Motion events in Japanese and English: Does learning a second language change the way you view the world?

Using Talmy's typological framework for the expression of motion events, the purpose of the present study is to investigate whether learning a second language that is typologically different from the learner's first language (L1) would change how the learner pays attention to different aspects of motion events. In Study 1, the participants were monolingual English speakers, and L1 English learners of Japanese as a foreign language at two different proficiency levels (i.e., lower and higher). They were presented with target videos, and for each target video a Path-match and a Manner-match video, and were instructed to indicate which video was most like the target one. Given that English is an S-language, which conflates Manner and Motion in the main verb, and Japanese is a V-language, which conflates Path and Motion in the main verb, it was hypothesized that (1) the L1 English learners of Japanese would fixate longer on the Path-match videos than the monolingual English speakers, and (2) advanced L1 English learners of Japanese would fixate longer on the Path-match videos than the less advanced learners of Japanese. Both hypotheses were not confirmed by the findings. In Study 2, the participants were monolingual Japanese speakers and Japanese learners of English as a second language (L2) at two different proficiency levels (i.e. low and advanced). They were asked to do the same tasks as in Study 1. It was hypothesized that (1) the Japanese learners of English would fixate longer on the Manner-match videos than the monolingual Japanese speakers, and (2) advanced Japanese learners of English would fixate longer on the Manner-match videos than the less-advanced learners of English. Again, no significant differences were found among the three groups. The present study therefore suggests that in the domain of motion events, in contrast to what previous research has suggested, learning a second language that is typologically different from the learner's first language may not result in any alteration of habitual attention on different aspects of an event.