Does L1 Influence Time Perception in L2?: L1 Dutch Speakers’ and L1 Mandarin Chinese Speakers’ Answers to “Two Days Forward From Next Wednesday” Compared to L1 English Speakers’

“Move the meeting forward two days from Wednesday” is a well-known prompt to investigate perspectives on time, specifically whether someone perceives time as “ego-moving” (i.e. I am the one moving through time; the “Friday” answer) or “time-moving” (i.e. time itself is the one doing the moving; the “Monday” answer). Answers to this prompt in English exhibit clear indecisiveness, argued to stem from the ambiguity of “forward” and “move.” Some languages, such as Dutch, reflect this ambiguity and indecisiveness. Other languages display a clear preference for “Monday” (German and Mandarin Chinese) or “Friday” (Swedish). Most of these studies focus on L1 speakers, with few studies investigating cross-linguistic interactions. Studies, like Lai and Boroditsky (2013), suggest that there may be influence from a person’s L1 and L2. How exactly L1 may influence L2 regarding time is the central research question in this paper. A group of L1 Dutch speakers and a group of L1 Mandarin Chinese...Show more“Move the meeting forward two days from Wednesday” is a well-known prompt to investigate perspectives on time, specifically whether someone perceives time as “ego-moving” (i.e. I am the one moving through time; the “Friday” answer) or “time-moving” (i.e. time itself is the one doing the moving; the “Monday” answer). Answers to this prompt in English exhibit clear indecisiveness, argued to stem from the ambiguity of “forward” and “move.” Some languages, such as Dutch, reflect this ambiguity and indecisiveness. Other languages display a clear preference for “Monday” (German and Mandarin Chinese) or “Friday” (Swedish). Most of these studies focus on L1 speakers, with few studies investigating cross-linguistic interactions. Studies, like Lai and Boroditsky (2013), suggest that there may be influence from a person’s L1 and L2. How exactly L1 may influence L2 regarding time is the central research question in this paper. A group of L1 Dutch speakers and a group of L1 Mandarin Chinese speakers were compared to a L1 English control group in their answers to the Wednesday prompt. Quantitatively, it was found that the Dutch group was significantly different from the English group, while the Chinese group was not. Qualitatively, explanations from the Dutch and Chinese group differed from the English group. Findings show evidence that L1 does have an influence on L2 (and that this may be language dependent) and that ambiguity may not be a reliable determining factor for if a language holds a preference toward a certain time perspective. The former finding supports previous research on conceptual transfer and t-FoR of time while the latter contrasts previous research.Show less

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Does L1 Influence Time Perception in L2? L1 Dutch Speakers’ and L1 Mandarin Chinese Speakers’ Answers to “Two Days Forward From Next Wednesday” Compared to L1 English Speakers’