1. Introduction
The expression of motion events differs systematically across the world’s languages, with pronounced differences in the expression of manner (i.e., how one moves) and path (i.e., the direction one moves) components of motion (Talmy, Reference Talmy2000). Adult speakers show strong cross-linguistic differences, following the language-specific patterns in their speech about motion (Slobin, Reference Slobin, Strömqvist and Verhoeven2004). The language-specific patterns also influence the way speakers think about motion events, particularly when they are verbalizing the event. The online effect of language on nonverbal representation of events during verbalization, originally proposed by Slobin (Reference Slobin, Gumperz and Levinson1996) as the ‘thinking for speaking account’, has been shown across several studies that used a variety of nonverbal measures, including co-speech gesture (e.g., Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016a, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016b), categorization (e.g., Gennari et al., Reference Gennari, Sloman, Malt and Fitch2002), memory (e.g., Oh, Reference Oh2003), and attention (e.g., Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Conway and Özçalışkan2020). There is however research that suggests that the effect of language on thinking does not go beyond verbalization of the event, with no effect of language on nonverbal representations of events when speakers are tested with measures that do not require language-specific description of the event (e.g., Athanasopoulos & Bylund, Reference Athanasopoulos and Bylund2013; Cardini, Reference Cardini2010; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016a, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2018; Papafragou et al., Reference Papafragou, Massey and Gleitman2002; Tütüncü et al., Reference Tütüncü, Paul, Emerson, Şengül, Knezevic and Özçalışkan2023).
In this study, we extended earlier work to the domain of novel word learning, asking whether the habitual patterns of motion expression in one’s native language affect learning of verbal labels for motion events, particularly when those labels are presented with gesture. More specifically, using a word-learning paradigm that included training with or without gestures, we tested whether speakers of three structurally different languages (equipollently-framed: Chinese, satellite-framed: English, verb-framed: Turkish) would show language-specific effects when learning pseudowords that encoded manner or path of motion—without verbalization of the event in their native language—and whether this effect would become evident in both explicit (i.e., accuracy of behavioral response) and implicit (i.e., speed of behavioral response) measures for learning. If language influences nonverbal representation of events only during verbalization in one’s native language—as suggested in Slobin’s (Reference Slobin, Gumperz and Levinson1996) thinking for speaking account—then we would expect speakers of all three languages to learn pseudowords encoding manner and path equally well in a novel word-learning context as they are not constrained by the habitual patterns of motion expression in their native language during learning. If, on the other hand, language’s effect on nonverbal representation goes beyond online production of native speech, then we would predict that speakers would differ in learning pseudowords for manner and path, showing an advantage in learning labels more frequently expressed in their native language—particularly when the labels are accompanied with gesture.
1.1. Cross-linguistic variability in talking about motion events
Spatial motion constitutes a core human experience; however, its expression shows strong cross-linguistic variability. As originally proposed by Talmy (Reference Talmy and Shopen1985, Reference Talmy2000) and later expanded by Slobin (Reference Slobin, Strömqvist and Verhoeven2004), the world’s languages can be categorized into different types along a tertiary split between satellite-framed (S-language; e.g., English, Polish), verb-framed (V-language; e.g., Turkish, Spanish) and equipollently-framed (E-language; e.g., Chinese, Thai) languages based primarily on the expression of path of motion, which in turn has consequences for the expression of manner of motion. In S-languages, path is expressed in a particle outside the verb, reserving the main verb for conveying manner as in: he runs (manner) into (path) the house. In contrast, in V-languages the verb encodes path of motion, and manner is optionally expressed outside the verb in a secondary lexical element as in: ev-e girer koşarak = he enters (path) house-to by running (manner). The serial-verb construction in E-languages, on the other hand, allows for expression of both manner and path information in the verb as in: tā paojin fángzi = He run (manner)-enter (path) house.
The preference for using the main verb for expressing path or manner of motion in these different languages has important consequences, particularly for the amount and diversity of manner and path verb production. As shown in earlier work, when describing motion events, adult speakers of S-languages (e.g., English, German, Dutch, Polish) use greater amounts and variety of manner verbs than adult V-language speakers (e.g., Basque, French, Spanish, Turkish)—a pattern that is reversed for the production of path verbs (e.g., Cardini, Reference Cardini2010; De Knop & Dirven, Reference De Knop and Dirven2008; De Knop & Gallez, Reference De Knop and Gallez2011; Hickmann et al., Reference Hickmann, Taranne and Bonnet2009; Ibarretxe-Antunano, Reference Ibarretxe-Antunano, Guo, Lieven, Budwig, Ervin-Tripp, Nakamura and Özçalışkan2009, Reference Ibarretxe-Antuñano2012; Lewandowski & Özçalışkan, Reference Lewandowski and Özçalışkan2018, Reference Lewandowski and Özçalışkan2023; Naigles & Terrazas, Reference Naigles and Terrazas1998; Özçalışkan & Slobin, Reference Özçalışkan and Slobin1999, Reference Özçalışkan, Slobin, Özsoy, Akar, Nakipoglu-Demiralp, Erguvanli-Taylan and Aksu-Koç2003; Tusun & Hendriks, Reference Tusun and Hendriks2019). In fact, V-language speakers frequently leave out manner information altogether from their motion descriptions by not expressing it either in the verb or outside the verb and primarily convey path of motion (e.g., Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Limia and Özçalışkan2021; Özçalışkan, Reference Özçalışkan2015). The relatively limited work on E-languages suggests that E-language speakers express manner and path information at comparable rates, as they have the option to express both in a serial verb construction (Chen & Guo, Reference Chen and Guo2009; Paul, Emerson & Özçalışkan, Reference Paul, Emerson and Özçalışkan2022)—a pattern that contrasts with both S- and V-languages.
In summary, existing research on speech about motion suggests that adult speakers show strong but systematic cross-linguistic variation in their verbal expression of manner and path of motion, with greater encoding of manner in S-languages, path in V-languages, and comparable expression of manner and path in E-languages.
