Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T09:02:46.325Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Cognitive shift in the bilingual mind: Spatial concepts in Korean–English bilinguals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2013

HAE IN PARK*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
NICOLE ZIEGLER
Affiliation:
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
*
Address for correspondence: Hae In (Lauren) Park, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, Poulton Hall 239, 1437 37th Street NW, Washington, DC 20057-1051, USAhp78@georgetown.edu

Abstract

Recent research shows that speakers with different first languages perceive various cognitive domains in different ways and that bilinguals’ conceptualization patterns are affected by the concepts of both languages. The present study extends Choi and Bowerman (1991) by examining the categorizations of spatial concepts in adult Korean–English bilinguals. Using similarity judgments, the study compares the conceptualization patterns of “put in” and “put on” by Korean–English bilinguals and Korean and English monolinguals. Results indicated significant differences between the monolingual and bilingual groups, demonstrating the process of convergence of the two languages in the bilingual mind. Regression analyses also revealed that bilinguals’ conceptualizations are largely influenced by English proficiency and frequency of Korean use. These findings provide evidence of conceptual restructuring, supporting the claim of previous research that bilinguals’ conceptualization patterns are susceptible to their language experience.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This study was first developed in Cristina Sanz's Bilingualism and Cognition seminar at Georgetown University, and presented at SLRF 2011 (Iowa State University, October 2011). The authors would like to thank Cristina Sanz and Yunkyoung Kang for their insightful comments and guidance on an earlier version of this paper. We would also like to thank reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. However, any remaining errors are exclusively the responsibility of the authors.

