Manner and path of motion in descriptions of motion trajectories by Polish L2 users of English

Abstract

The study offers an in-depth analysis of motion descriptions in Polish and English, i.e. a typologically related pair of languages that differ in manner salience, by Polish second language users of English. 20 bilingual Polish-English speakers were recruited among senior year students in an English-medium university programme and compared with Polish and English monolingual control groups. All the participants were asked to retell in detail a fragment of a Canary Row cartoon. The elicited narratives were analyzed to identify all manner and path components. The results show that the L2 users overuse path verbs in their L2 English and underuse common verbs like go and get that are unspecified for path or manner. While such behaviour constitutes evidence of L1→L2 transfer, it is argued that it is also target-like and provides evidence of desensitization to manner cues in attentional processing related to L2 production.