1.2. Cross-linguistic variability in thinking about motion events
The cross-linguistic variability evident in talking about motion events raises the possibility that speakers of these three types of languages might also think about motion in different ways. The existing research indeed suggests that language-specific pattern of motion expression has an effect on nonverbal representation of events; but this effect is evident when nonverbal tasks are accompanied by verbalization of the event in native language and not observable when the cognitive tasks are completed without verbalization (i.e., without speaking, hearing, or writing in one’s native language). For example, an earlier study (Gennari et al., Reference Gennari, Sloman, Malt and Fitch2002), using a similarity judgment task, examined whether speakers of English (S-language) or Spanish (V-language) would show biases consistent with their language (manner for English, path for Spanish) in drawing similarities between events that depicted manner or path variations. The participants were presented with an initial event, followed by two test follow-up events: one showing a different path with the same manner (i.e., same-manner alternative) and the other showing a different manner with the same path (i.e., same-path alternative); they were then asked to pick the test event most similar to the original event, but after they described the original event in their native language. Spanish speakers were more likely than English speakers to choose same-path events as being more similar to the initial event—a pattern that was reversed for English speakers, thus suggesting an online effect of language on representation of events (as evidenced by similarity ratings). In another study, Oh (Reference Oh2003) examined whether speakers of English or Korean (V-language) differed in their memory for manner versus path components of motion events, using dynamic motion scenes in which the speakers were asked to verbalize the event in their language. English speakers not only expressed manner more frequently and in greater detail than Korean speakers, but also showed better memory for subtle differences in manner of motion in the events that they described as compared to Korean adults. The effect of language on thinking has also been shown at the neural level in an event-related potential (ERP) task that involved reading motion descriptions in English or Spanish with manner and path verbs (Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Conway and Özçalışkan2020). The speakers in the two languages showed different neural responses (P600 effects) when reading motion verbs for manner versus path, indicating that English speakers showed a greater expectancy for motion verbs to express manner while Spanish speakers showed a greater expectancy for motion verbs to express path—a neural pattern consistent with the language-specific patterns of motion expression in the two languages.
The differential bias to manner versus path in nonverbal tasks dissipates, however, when the experimental task does not involve verbalization of the event. An earlier study (Papafragou et al., Reference Papafragou, Hulbert and Trueswell2008) examined eye gaze patterns of English (S-language) and Greek (V-language) speakers while they viewed motion event animations with manner and path components (e.g., a man skiing to a rocket) with or without verbalization of the event. The eye movements of the speakers focused more on scene components that are frequently encoded in their native language (manner in English, path in Greek) when verbalizing the event. However, the cross-linguistic differences were not evident when the speakers viewed the events without verbalization; they instead showed comparable gaze patterns to manner and path components of the same events, suggesting a lack of language effects when not verbalizing in their native language. In a similar vein, a recent study (Skordos et al., Reference Skordos, Bunger, Richards, Selimis, Trueswell and Papafragou2020) examined differences in memory for manner and path of motion among English and Greek speakers. The participants were asked to view short-animated motion clips (e.g., an alien driving a car towards a rock) quietly, without verbalization, and then remember the clips as best as they could for a later memory task. The results showed no effect of language on memory, with both Greek and English speakers remembering path of motion better than manner of motion. The lack of language effects was also evident in a study by Cardini (Reference Cardini2010) with English and Italian (V-language) speakers. Participants in this study watched a target video of real people performing a motion event with manner and path (e.g., man climbs down a slide); they were then asked to judge the similarity of this original video to a test video that either matched the manner (e.g., man climbs up a slide) or the path (e.g., man slides down a slide) depicted in the original video but without verbalization of the event. The participants showed no effect of language in their similarity judgments, with similar performance in their matching responses for manner or path.
Another set of studies, using gesture production as a nonverbal measure, examined whether speakers of different languages would follow language-specific patterns in their gestures when producing gestures with verbalization (i.e., gesturing while speaking). Most of this earlier work showed that gestures mirror the patterns found in speech, thus showing an effect of language on nonverbal representation of events in gesture (Goldin-Meadow et al., Reference Goldin-Meadow, So, Özyürek and Mylander2008; Kita & Özyürek, Reference Kita and Özyürek2003; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016a). More specifically, speakers of S-languages combine manner and path of motion into the same gesture (e.g. wiggle fingers while moving from left to right to convey running along a given path) while V-language speakers predominantly express only path of motion in their gestures about motion (e.g., trace a line forward with finger to convey forward trajectory; Gullberg et al., Reference Gullberg, Hendriks and Hickmann2008; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016b, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2018). A more recent study (Tütüncü et al., Reference Tütüncü, Paul, Emerson, Şengül, Knezevic and Özçalışkan2023) extended these patterns to E-languages, comparing Chinese speakers to English and Turkish speakers in an animated motion event description task. Chinese speakers, who expressed manner and path together in the verb using serial verb constructions, also synthesized manner and path into a single gesture at rates greater than both English and Turkish speakers, thus extending the effect of language on co-speech gesture to E-languages.
Importantly, the effect of language was not evident when gestures were produced without verbalization (i.e., gesturing without speaking). Adult speakers of S- versus V-languages (i.e., English versus Turkish) gestured in the same way when describing event scenes solely with their hands without any verbalization of the event (Özçalişkan, Reference Özçalişkan2016; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016a, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2018). They all expressed manner and path of motion together in a single gesture (e.g., run fingers forward to convey running towards house) and at roughly comparable rates. This pattern was later extended to E-languages (i.e., Chinese), using an animated motion event description task without verbalization of the event (Tütüncü et al., Reference Tütüncü, Paul, Emerson, Şengül, Knezevic and Özçalışkan2023). Chinese speakers also expressed both manner and path in a single gesture, showing a pattern akin to the English and Turkish speakers in the study.
In summary, the existing work suggests an effect of language on thinking during verbalization of a motion event but no effect of language when not verbalizing the event in one’s native language. Speakers show a bias consistent with their native language across a variety of nonverbal tasks—from co-speech gesture to memory—but only when asked to verbalize the motion event in their native language. This language-specific bias disappears when speakers complete the same nonverbal tasks without accompanying native speech, suggesting limits on the effects of language on the nonverbal representation of events.
