Dr. Barbara Schmiedtová, University of Heidelberg
The paper presents the results of several elicitation studies, including linguistic, eye-tracking and memory data, as well as speech onset times, comparing Czech, German, Russian, Polish as well as Slovak native speakers producing verbalizations of a set of short video clips. In addition to data from native speakers some data from very advanced German L2-speakers whose L1 is either Czech or Russian will be presented and discussed. The overall focus of the presentation is on the investigation of the role of grammatical forms in the
construal of goal-oriented motion and events with resultant state.
The results show a consistent pattern: Czech, even though typologically similar to the other Slavic languages, clusters in all four measures with German. In other words, Czech and German speakers behave similarly when conceptualizing and remembering events. These patterns are further supported by the L2-data: Russian and Polish speakers rely on different conceptual strategies than Czech speakers when construing goal-oriented motion and events with resultant state in L2 German. The “Czech pattern” in L2 German is very similar to that found in verbalizations of German native speakers.
