The Effect of Spatial Devices in L1 on the Construal of Spatial Relationships: A Corpus-based Study

            Cross-linguistic patterns in the human conceptualization of space have been one of the cognitive-linguistic topics frequently discussed by scholars. Despite the presence of universal semantic primes, their syntactic classes and encoding spatial scenes vary from one another (Talmy, 2000). As a primary cognitive and perceptual category, space is regularly encoded by speakers in daily communication. A successful acquisition of spatial relations in the target language (TL) could determine whether the learners have achieved their language goals (Becker & Carroll, 1997). Although various factors could influence the acquisition, the interaction between speakers’ prioritized spatial knowledge, possibly shaped by their native languages (L1), and the TL is crucial in investigating the construal of spatial relationships.

Literature Review

Chinese Localizers and Place words

            In Chinese, spatial relationships are represented via a particular closed-class word category of ‘localizers’ (Chinese: 方位詞), expressing relative positions of objects. The monosyllabic localizers in Mandarin Chinese consist of (Chao, 1968; Chappell & Peyraube, 2008; Li, 2019):

• 上shàng ‘up’, 下xià ‘down’
• 前qián ‘front’, 後hòu ‘back’
• 裏lǐ ‘inside’, 外wài ‘outside’
• 左zuǒ ‘left’, 右yòu ‘right’
• 東dōng ‘east’, 南nán ‘south’, 西xī  ‘west’, 北bei ‘north’
• 中zhōng ‘middle’, 間jiān ‘in, middle’, 旁páng ‘side’, 內nèi ‘inside, within’

The above localizers could be disyllabic by suffixation (adding邊兒biānr,面兒 miànr or 頭tóu) or prefixation (adding 以yǐ or之zhī). Localizers habitually occur with place words (Chinese: 處所詞), substantives that act as prepositions of place or action, or objects of verbs (Chao, 1968), typically the prepositions:

• 在zài ‘at’
• 到dào ‘to’
• 從cóng ‘from’
• 往wǎng ‘toward’

and the verbs:

• 來lái ‘come to’
• 到dào ‘arrive at’

The application of monosyllabic localizers usually works by following common nouns and transforming them into place words (Chappell & Peyraube, 2008). Li (2019) described this pattern as some localizers being used as a clitic when attached to an NP. It mainly works for the two localizers裏lǐ ‘inside’ and 上shàng ‘up’, as the others’ versatility in spoken Chinese is relatively low. Despite mixed syntactic explanations by scholars, all believe that these devices cannot be employed alone. Here is a standard spatial expression using both localizer and place word:

• 那 個 蘋果 在 桌子 上。

That-CL apple at table-on

‘That apple is on the table.’

In the above example (1), place word 在zài and localizer 上shàng are incorporated side to side to express the spatial relationship of the object apple (Trajector) physically contacted with and positioned above the table (Landmark). Attaching to the TR, the localizer 上shàng is then bounded to it and reconstructed into a place word. The sentence would be ungrammatical if lacking one of the spatial devices.

Japanese Locative Particles and Relational Nouns

            In Japanese, spatial relationships are construed in relational nouns (Kaiser et al., 2001) and locative markers, known as case/place particles (Kuno, 1973). Relational nouns refer to nouns that indicate a relative position in space, similar to localizers in Chinese. Common relational N include:

• 上ue ‘above/on top’, 下shita ‘below’
• 前mae ‘in front’, 後ろushiro ‘behind’
• 中naka ‘inside’, 間aida ‘between’, 隣tonari ‘next to’, 後ato ‘after’
• 左hidari ‘left’, 右migi ‘right’

Japanese made extensive use of particles indicating focus, location and cases. Markers in the following table 1 are utilized to mark the stative or dynamic location, the direction of path or objects (Kaiser et al., 2001; Luo, 1982; Storm, 2003):

            Table 1 List of Japanese locative particles and their functions

Spatial relations could be elicited in both locative markers and relational N. If the representation of the Chinese sentence in (1) is expressed in natural Japanese, it should look like (2):

• (2)  リンゴ は テーブル の 上 に あります。

apple-wa table-POSS-above(N)-ni have

‘The apple is on the table.’