1.3. Cross-linguistic variability in learning novel words about motion events
We know from earlier work that children learn language-specific patterns at an early age when exposed to their native language at birth. More specifically, children learning S-languages produce a greater number and variety of manner verbs, while children learning V-languages use a greater amount and variety of path verbs beginning around age 3-4 (Allen et al., Reference Allen, Özyürek, Kita, Brown, Furman, Ishizuka and Fujii2007; Hickmann et al., Reference Hickmann, Taranne and Bonnet2009; Özçalışkan, Reference Özçalışkan, Guo, Lieven, Ervin-Tripp, Budwig, Nakamura and Özçalışkan2009; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2024a; Özçalışkan & Slobin, Reference Özçalışkan and Slobin1999; Skordos & Papafragou, Reference Skordos and Papafragou2014; Smyder & Harrigan, Reference Smyder and Harrigan2021), thus suggesting early attunement to language-specific patterns in children’s speech about motion events in native production contexts.
We know relatively less about the effect of language when learning novel words for motion as an adult. A few studies examined learning novel words for motion events embedded within sentences in speakers’ native languages (e.g., She is kradding; Ella está mecando = She is mec-ing), thus allowing the verbalization of the events in speakers’ native language. These studies found that S-language speakers were more likely to interpret a pseudoword as expressing manner and V-language speakers were more likely to interpret the same pseudoword as expressing path (e.g., English versus Spanish; Naigles & Terrazas, Reference Naigles and Terrazas1998; Greek versus English; Papafragou & Selimis, Reference Papafragou, Selimis, Baltazani, Giannakis, Tsangalidis and Xydopoulos2009; English versus Spanish versus Japanese; Maguire et al., Reference Maguire, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Imai, Haryu, Vanegas and Sanchez-Davis2010; English: Shafto et al., Reference Shafto, Havasi and Snedeker2014). These findings thus suggest notable language-specific biases in assigning meaning to novel words during learning, but only when verbalizing the event in one’s native language. This is consistent with the thinking for speaking account (Slobin, Reference Slobin, Gumperz and Levinson1996).
There is only one cross-linguistic study to our knowledge that examined novel motion word learning using pseudowords without any accompanying verbalization. In this study, Kersten et al. (Reference Kersten, Meissner, Lechuga, Schwartz, Albrechtsen and Iglesias2010) asked English (S-language) and Spanish (V-language) speakers to categorize motion events animated with bug-like creatures that differed from each other in both their motion type (i.e., key categorical variable: path versus manner) and their appearance (i.e., distractor variable, e.g., color, body shape, number of legs), using either pseudowords or numbers as labels. Kersten et al. (Reference Kersten, Meissner, Lechuga, Schwartz, Albrechtsen and Iglesias2010) found that English speakers were more accurate than Spanish speakers in identifying the categorical pseudoword for a creature when the relevant feature was manner but not path of motion (regardless of label type), thus suggesting an effect of language on novel word learning that goes beyond the verbalization of the event. However, a later study (Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Özçalışkan and Frishkoff2016) that examined novel word learning by adult English speakers (S-language) without verbalization did not show better performance on learning words that encoded manner variations than path variations, suggesting a lack of language-specific effects in learning novel verbs that goes beyond verbalization. The pattern of findings for the possible effect of language on learning novel words that extends beyond verbalization of the event thus remains largely inconclusive.
Some of the previous work on novel word learning also examined whether speakers would benefit from gesture instruction when learning novel words. Earlier studies that primarily focused on cognitive tasks (e.g., mathematical equivalence problems, identifying symmetry, Piagetian conservation problems) showed that gesture could facilitate learning, especially if the task at hand is cognitively challenging for the learner (Alibali & Goldin-Meadow, Reference Alibali and Goldin-Meadow1993; Church & Goldin-Meadow, Reference Church and Goldin-Meadow1986; Perry & Elder, Reference Perry and Elder1997; Ping & Goldin-Meadow, Reference Ping and Goldin-Meadow2008; Valenzeno et al., Reference Valenzeno, Alibali and Klatzky2003). The better learning with gesture was attributed to the more direct and precise communication (Holle & Gunter, Reference Holle and Gunter2007; Kang & Tversky, Reference Kang and Tversky2016), reduced cognitive load (Goldin-Meadow & Alibali, Reference Goldin-Meadow and Alibali2013), and improved memory (Mathias et al., Reference Mathias, Sureth, Hartwigsen, Macedonia, Mayer and von Kriegstein2021) afforded by the accompaniment of gesture.
Only a few studies, however, examined the added benefit of instruction with gestures in learning novel words among adult speakers. Three such studies, taught adult English speakers new words in a language that they had no knowledge of (i.e., Chinese: Huang et al., Reference Huang, Kim and Christianson2019; Hungarian: Morett, Reference Morett2014; Sweller et al., Reference Sweller, Shinooka-Phelan and Austin2020) by using either speech-only or gesture with speech (i.e., gesture+speech) instruction. All three studies found that gesture aided novel word learning, with English speakers showing better learning of the novel words in another language when instructed with gesture+speech than with speech-only. A similar beneficial effect of gesture was also found in another study in which English speakers learned pseudowords embedded within English sentences (e.g., I got the zek from the library; Everyone should fim breakfast), with different types of gesture (e.g., iconic, beat) or without gesture and with different instruction types (simple versus complex instruction; Hupp & Gingras, Reference Hupp and Gingras2016). Participants learned pseudowords taught with iconic gestures better than the ones taught without gesture (or with other gesture types) independent of the complexity of the instruction. This pattern was also evident in an fMRI study (Macedonia et al., Reference Macedonia, Müller and Friederici2011) where native German speakers learned Italian words that they have never encountered before better when instructed with meaningful gestures (i.e., iconic gestures that conveyed relevant semantic information) than with meaningless gestures (i.e., gestures that are not related to the word’s semantics). The brain activity recorded in the two conditions was different: meaningful gestures activated premotor cortices; while meaningless gestures elicited a network associated with cognitive control. These findings thus suggest that memory for newly learned words is mostly driven by the motor image that matches an underlying representation of the word’s semantics rather than a mere effect of motor activity. At the same time, there is also research that suggests that even meaningless beat gestures can aid novel word learning among second language learners. In an earlier study (Kushch et al., Reference Kushch, Igualada and Prieto2018), Catalan dominant native speakers learned novel words in Russian with prosodic prominence better when the words were accompanied with beat gestures emphasizing the pronunciation of the words.
