Raymond Gibbs Revisited Figurative Thought and Understanding…in a Foreign language???

Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding Gibbs argued that metaphor, metonymy etc. are not special representations of language These features of language do not require special processing mechanisms to understand them Gibbs argued that people, not only understand these types of utterances, but even conceive in these forms Gibbs used English in his study

My Extension of Gibbs-The Foundation -Gibbs used English, so clearly English has many of these utterances. -For all we know speakers of other languages do not speak/conceive in the same way as native English speakers -Speaking a foreign language involves a “mechanistic” approach to communication (ie simple verb/noun/adj. substitution)

My Extension of Gibbs- The Question Research Question- “English has many figurative expressions and native speakers also conceive with these figurative expressions, but Do non-native English speakers use these expressions, despite the mechanical nature of speaking in a foreign language?

My Extension- The Plan To code interviews recorded in English with native Russian speakers for possible use/evidence of the “figurative mind” in their speech Interviews were conducted in the Semi-formal format in early 2005 Interviews were part of a separate study that was completely unrelated to linguistics or expression of “figurative thought” Interview responses are solicited responses to direct questions by the interviewer, but represent non-native English speech

My Extension- The Plan Of the respondents in the study, approximately half were essentially native speakers of English and Russian These functionally native speakers were with one exception people that immigrated to the United States when they were children, thus they speak English just as a native speaker would The other half of the respondents were adult immigrants that did not speak English fluently

My Extension- The Results-group 1 As expected the functionally Native group spoke as native speakers would. Their speech included all the aspects of the “figurative mind” that were illustrated in Gibbs’ book. This group spoke accent and idiom perfect English and Russian This is the expected result for this group

My Extension- The Result-group 2 The second group was comprised of everyone else. These groups were separated based on a number of features but primarily Accent Grammar There was variation within this group, but a clear distinction was possible between the two groups

My Extension- The Results-group 2 Group 2 also exhibited all the signs of the “figurative mind”!!

My Extension- The Results-group 2 examples A few examples from Group 2 “I think that right now it is more about terrorism, because it is a lot of money, war is a lot of money, so people, terrorist groups, see that too and they using this place for cleaning money” “because I am from Russia, we always feel that well maybe that is the truth, but it is probably another truth going on somewhere else”

My Extension- The Results-group 2 examples More Examples “America was standing strictly against that” “…hatred for Russia and two century old hatred, it has its roots in many prior to the 1917” “you can see the media is hiding lots of things” “It will never happen, for one thing that will mean that Russia will always have this painful spot right in the middle of its land”

My Extension- The Results-group 2 examples Examples “I pretty much know how the news are being cooked by news agencies” “I did not live under him” “On the other side, it is such a Pandora’s Box when you start recognizing everybody’s right for self determination” “The Russian media, again some of the Russian media does what ever it is told and some of it has the role of containing the fire of hatred and…”

My Extension- The conclusion Non-native English Speakers use “figurative” expressions when speaking English. They have been observed using most of the aspects of “figurative” expression that native English speakers use They use both set expressions and make novel expressions

My Extension- Let’s not rush to publish just yet It is still unclear what the conceptual process is for the use of these expressions for the non-native English speakers It is still unclear if these “figurative” expression originates in English lang., Russian lang., or the Mind. Some of these expressions could be chunks, part of the English language learning process

References Bernard, R. (2002). Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Rowman and Littlefield. Third Edition. Ringhausen, J. (2005). “Exploring Media Influence of the Perceptions of the Violence in Chechnya.” Masters Thesis-University of Georgia.