Innovation in Language Learning

Fictive motion refers to expressions that contain a motion verb but denote no physical motion of the subject. As for the coextension path Fictive Motion Constructions (hereafter FMCs), it is a depiction of the form, orientation, or location of a spatially extended object in terms of a path over the object’s extent. The present study is based on some theories, including Fictive Motion framework by Talmy (2000), the comparation between Chinese and English coextension path FMCs, and Transfer Theory. Eighty Chinese EFL students were selected to participate in this examination to explore the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners with different English levels in comprehending English FMCs. The major findings of the study are as follows: (1) Chinese EFL learners comprehended the syntactic and the semantic properties of four focuses of English FMCs alongside the sequence as: Figure, Path, Manner and Duration of Motion (arranged according to the ease of learning). It is noteworthy that learners performed badly in both Manner and Duration of Motion, especially worst in the Duration of Motion. (2) The higher the English proficiency is, the better they comprehended on the properties of Figure, Path and Manner. But both high and low-level groups of participants performed similarly worst on Duration of Motion, this may because different properties of it has beyond the effect of English proficiency, definitely triggering negative L1 transfer, and learners seldom input differences in the syntactic and semantic properties of Duration of Motion between English FMCs and Chinese FMCs.

 

Keywords fictive motion; coextension path fictive motion constructions; grammaticality and meaningfulness judgment task; translation task

 

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