Some of the other work, on the other hand, suggested no effect of gesture on learning novel words. For instance, Emerson et al. (Reference Emerson, Özçalışkan and Frishkoff2016) taught pseudowords to adult English speakers, either with speech or with gesture+speech, and showed no modality-based differences in learning. In another study, Kelly and Lee (Reference Kelly and Lee2012) taught adult English speakers novel words in a language that they had no knowledge of (i.e., Japanese) with or without iconic gesture instruction (e.g., gesturing ‘stay’ while saying ite = stay in Japanese versus saying ite = stay in Japanese with no accompanying gesture). Some of the words constituted phonologically easy pairs (e.g., “tate-butta” = stand-hit) while others were more difficult (“ite – itte” = stay – go); the results showed a beneficial effect of instruction with gesture but only for word pairs that were phonologically easier, suggesting that task difficulty might be an additional factor in determining gesture’s role in word learning. It is also important to note here that, the beneficial effect of gesture in learning novel words was more evident in studies that also taught novel labels for objects and features (e.g., Kushch et al., Reference Kushch, Igualada and Prieto2018; Morett, Reference Morett2014) but was less evident in studies that aimed to teach novel labels for motion (e.g., Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Özçalışkan and Frishkoff2016; Kelly & Lee, Reference Kelly and Lee2012).
In summary, research on novel word learning in the context of motion events—with or without gesture—remains sparse, with a few studies suggesting an effect of language on learning novel words for motion, particularly when the novel words were embedded within an event description (i.e., verbalized) in the speakers’ native language. The beneficial effect of gestures on word learning, on the other hand, remains unclear, with limited and largely inconclusive results, almost all based on native English speakers. This, in turn, highlights the need for future studies that examine gesture’s effect on learning novel words across speakers of a greater variety of languages.
1.4. Current study
Speakers of different languages vary in the way they talk about motion events, showing a three-way split in the expression of the manner and path components of motion (Slobin, Reference Slobin, Strömqvist and Verhoeven2004; Talmy, Reference Talmy2000). These differences have been shown to affect nonverbal representation of motion events but only during verbalization of the event in one’s native language—a pattern consistent with the ‘thinking for speaking account’ (Slobin, Reference Slobin, Gumperz and Levinson1996). At the same time, studies that focus on word learning in structurally different languages—with or without gesture—remain sparse, with no research to date examining the effect of modality and language type on motion-word learning in a single research design. In this study, we used a comprehensive framework to understand the factors that contribute to variability in learning novel words for motion in adult speakers in three structurally different languages. More specifically, we examined whether learning novel words for manner or path is affected by language (Chinese, English, Turkish) or modality (speech-only, gesture+speech) in a learning task that does not involve verbalization of the event. We asked two main questions:
(1) We first asked whether speakers of the three languages would show an effect of motion type in their learning of words for motion. We had a two-way prediction: If language has an effect on nonverbal representation of events only during verbalization in native language—as suggested by the ‘thinking for speaking account’—then we would predict that Chinese, English and Turkish speakers would not differ in their learning of novel words for manner or path (as they are not using their native language to verbalize the motion events during the learning task). However, if language’s effect on nonverbal representation goes beyond verbalization in native language, then we would predict that speakers of the three languages would differ in their learning of the pseudowords, with better learning of words for manner in English, path in Turkish, and similar levels of learning for manner and path in Chinese.
(2) We next asked whether speakers of the three languages would show an effect of modality of instruction in learning words for motion. We had a two-way prediction based on inconclusive results in prior work. We predicted that speakers—independent of language and motion type—would show better learning when instructed with gesture+speech than in speech-only as gesture provides a second way of encoding new words and may reduce the cognitive load in a complex task such as novel word learning (Goldin-Meadow & Alibali, Reference Goldin-Meadow and Alibali2013; Kita et al., Reference Kita, Alibali and Chu2017). Alternatively, we predicted that speakers across languages and motion types would not show an effect of modality in learning pseudowords. This prediction was based on earlier research that suggested that iconic gestures might interfere with the ability to attach meaning to newly learned words by augmenting the semantic load already imposed by the novel spoken input (Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Özçalışkan and Frishkoff2016; Kelly & Lee, Reference Kelly and Lee2012).
2. Methods
2.1. Participants
Participants included 173 adult speakers, with either Chinese (n = 60, Mage = 19.20 [SD = 0.93], range = 18–21, 35 females), English (n = 53, Mage = 19.00 [SD = 1.25], range = 18–22, 45 females), or Turkish (n = 60, Mage = 20.83 [SD = 1.76], range = 18–25, 36 females) as their native language. Originally, data were collected from 60 English speakers, but 7 participants were excluded due to experimental error (i.e., issues with data recording). The Chinese, English, and Turkish data were collected in Jingzhou City Hubei Province (China), Atlanta (USA), and Nevşehir (Turkey), respectively. The participants in each language had some knowledge of another language, having taken language courses as part of their secondary education—with English speakers learning Spanish or French and Turkish and Chinese speakers learning English. However, none of the participants had conversational fluency in a second language or took additional second language courses in college. Thus, the participants in each language were comparable in terms of their minimal exposure to a second language. The speakers of each language were also comparable in education: all were attending college at the time of the study. The participants were compensated by either course credit or small monetary compensation for their participation in the study.
2.2. Stimuli
The stimuli consisted of 16 motion animations that depicted motion events and 32 associated instructional videos that described these events in speech with or without gesture.