A specific feature of Japanese is the flexibility of word order (Kaiser et al., 2001). The inversion between words allows emphasis placed on different foregrounded and backgrounded entities under varied contexts. In (2), the entity apple is marked by topic maker はwa, and its position on the table is backgrounded. If the speaker needs to foreground the location, it could be an utterance like (3):

• テーブル の 上 に リンゴ が あります。

table-POSS-above(N)-ni apple-ga have

‘There is an apple on the table.’

The location, relational noun and place particle にni are inversed to the first position of the sentence, and thus the spatial aspect is foregrounded. The subject marker がga is used instead of the topic marker. Compared to Japanese, inversion (of the example) in Chinese and English seems less natural and less commonly accepted in everyday language. It shows the syntactic and pragmatic versatility brought by indicating cases with particles or markers.

Acquisition of Spatial Expressions in English

            The construal of spatial relationships is fundamental in early childhood acquisition and cognitive development (Lee, 2001). English relies mainly on lexis (locative prepositions/spatial particles), syntax and word order to express spatial relations (Evans & Green, 2006). Lee (2001) referred  ‘in, ‘on’ and ‘at’ as the three ‘basic locative prepositions’. In English, ‘in’ is utilized when the TR is contained within the LM (see sentence 4). The usage could also be spread to non-three-dimensional containment or mental space. As the above examples implied, ‘on’ represents physical contact or support between the LM and TR (see English translation of sentences 1 and 2). It can often be extended to describe the relationship between foregrounded and backgrounded entities (see sentence 5) (Lee, 2001). As one of the most abstract locative terms, ‘at’ acts to locate two entities simultaneously by construing them into geometric points (see sentence 6) (Herskovits, 1986). The path of the TR could sometimes be referred to, bringing a sense of movement (see sentence 7). The acquisition of the three spatial devices is salient to the fundamental understanding and expression of spatial relations in the language.

• The toy is in the box. (toy: TR; box: LM)
• He has a scar on the face. (scar: foregrounded TR; face: backgrounded LM)
• Peter is at the station.
• He fell at the final hurdle. (He: TR; path: a hurdling race)

            Becker and Carroll (1997) comprised the study on the acquisitions of English, German and French in their book, comparing the distinctive features between TL and SL and relating them to the adult acquisition case studies. However, limited research has been solely dedicated to examining the adult acquisition of spatial relations in a cross-linguistic perspective, particularly for East Asian languages in distinctive typological categories. The present study aims to answer the following questions:

1. Do Mandarin Chinese and Japanese L1 speakers fully acquire the spatial expressions in ESL/EFL?
2. Are the errors in spatial expressions associated with the spatial devices and conceptualization in their respective L1s?

Methodology

            This research adopted a corpus-based approach. Two learner corpora of English, Ten-thousand English Compositions of Chinese Learners (TECCL) (Xue, 2015) and The Japanese English as a Foreign Language Learner (JEFLL) Corpus (Tono, 2007), were employed to observe the unnatural or ungrammatical expressions of space. The usage of English spatial prepositions ‘on’, ‘in’ and ‘at’ would be the key focus since they are the prominent conventional expression of spatial meanings in the language, as mentioned above. Both corpora are made up of written English by EFL learners. A comparison of the corpora design is shown in table 2.

Table 2 Comparison of Ten-thousand English Compositions of Chinese Learners (TECCL) and The Japanese English as a Foreign Language Learner (JEFLL) Corpus

            A qualitative analysis would be conducted to investigate typical patterns between the mistakes made by Chinese and Japanese learners. If the errors are associated with their L1s (i.e. Chinese: with localizers, Japanese: with locative markers), there could be an impact of L1 on the L2 construal of space and how the speakers construe space. It is expected that there would be common unnatural usages of prepositions among students who shared their L1. Another prediction is that there would be a tendency of L1 Chinese speakers to have fewer errors. The construal of space in satellite-framed English would be more similar to satellite-framed Chinese than the verb-framed Japanese. Thus, it could be estimated that English spatial meanings are more accessible for Chinese L1 speakers than Japanese L1 speakers overall.

