositions OPEN ACCESS
76 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY as well as the semantics of verbs modified by affixes represent an important semantic contribution to the spatial description. To sum up, spatial relations in Czech and Chinese are expressed in aquite different way. Both positional and directional spatial relations in Czech can be identified by prepositional phrases and further associated with verbal affixes. However, in Chinese they can be expressed either by locative particles or localizers, or by the co-occurrence of spatial prepositions. In the following section, the data collected in this study will be presented and investigated. 4. DATA COLLECTION The informants in this study are Taiwanese Chinese-speaking students who have been learning the Czech language for at least one year and the majority is at aprimary intermediate level or higher; on average, they have 6–8 hours of Czech courses per week. For detailed information about the informants, please see Table 1. Years of learning Czech One year Two years Three years Total Number of informants 12 19 12 43 Table 1:Summary of informant background. The total number of informants in this study is 43, with 12 of them having studied Czech for one year, 19 for two years and 12 for three years. The data were collected using aseries of pictures (see Figure 3), and avideo (see Figure 4). The informants were asked to describe the event(s) displayed in the pictures and the video in awritten description in Czech. The data has uncovered inappropriate usage as well as successfully acquired usage involving spatial expression in Czech. In the following, the data will be presented and then investigated. Furthermore, the failure of the Chinese learners of Czech to understand the spatial semantic usage in Czech will be discussed. 4.1 DATA SOUrcE I The first data source includes six pictures. The first row in Figure 3 contains three pictures which emphasize the Goal of the event, while the pictures in the second row emphasize the Source, according to Lakusta, Spinelli & Garcia (2017, p.177). The process of data collection was carried out as follows. First, Ishowed the pictures in Figure 3 to native Czechs and also Taiwanese to collect their description of the pictures in their L1. Three native Czechs and three Taiwanese participated in this part. The collected data is in written form only. Then, Ishowed the same pictures to the Taiwanese students who are learning Czech at university. After being shown the pictures, each student had 20 minutes to write down their description of the pictures in Czech. The data will be profiled and shown in the following section. OPEN ACCESS
mELISSA SHIH-HUI LIN 77 4.2 DATA SOUrcE II The second data source was a7-minute video shown to the informants (see Figure 4). The video was muted and shown without any subtitles. It is ashort clip of abee which intends to fly into avending machine through atiny coin slot. Iregard it as asimple motion event with an emphasis on the Path. The process of data collection starts from showing this video to the Czech natives and then to the Taiwanese students. After they had watched the video twice, Iasked them to write down where the bee is and what the bee is doing in their L1. Again, Ishowed the same video to the Taiwanese university students who are learning Czech (also twice), and each of them had 40minutes to write down their description of the video in Czech. The language data will be profiled and investigated in the next section. Figure 3:Goal and Source expressions of events (Lakusta, Spinelli & Garcia, 2017, p.177). Figure 4:Video of Pluto— Bubble Bee (Disney, 2015). OPEN ACCESS
78 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 5. DISCUSSION 5.1 DIScUSSION bASED ON THE FIrST DATA SOUrcE Ihave profiled the data based on the first source into Table 2. Each row refers to how the informants describe the picture(s) they see. It is necessary to note that it is possible to have avariety of descriptions for the pictures, since the viewpoints of the informants can be very subjective. Data source In Chinese In Czech Goal (5) wang xiang-zi zou qu. (6) zou jin xiang-zi (li). (7) Leze do krabice. (8) Vlezla do krabice. (9) wang wan li zou qu. (10) zou jin wan li. (11) Jde kmisce. (12) Šla kmisce. (13) wang wan li fei jin qu. (14) fei jin wan li. (15) Vlétává do misky. (16) Vlétávalo do misky. (17) Vletělo do misky. (18) Vlezla do misky. Source (19) cong xiang-zi zou chu lai. (20) zou chu xiang-zi (li). (21) Vylézá zkrabice. (22) Vylézávala zkrabice. (23) Vylezla zkrabice. (24) cong wan li zou chu lai. (25) zou chu wan li. (26) Vylézává zkrabice. (27) Vylézávala zkrabice. (28) Vylézá zkrabice. (29) Vylezla zkrabice. (30) cong wan li fei chu lai. (31) fei chu wan li. (32) Vyletává. (33) Vylétáválo. (34) Letí zkrabice. (35) Vyletělo zkrabice. Table 2:Data collected based on Figure 3. OPEN ACCESS
mELISSA SHIH-HUI LIN 79 Based on the data from the Taiwanese natives in Table 2, there appear to be at least two common types of formulations to describe the dynamic relations shown in the pictures. The first type is shown in the example (5), and the other one is shown in (6). (5) wang xiang-zi zou qu. to; toward box walk go ‘(It) walks toward to (the) box.’ (6) zou jin xiang-zi (li). walk enter box in; interior ‘(It) walks into (the) box.’ First, Iwould like to discuss the first type, shown in the examples (5), (9), (13) and (19), (24), (30). The dynamic relations in these examples are expressed within the verbal elements, including aco-event verb and apredicate/path verb, along with aprepositional phrase, which modifies the direction of the motion event. For example, in the example (5), zou ‘walk’ is the co-event verb, and qu ‘go’ is the path verb. The preposition wang ‘to; toward’ specifies the directional relationship with the object xiang-zi ‘box’. The same formulations appeared in the following examples, too. (9) wang wan li zou qu. to; toward bowl in; interior walk go ‘(It) walks toward (the) bowl.’ (13) wang wan li fei jin qu. to; toward bowl in; interior fly enter go ‘(It) flies into (the) bowl.’ (19) cong xiang-zi zou chu lai. from box walk exit come ‘(It) walks out of (the) box.’ (24) cong wan li zou chu lai. from bowl in; interior walk exit come ‘(It) walks from (the) bowl.’ (30) cong wan li fei chu lai. from bowl in; interior fly exit come ‘(It) flies from (the) bowl.’ The fei jin ‘fly enter’ in (13), zou chu ‘walk exit’ in (19) and (24), fei chu ‘fly exit’ in (30) all correspond to the formulation [Co-event verb + Path verb]. The path verbs or predicates jin ‘enter’ and chu ‘exit’ are applied to indicate the path of the motion, which exactly corresponds to Slobin’s typology, in which Chinese belongs to serial verb languages. However, the expression of such motion events in Chinese is more complex. OPEN ACCESS
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