Motion animations: The motion animations depicted the path and manner of a star-shaped character in relation to a stationary spherical object. The star-shaped character performed motion with either different types of manner while the path of motion remained constant (i.e., manner condition, 8 animations) or performed motion with different types of path while the manner of motion remained constant (i.e., path condition, 8 animations). The animations used in this study were selected from a larger set of animations originally developed by Emerson et al. (Reference Emerson, Özçalışkan and Frishkoff2016), using Strata Design 3DCX6 software.
Instructional videos: The instructional videos consisted of 32 videos (16 for path, 16 for manner) of a male instructor, describing each animation with a pseudoword. Half of the instructional videos for each motion type described the motion in speech with gesture (gesture + speech; e.g., “frengu” + rapidly circling upward facing index finger in place to convey manner of rotating) and the other half without gesture (speech-only; “frengu”). The pseudowords that labeled the animations were originally developed by Emerson et al. (Reference Emerson, Özçalışkan and Frishkoff2016) and consisted of 8 nonsense words (bripu, chulsu, derlu, frengu, lorpu, mernu, norcu, and sermu). All pseudowords were articulated in a manner consistent with the phonetic pattern of each language by a native speaker. Furthermore, all pseudowords were disyllabic and were comparable to each other in terms of the number of phonemes as well as the type of surrounding phonological neighborhood based on PSIMETRICA (Mueller et al., Reference Mueller, Seymour, Kieras and Meyer2003). We used the same 8 words to describe both manner and path variations, separately in the speech-only and gesture+speech conditions, to ensure that word labels did not influence speakers’ learning (see Appendix A). All pseudowords were presented alone without any sentential context to avoid providing language-specific cues to the participants.Footnote 1
2.3. Data collection
The experiment was conducted on a computer in a laboratory, and each participant was tested in their native language by a native speaker. At the beginning of the study, the participants were randomly assigned to one of the 4 between-subjects learning conditions: manner with speech-only (n = 44), (2) path with speech-only (n = 44), (3) manner with gesture+speech (n = 45), and (4) path with gesture+speech (n = 40). The participants in the speech-only condition learned pseudowords with speech-only instruction, while the ones in the gesture+speech condition learned them with gesture+speech instruction. The between-subjects design allowed us to assess learning within each category of motion type and modality type independently; it also minimized potential practice and fatigue effects in learning as each participant only had to complete test items involving a single motion type within a single modality type.
Each participant completed 4 repeated blocks of learning with the same 8 pseudowords. The pseudowords labeled path variations in the path condition (either with speech or with gesture+speech) and manner variations in the manner condition (either with speech or with gesture+speech). The order of the pseudowords was randomized across participants and across the 4 blocks. The participant watched each of the 8 motion animations followed by the associated instructional video per block, one at a time. Halfway into each block, a mini-test on one of the words taught was administered to ensure that the participants were paying attention to the task at hand. At the end of each block, the participant was tested on 8 pseudowords using a forced-choice test. In the forced-choice test for each pseudoword, the participant was presented with two side-by-side animations accompanied by the instructor’s voice that correctly labeled one of the animations. The participant was asked to choose the correct match by pressing a button on the computer keyboard; the associated buttons were marked with yellow tape (for choice of the animation on the left) and red tape (for choice of the animation on the right) for easy visibility by the participant. The placement of the correct animation on the right or the left of the computer screen as well as the presentation of the test trials for the pseudowords were randomized across participants. At each test trial, participants’ accuracy rates (i.e., number of correctly chosen animations as the referent for the pseudoword) and reaction times (i.e., how quickly they pressed the associated button) were recorded (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Sample experimental design showing learning blocks for the pseudowords mernu and norcu in the path with gesture + speech condition; (A1) participant watches the motion animation for mernu; (B1) participant watches the instructional video for mernu; (A2) participant watches the motion animation for norcu; (B2) participant watches the instructional video for norcu. This process is repeated for the remaining 6 pseudowords. (C1) participant receives a block test for mernu while hearing the word mernu, (C2) participant receives a test for norcu while hearing the word norcu. This process is repeated for the remaining 6 pseudowords. After the completion of Block 1, the whole process is repeated 3 more times with the same eight pseudoword, resulting in four blocks of accuracy and reaction time responses.
2.4. Data analysis
All responses were captured via a computer-based program (i.e., E-prime) with a maximum possible accuracy score of 8 per learning block along with a reaction time score for each response in milliseconds. We analyzed differences using two sets of repeated measure ANOVAs with learning (i.e., testing block) as a within-subject factor and language (English, Chinese, Turkish), motion type (manner, path), and modality (speech, gesture+speech) as between-subjects factors, separately for accuracy and reaction time of response. In a few of the blocks, the normality assumption was violated. However, in all of these cases, the skewness and kurtosis values remained within the acceptable range of normality (i.e., between −2 and + 2; George & Mallery, Reference George and Mallery2010) and the associated histograms showed a bell-shaped normal distribution, thus rendering ANOVA as the appropriate statistical tool for the analysis. All follow-up pairwise comparisons were adjusted, using Bonferroni correction.
3. Results
3.1. How accurately do speakers of different languages learn pseudowords for motion?
We first examined accuracy rates (i.e., correct response in each forced-choice test trial) in learning labels for motion events. As can be seen in Figure 2, accuracy improved with each block showing a main effect of learning (F (3, 483) = 33.52, p < .001,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.17). Speakers also differed in learning the labels across the three languages, showing a main effect of language (F (2, 161) = 21.34, p < .001,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.21). Chinese speakers showed lower accuracy across all four blocks of tests than both English and Turkish speakers (Bonferroni, p’s < .001), while the latter two did not differ in their accuracy rates (Bonferroni, p = .79).
Figure 2. Mean accuracy scores of English (A), Chinese (B), and Turkish (C) speakers in each block of learning words for manner with gesture + speech (solid red lines), manner with speech-only (dotted red lines), path with gesture + speech (solid black lines) and path with speech-only (dotted black lines).
Accuracy rates also showed a main effect of motion type (i.e., manner versus path; F(1, 161) = 5.13, p = .025,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.03), which did not interact with language (F(2, 161) = .71, p = .50): Overall, speakers across all three languages showed slightly better learning of labels for manner than for path (Mmanner = 5.79, SD = 1.67 versus Mpath = 5.38, SD = 1.79).