References

Ameel, E., Malt, B. C., Storms, G., & Van Assche, F. (2009). Semantic convergence in the bilingual lexicon. Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 270290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Athanasopoulos, P. (2006). Effects of the grammatical representation of number on cognition in bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 8996.Google Scholar
Athanasopoulos, P. (2007). Interaction between grammatical categories and cognition in bilinguals: The role of proficiency, cultural immersion, and language of instruction. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 689699.Google Scholar
Athanasopoulos, P. (2009). Cognitive representation of color in bilinguals: The case of Greek Blues. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 8395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Athanasopoulos, P. (2011). Cognitive restructuring in bilingualism. In Pavlenko (ed.), pp. 29–65.Google Scholar
Athanasopoulos, P., Damjanovic, L., Krajciova, A., & Sasaki, M. (2011). Representation of colour concepts in bilingual cognition: The case of Japanese blues. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 917.Google Scholar
Athanasopoulos, P., & Kasai, C. (2008). Language and thoughts in bilinguals: The case of grammatical number and nonverbal classification preferences. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29, 105121.Google Scholar
Bassetti, B., & Cook, V. J. (2011). Relating language and cognition: The second language user. In Cook, V. J. & Bassetti, B. (eds.), Language and bilingual cognition, pp. 143190. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2006). Effect of bilingualism and computer video game experience on the Simon task. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 6879.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Ruocco, A. C. (2006). Dual-modality monitoring in a classification task: The effects of bilingualism and ageing. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 19681983.Google Scholar
Bloom, P., Peterson, M., Nadel, L., & Garrett, M. (eds.) (1996). Language and space. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought? English and Mandarin speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43, 122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bowerman, M. (1996). Learning how to structure space for language: A crosslinguistic perspective. In Bloom et al. (eds.), pp. 385–436.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2001). Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language-specific in the acquisition of spatial semantic categories. In Bowerman & Levinson (eds.), pp. 475–511.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2003). Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition. In Gentner & Goldin-Meadow (eds.), pp. 387–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowerman, M., & Levinson, S. C. (eds.) (2001). Language acquisition and conceptual development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, A., & Gullberg, M. (2011). Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in event conceptualization? Expressions of Path among Japanese learners of English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 7994.Google Scholar
Brown, A., & Gullberg, M. (2013). L1–L2 convergence in clausal packaging in Japanese and English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bylund, E., & Jarvis, S. (2011). L2 effects on L1 event conceptualization. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 4759.Google Scholar
Choi, S. (2006). Influence of language-specific input on spatial cognition: Categories of containment. First Language, 26, 207232.Google Scholar
Choi, S., & Bowerman, M. (1991). Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: The influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns. Cognition, 41, 83121.Google Scholar
Choi, S., & Hattrup, K. (2012). Relative contribution of cognition/perception and language on spatial categorization. Cognitive Science, 36, 102129.Google Scholar
Choi, S., McDonough, L., Bowerman, M., & Mandler, J. M. (1999). Early sensitivity to language-specific spatial categories in English and Korean. Cognitive Development, 14, 241268.Google Scholar
Cook, V. J., Bassetti, B., Kasai, C., Sasaki, M., & Takahashi, J. (2006). Do bilinguals have different concepts? The case of shape and material in Japanese L2 users of English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 10, 137152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidoff, J., Davies, I., & Roberson, D. (1999). Color categories in a stone-age tribe. Nature, 398, 203204.Google Scholar
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Gentner, D., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (eds.) (2003). Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hohenstein, J., Eisenberg, A., & Naigles, L. (2006). Is he floating across or crossing afloat? Cross-influence of L1 and L2 in Spanish–English bilingual adults. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 249261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imai, M., & Gentner, D. (1997). A cross-linguistic study of early word meaning: Universal ontology and linguistic influence. Cognition, 62, 169200.Google Scholar
Imai, M., & Mazuka, R. (2003). Re-evaluating linguistic relativity: Language-specific categories and the role of universal ontological knowledge in the construal of identification. In Gentner & Goldin-Meadow (eds.), pp. 429–464.Google Scholar
Jameson, K. A., & Alvarado, N. (2003). Differences in color naming and color salience in Vietnamese and English. COLOR Research and Application, 28, 113138.Google Scholar
Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A. (2008). Cross-linguistic influence in language and cognition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux's question: Cross-linguistic evidence. In Bloom et al. (eds.), 109–169.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2001). Covariation between spatial language and cognition, and its implications for language learning. In Bowerman & Levinson (eds.), pp. 566–588.Google Scholar
Lucy, J. (1992). Grammatical categories and cognition: A case study of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lucy, J., & Gaskins, S. (2001). Grammatical categories and the development of classification preferences: A comparative approach. In Bowerman & Levinson (eds.), pp. 257–283.Google Scholar
Lucy, J., & Gaskins, S. (2003). Interaction of language type and referent type in the development of nonverbal classification preferences. In Gentner & Goldin-Meadow (eds.), pp. 465492.Google Scholar
Majid, A., Bowerman, M., Kita, S., Haun, D. B. M., & Levinson, S. C. (2004). Can language restructure cognition? The case for space. Trends in Cognitive Science, 8, 108114.Google Scholar
Malt, B., Sloman, S., Gennari, S., Shi, M., & Wang, Y. (1999). Knowing versus naming: Similarity and the linguistic categorization of artifacts. Journal of Memory and Language, 40, 230262.Google Scholar
Mandler, J. M. (1992). How to build a baby: Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review, 99, 587604.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDonough, L., Choi, S., & Mandler, J. M. (2003). Understanding spatial relations: Flexible infants, lexical adults. Cognitive Psychology, 46, 229259.Google Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (2010). Age of onset in successive acquisition of bilingualism: Effects on grammatical development. Kail, In M. & Hickman, M. (eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems, pp. 225247. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Papafragou, A., Massey, C., & Gleitman, L. (2002). Shake, rattle, ’n’ roll: The representation of motion in language and cognition. Cognition, 84, 189219.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2005). Bilingualism and thought. In Kroll, J. F. & Groot, A. M. B. de (eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches, pp. 433453. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2011a). Thinking and speaking in two languages: Overview of the field. In Pavlenko (ed.), pp. 237–262.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (ed.) (2011b). Thinking and speaking in two languages. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A., & Malt, B. (2011). Kitchen Russian: Cross-linguistic differences and first language object naming in Russian–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 1945.Google Scholar
Roberson, D. (2005). Color categories are culturally diverse in cognition as well as in language. Cross-Cultural Research, 39, 5671.Google Scholar
Roberson, D., & Davidoff, J. (2000). The categorical perception of colors and facial expressions: The effect of verbal interference. Memory & Cognition, 28, 977986.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (1995). Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sachs, O. S., & Coley, J. D. (2006). Envy and jealousy in Russian and English: Labeling and conceptualization of emotions by monolinguals and bilinguals. In Pavlenko, A. (ed.), Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression, and representation, pp. 209231. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P. R., & Meece, J. L. (2008). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (1975). Semantics and syntax of motion. In Kimball, J. P. (ed.), Syntax and semantics (vol. 4), pp. 181238. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Shopen, T. (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, pp. 57149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M., Wu, L., Wade, A., & Boroditsky, L. (2007). Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 77807785.Google Scholar