Results

            The proportion of the three primary locative devices among all prepositions is slightly more in JEFLL Corpus than in TECCL Corpus. In both corpora, ‘in’ was the most frequently used among the three. However, Japanese students applied 1% more ‘at’ than ‘on’, and Chinese students utilized 3% more ‘on’ than ‘at’ (see Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1 Tokens of Prepositions in JEFLL Corpus	Figure 2 Tokens of Prepositions in TECCL Corpus

The results made it evident that neither Japanese and Chinese L1 speakers of L2 English could fully acquire the spatial expressions. The observed errors related to the spatial devices could be divided into three main categories: unnecessary addition, omission and incorrect usage. Selected errors in ‘on’, ‘at’ and ‘in’ found from the two corpora are shown in tables 3, 4 and 5, respectively.

Note: corrections are indicated by brackets or strikethrough.

Table 3 Errors in preposition ‘on’  from JEFLL Corpus and TECCL Corpus

Table 4 Errors in preposition ‘at’  from JEFLL Corpus and TECCL Corpus

Table 5 Errors in preposition ‘in’  from JEFLL Corpus and TECCL Corpus

The associations of errors with students’ respective L1 will be addressed in the discussion section.

Discussion

            The results have demonstrated a tendency of Japanese and Chinese speakers to transfer spatial conceptualization in their L1 into their L2 English, suggesting that they have not fully acquired the spatial concepts.

Among errors made by Japanese L1 speakers, most of them could be traced back to their instinct knowledge of locative particles in Japanese. For example, the incorrect ‘on’ in ‘I was on (at) my school’ (from table 3) could result from the particle にni in the Japanese expression of the same meaning (see sentence 8). The same particle is also incorporated in the Japanese translation (see sentence 9) of ‘I am on (in) a very tall building’ (from table 3). にni is the most commonly and broadly used spatial marker, especially in describing the relationship of supporting or contacting (see sentences 2 and 3), thus often being translated to ‘on’. No distinction in the spatial device was found in Japanese for sentences 8 and 9, unlike the case in English. In the Japanese interpretation (see sentence 10) of ‘I found my friends at (in) the classroom’ (from table 4), でde is used as the spatial device. de could be translated into ‘in’ or ‘at’ (see table 1), confusing students when expressing stative location. Hence, it is easy and understandable that even intermediate users might mix up the prepositions impacted by their L1. The addition of extra prepositions could be caused by the presence of place particles in the original Japanese expression (see sentence 11) of ‘…and I leave at home at seven’ (from table 4). Both time and space are marked in Japanese by にni and をo, respectively. In English, the verb ‘leave’ has already indicated the starting point of the motion, not requiring the use of a marker.