On the other hand, accuracy rates showed no main effect of modality (F(1, 161) = .53, p = .47) nor a Modality x Language interaction (F(2, 161) = .05, p = .95). Speakers across the three languages showed comparable rates of learning when instructed with speech-only or with gesture+speech (Mspeech = 5.55, SD = 1.73 versus Mgesture + speech = 5.64, SD = 1.75). We found no other two-, three- or four-way interactions between motion type, modality, language, and learning (see Table 1 for a full summary of statistical results for accuracy rates).
Table 1. Summary table for statistics on accuracy responses (significant effects are bolded)
*p <.05; ***p <.001.
3.2. How quickly do speakers learn pseudowords for motion?
We next examined reaction time (i.e., response time in forced-choice test trials) in learning labels for motion events. As can be seen in Figure 3, response time decreased (i.e., got faster) with each block showing a main effect of learning (F (2.19, 352.12) = 45.19, p < .001,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.22). Speakers differed in their reaction time in the three languages, showing a main effect of language (F (2, 161) = 32.61, p < .001,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.29). Chinese and Turkish speakers responded slower across all four blocks of tests than English speakers (Bonferroni, p’s < .001).
Figure 3. Mean reaction time scores of English (A), Chinese (B) and Turkish (C) speakers in each block of learning words for manner with gesture + speech (solid red lines), manner with speech-only (dotted red lines), path with gesture + speech (solid black lines) and path with speech-only (dotted black lines).
Different from accuracy rates, reaction time showed no main effect of motion type (i.e., manner versus path; F(1, 161) = .23, p = .63) nor interaction between motion type and language (F(2, 161) = .80, p = .45). Speakers across the three languages showed similar reaction times when learning novel labels for manner or path of motion (Mmanner = 3512.02, SD = 1498.86 versus Mpath = 3649.26, SD = 1668.38). At the same time, motion type interacted with block (F (2.19, 352.12) = 3.35, p = .03,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.02): speakers across the three languages showed quicker response times in later blocks when learning words for manner than for path across all languages.
Similar to accuracy rates, reaction time showed no main effect of modality (F (1, 161) = .812, p = .37) and no interaction between modality and language (F (2, 161) = .212, p = .81). Speakers across the three languages responded at a similar speed when instructed with speech-only or with gesture+speech (Mspeech = 3476.23, SD = 1433.26 versus Mgesture + speech = 3687.18, SD = 1724.55).
Our analysis of reaction time showed no four-way interaction but two 3-way interactions: The first was a Learning x Motion Type x Language interaction (F(4.37, 352.12) = 2.75, p = .03,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.02), which indicated that English speakers showed faster reaction times when learning manner or path verbs, compared to both Turkish and Chinese speakers; but this pattern was evident in all four blocks for manner verbs (Bonferroni, ps ≤ .02) and only in the last three blocks for path verbs (Bonferroni, ps ≤ .01). The second three-way interaction was between Learning x Motion Type x Modality (F(2.19, 352.12) = 3.53, p = .03,
$ {\eta}_p^2 $
= 0.02), which showed that speakers in all three languages showed faster reaction times when learning path verbs in the first block but only in the speech-only condition (Bonferroni, p = .02; see Table 2 for a full summary of statistical results on reaction times).
Table 2. Summary table for statistics on reaction time responses (significant effects are bolded)
*p <.05; ***p <.001.
3. Discussion
The world’s languages follow a tertiary split in their expression of manner and path of motion—with greater expression of manner in S-languages (e.g., English), path in V-languages (e.g., Turkish), and comparable expression of manner and path in E-languages (e.g., Chinese; Slobin, Reference Slobin, Strömqvist and Verhoeven2004; Talmy, Reference Talmy2000). The cross-linguistic variability in motion descriptions has an effect on the nonverbal representation of motion, but this effect is evident during verbalization of the event in one’s native language but is not present when not verbalizing the event (i.e., thinking-for-speaking account; Slobin, Reference Slobin, Gumperz and Levinson1996). In this study, we asked whether the effect of language would or would not extend beyond verbalization of the motion event when learning pseudowords for motion by speakers of structurally different languages, particularly when the words were taught both with gesture and speech. More specifically, we asked whether learning pseudowords for motion would be affected by motion type (manner, path), language (Chinese, English, Turkish) and modality (speech-only, gesture+speech), using a word-learning paradigm that did not involve verbalization of the motion event in one’s native language. Our results showed that speakers of all three languages learned pseudowords for manner and path—but with overall lower accuracy and slower response times in Chinese speakers. Regardless of the language they speak, participants learned pseudowords for manner more accurately than pseudowords for path, showing an effect of motion type. Their learning of words remained consistent, however, when instructed with gesture+speech or with speech only, thus showing no effect of modality of instruction.
3.3. Effect of language on learning novel words for motion
The speakers of all three languages learned the novel words for motion: they showed higher accuracy and faster reaction time in matching pseudowords to motion event animations over time. At the same time, Chinese speakers showed lower accuracy compared to both English and Turkish speakers and longer reaction times compared to English speakers in learning words for motion. What might explain the language effect that becomes evident in both measures of learning? One possible explanation might be the lexicalization of motion events in Chinese. Unlike English or Turkish speakers who rely on single verbs to express either manner or path of motion, Chinese speakers typically use serial verbs to express manner and path jointly (Paul, Emerson & Özçalışkan, Reference Paul, Emerson and Özçalışkan2022). In fact, as shown in earlier work, the majority of motion descriptions (62-86% across studies) by adult Chinese speakers relies on serial verb constructs encoding both manner and path in the verb (Chen & Guo, Reference Chen and Guo2009; Tütüncü et al., Reference Tütüncü, Paul, Emerson, Şengül, Knezevic and Özçalışkan2023). The pseudowords in our study were all single words labeling either manner or path of motion—a pattern quite different than the habitual form of motion expression in Chinese. Accordingly, the single word labels might have resulted in lower word-like associations for Chinese speakers than they did for English or Turkish speakers. In fact, earlier research (Bartolotti & Marian, Reference Bartolotti and Marian2014) suggests that participants recognize and produce unword-like pseudowords less accurately and at slower speed than word-like pseudowords. The nature of the pseudowords in our study thus might have placed an extra cognitive processing load for Chinese speakers, resulting in lower accuracy and extended processing time in learning.
