Raymond Gibbs Revisited

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Raymond Gibbs Revisited

• Figurative Thought and Understandingin a Foreign
  language???

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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

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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)

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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

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My Extension- The Results-group 2

• Group 2 also exhibited all the signs of the
  figurative mind!!

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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

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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

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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 Pandoras Box
  when you start recognizing everybodys 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

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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

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My Extension- Lets 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

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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.