• 私は 学校に いました。

I-wa school-ni be-past

• 私は とても 高い ビルに いました。

I-wa very tall building-ni be-past

• 教室で 友達を 見つけました。

classroom-de friend-o find-past

• 私は7時に 家を 出ます。

I-wa 7 o’clock-ni home-o leave

Chinese speakers are usually confused with the usage of ‘on’ and ‘in’. When ‘People are afforded to life (live) equally on (in) the world’ (from table 3) is manifested in Chinese (see sentence 12), the prepositional phrase ‘in the world’ is ‘on the world’ (在 世界上) by transliteration. To further explain, it could be deduced that in English, the world is conveyed as a container with human beings living inside it, while in Chinese, the world is conceptualized as a surface of a planet that supports human beings living on it. The error appeared in ‘… it’s still very useful in nowadays…’ (from table 5) could be owing to the learner’s misconception of the adverb ‘nowadays’ being a translation equivalent of ‘現在 xiànzài’. The word ‘現在 xiànzài’ is in fact closer to ‘now’, and it has to be preceded by the place word ‘到dào’ (see sentence 13) in this context, yet a preposition is unnecessary before the occurrence of an adverb in English. The mistake made in ‘There is a big beach at there’ (from table 4) could be interpreted as the student mixing up locative concepts within Chinese and also across Chinese and English. The expression could be translated to Chinese in two conventional ways (see sentences 14 and 15). The former only used the demonstrative ‘那nà’ plus the localizer ‘裏lǐ’ to refer to the expression of ‘there’; the latter incorporated place word ‘在zài’, demonstrative ‘那nà’ and localizer ‘裏lǐ’, forming a PP. It could be assumed that the student wanted to convey the meaning of sentence 15, as it foregrounded the location of the beach instead of simply indicating the existence via an additional place word. However, the student had doubled the demonstrative ‘there’. A better expression to foreground the locative element could be ‘the big beach is there’.

• 人們 有權 平等地 生活 在 世界上。

people have-right equally live at world-on

• 到現在 還是 很 有用的

to-nowadays still very useful

• 那裏 有 一個 很 大 的 海灘。

there have one-CL very big beach

• 在那裏 有 一個 很 大 的 海灘。

at-there have one-CL very big beach

There are some confinements of the research which could be further polished and advanced. The texts from JEFLL were mainly written by junior and senior high school students, while those from TECCL were composed mainly by undergraduates. The variation in writing prompts and language performances have displayed an enormous disparity that was not expected originally. The acquisitions by Japanese and Chinese L1 speakers could not be directly compared and contrasted in this way. The future investigation could section the students’ school grades for a more precise image of the acquiring progress. The study is also limited in terms of a lack of quantitative data analysis. If equipped with the outcomes of automatic error identification, for example, by using Dynamic Programming or accompanied by the corrected version of the corpora, the patterns in the findings would be more explicit and tangible; hence, the effect of L1 spatial construal on L2 acquisition of spatial devices would be more apparent statistically.

By examining the errors produced by ESL learners, an understanding has been established about language learning and teaching. As L1 is often highly influential to the acquisition of some abstract concepts in the L2, it might be a better approach to acquire the language with limited knowledge from L1 transferring to L2, particularly in the case of typologically distinctive languages. Learners should be open-minded to accept new conceptualizations and avoid the overuse of translation in the learning process.

References

Becker, A., & Carroll, M. (1997). The acquisition of spatial relations in a second language (Vol. 11). John Benjamins Publishing.

Bloom, P. (Ed.). (1999). Language and space. MIT press.

Chao, Y. R. (1968). A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Chappell, H., & Peyraube, A. (2008). Chinese localizers: Diachrony and some typological considerations. In D. Xu (Ed.), Space in languages of China (pp. 15-37). Springer, Dordrecht.

Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Herskovits, A. (1986). Language and Spatial Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Prepositions in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kaiser, S., Ichikawa, Y., Kobayashi, N., & Yamamoto, H. (2001). Japanese: A comprehensive grammar. Routledge.

Kuno, S. (1973). The Structure of the Japanese Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Lee, D. (2001). Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Li, C. (2019). Where to locate Mandarin localizers?. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 47(2), 345-370.

Luo, J.-R. (1982). Riyu zhuci gailun [Introduction to Japanese Particles]. Beijing: Beijing Press.

Storm, H. (2003). A handbook of Japanese grammar. LINCOM Handbooks in Linguistics.

Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. MIT press.

Tono, Y. (ed.), (2007). Nihonjin 1-man nin no Eigo Corpus: JEFLL Corpus [A Corpus of 10,000 Japanese learners of English: the JEFLL Corpus]. Tokyo: Shogakukan.

Xue, X. (2015). Ten-thousand English compositions of Chinese learners (the TECCL corpus) (version 1.1). The National Research Centre for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University.