Another likely explanation is that the pseudowords used in our word-learning experiment were based on the Latin alphabet (e.g., mernu, norcu). Alphabetic languages such as English and Turkish are phonological, differing from Chinese, which is primarily ideographic. Ideographism in Chinese is largely conveyed by the special graphic quality of the Chinese characters (Gu, Reference Gu2012). Previous research has shown that Chinese learners show slower reading times for English because they rely more on graphic and less on phonological cues compared to readers of an alphabetic language (Zhou, Reference Zhou1988). The greater reliance on ideographic cues, in turn, might have resulted in lower accuracy and reaction times in learning pseudowords by Chinese speakers in our study.
3.4. Effect of motion type in learning novel words for motion
We started with a two-way prediction for the effect of motion type (manner, path)—with the possibility of either an effect of language on learning manner versus path verbs or the lack of such an effect as would be predicted by the ‘thinking for speaking account’ (Slobin, Reference Slobin, Gumperz and Levinson1996). The speakers in our study showed no differences in their learning of pseudowords by language, suggesting that the effect of language on learning does not go beyond verbalization—giving further support to Slobin’s (Reference Slobin, Gumperz and Levinson1996) thinking for speaking account. More specifically, when instructed with novel words without any accompanying native speech production, S-, V- and E-language speakers in our study were able to learn words for both manner and path equally well. This finding is in line with previous findings that showed a lack of language effects on nonverbal representation of events when not verbalizing across a broad variety of nonverbal tasks (Cardini, Reference Cardini2010; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016a, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2018; Papafragou et al., Reference Papafragou, Hulbert and Trueswell2008; Skordos et al., Reference Skordos, Bunger, Richards, Selimis, Trueswell and Papafragou2020; Tütüncü et al., Reference Tütüncü, Paul, Emerson, Şengül, Knezevic and Özçalışkan2023). It also extended this work to the domain of word learning across structurally different languages. But why is there no effect of language on learning novel words for motion? As put forth by Chen and Guo (Reference Chen and Guo2009), speakers of all languages—regardless of structural differences—have the lexical means to encode both manner and path components of a motion event. As aforementioned, we see evidence of this in silent gestures (i.e., gestures produced without speech), where speakers of different languages show cross-linguistic similarities in their expression of manner and path of motion by encoding both in gesture; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016a, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2018, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2024b; Tütüncü et al., Reference Tütüncü, Paul, Emerson, Şengül, Knezevic and Özçalışkan2023), suggesting that these two event components are available to speakers for encoding motion across different languages. And when given a task with no time constraints and no verbalization of the event, they were able to learn labels for either motion component at comparable rates.
At the same time, even though the speakers in our study showed similar patterns in learning words for manner and path in each language, they also showed better learning for words encoding manner than path of motion across languages. What might explain the better performance in learning pseudowords for manner, particularly given Talmy’s (Reference Talmy2000) proposal that path constitutes a core component of a motion event in event construal. According to Talmy, path information must always be explicitly encoded—regardless of whether it is expressed in the main verb or in a particle associated with the verb—whereas the overt expression of manner is optional. If that is the case, one could expect speakers of all languages to learn pseudowords for path better than the ones for manner. And indeed, some of the earlier work provided some evidence for the path bias, with speakers of either language type showing better learning or recall of path than manner information (Emerson et al., Reference Emerson, Özçalışkan and Frishkoff2016; Gennari et al., Reference Gennari, Sloman, Malt and Fitch2002; Maguire et al., Reference Maguire, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Imai, Haryu, Vanegas and Sanchez-Davis2010; Skordos et al., Reference Skordos, Bunger, Richards, Selimis, Trueswell and Papafragou2020). At the same time, however, more recent work (Aktan-Erciyes et al., Reference Aktan-Erciyes, Akbuğa, Dik and Göksun2022) suggests that the salience of an event component might also play an important role in learning. Aktan-Erciyes and colleagues found that Turkish speakers (V-language) rated manner information to be more salient than path information in animated motion scenes that depicted both components of motion, even if they found the verbal expression of path easier. The same participants also showed an effect of manner—but not path—when asked to make similarity judgements (without verbalization). More specifically, the Turkish speaker’s similarity judgements were affected by differences in manner salience but not path salience, with differences in manner but not path resulting in decreased perceived similarity. These findings thus suggest that not only typological structure (i.e., path constituting the core component of a motion event), but also salience in the depiction of a motion component could jointly influence speakers’ perception and learning of different motion components of an event.
In addition, the depiction of path in our animations included not only encoding the moving entity (star-shaped figure) but also a landmark (e.g., a spherical entity) in relation to which the figure moved. As such, the learning of words for path required not only paying attention to the moving entity but also the object that served as the goal or source for the motion—thus differing from manner animations, which necessitated focusing only on the moving figure. The added cognitive load of paying attention to two versus one entity might have resulted in a lower rate of learning in the path condition than in the manner condition. However, this difference was not evident in reaction times, suggesting equal processing times for both manner and path components of a motion event in the minds of all speakers independent of language. The lack of congruence between the two measures of learning highlights the need for future research that can include other conditions (e.g., animations with both manner and path with or without landmarks) to shed further light on the source of the differences we observed in our study.
Another reason for the difference could be the design of our study. Different from earlier work, most of which used a within-subject design in manner versus path conditions (e.g., Gennari et al., Reference Gennari, Sloman, Malt and Fitch2002; Özer & Göksun, Reference Özer and Göksun2020; Papafragou et al., Reference Papafragou, Massey and Gleitman2002), our study relied on a between-subjects approach in which each participant either learned words only for path or only for manner. This, in turn, might have allowed them to more easily focus exclusively on one of the two motion components (manner or path) during the word-learning task, resulting in better learning for manner words.
3.5. Effect of modality in learning novel words for motion
Gesture is an integral aspect of communication and provides an important window into the mind. It has now been shown that gestures can facilitate learning especially if the task at hand is complex (Alibali & Goldin-Meadow, Reference Alibali and Goldin-Meadow1993; Church & Goldin-Meadow, Reference Church and Goldin-Meadow1986; Perry & Elder, Reference Perry and Elder1997). Learning a new language can be complex for beginners, and gesture, in turn, may facilitate language learning in two ways: it may ease the cognitive load by presenting a second modality (i.e., visual presentation) that is different than speech alone (i.e., auditory presentation); it may also allow the learners to explore ideas that may be difficult to comprehend or to verbalize with speech alone (Goldin‐Meadow, Reference Goldin‐Meadow2000). However, contrary to this, our results showed no beneficial effect of gesture+speech instruction over speech instruction. One possible explanation for the absence of a gesture effect on learning could be the nature of the task. The participants were asked to learn eight pseudowords in total over four blocks, which may have resulted in a near-ceiling effect. Indeed, participants’ performance on average was fairly high (76% correct) across trials and languages (English: 83%, Chinese: 64%, Turkish: 81%) even in the speech-only condition, leaving gestures relatively little room to improve the performance already achieved by the instruction of the words in speech alone. Future studies that test gesture’s role in learning a greater number of words that are also more complex can tell us more about the contribution of task complexity on the beneficial effect of gesture in learning novel words.
Another explanation for the lack of a gesture effect comes from children learning new words in their native language. There is considerable work that suggests close coupling between child gesture use and subsequent word learning, in which early gestures (mostly points at objects) precede and predict the time of onset and the size of children’s early spoken vocabularies (e.g., Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, Reference Iverson and Goldin-Meadow2005; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Adamson, Dimitrova and Baumann2017). Importantly however, most of this earlier work on word learning focused on unique gestures (i.e., referents conveyed only in gesture but not yet in speech), but not on gesture+speech combinations. There is in fact work that suggests that the size of children’s vocabularies at 42 months is predicted by their unique gesture vocabularies at 14 months but not by their gesture+speech combinations at 18 months (Rowe & Goldin‐Meadow, Reference Rowe and Goldin‐Meadow2009; see also Rowe et al., Reference Rowe, Özçalışkan and Goldin-Meadow2008). These findings thus suggest that the beneficial effect of gesture in learning words might be less evident if the instruction involved a gesture+speech combination (as in our study)—a possibility that needs to be tested in future studies.
In addition, in our study, the participants learned pseudowords, all ending with a similar sound (i.e., all ending with the phoneme /u/). As such, gesture+speech combinations might have made it more difficult to attach meaning to these highly similar phonetic forms, thus eliminating the possible enhancing effects that gesture can provide. In other words, the additional semantic content provided by the iconic gestures may have interfered with the ability to attach meaning to the newly learned pseudowords. Since speech is phonetically novel in our task, additional meaning provided by iconic gestures may have taxed the learners’ cognitive system. Indeed, previous research found that when learning phonetically hard pairs of words, gesture instructions do not help learners; in fact, they hinder their performance (Kelly & Lee, Reference Kelly and Lee2012). This explanation also fits well with the second language learning model (Baddeley et al., Reference Baddeley, Gathercole and Papagno1998) which proposes that the phonological loop in working memory is dedicated to learning a new language; and when the phonological loop is taxed with novel speech sounds, this disrupts the encoding of those novel sounds into permanent memories for new words. Kelly and Lee (Reference Kelly and Lee2012) argue that, considering the already taxed load of encoding in the working memory, addition of iconic gestures may have added a visually distracting dimension to the task of learning. Although this does not compromise the ability to learn these sounds and later remember them, it may nonetheless have eliminated the boost that iconic gestures could have brought to learning.
There is also research that suggests that gesture aids learning, especially when the learners produce the gestures rather than just observe them—a pattern that has been shown both for adult (Engelkamp & Dehn, Reference Engelkamp and Dehn2000; Macedonia et al., Reference Macedonia, Müller and Friederici2011; Morett, Reference Morett2014) and child (Cook & Goldin-Meadow, Reference Cook and Goldin-Meadow2006; Goldin‐Meadow et al., Reference Goldin‐Meadow, Levine, Zinchenko, Yip, Hemani and Factor2012; Tellier, Reference Tellier2008) learners. Similar to this earlier work, in our study, participants only viewed the gestures without producing them themselves. Future research that systematically vary the joint effect of both observing and producing gesture can further illuminate the relative contribution of gesture to learning novel words for different types of instructional gesture exposure.
In conclusion, our study extended previous work showing a lack of a language-specific effect on nonverbal representation of events when not verbalizing the event in one’s native language (Cardini, Reference Cardini2010; Özçalışkan et al., Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2016a, Reference Özçalışkan, Lucero and Goldin-Meadow2018; Papafragou et al., Reference Papafragou, Hulbert and Trueswell2008; Skordos et al., Reference Skordos, Bunger, Richards, Selimis, Trueswell and Papafragou2020; Tütüncü et al., Reference Tütüncü, Paul, Emerson, Şengül, Knezevic and Özçalışkan2023) to the domain of word learning across structurally different languages. Even though Chinese speakers performed less accurately than English and Turkish speakers and slower than English speakers, their learning of manner and path pseudowords did not interact with language. This study also took the word-learning paradigm one step further by also examining the effect of instruction type, showing no advantage of gesture+speech instruction over speech-only instruction in learning. These findings thus highlight that simply observing gesture with novel words might not be sufficient to facilitate learning novel words for motion beyond the instruction provided with speech alone.
Data availability statement
https://osf.io/x3wb6/?view_only=fa3b1ebd577743e58510409d60ccc6d5.
Acknowledgements
English data collection was supported by an GSU RCALL doctoral fellowship to Emerson. Turkish data collection was supported by a grant from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK; 53325897-115.02-170549) to Şengül.
Competing interest
The authors declare none.
APPENDIX A
Table A1. Pseudowords with their related gesture instructions (Manner videos (A), Path videos (B); stimuli (1), gesture instruction (2))
Open access
