Speaking and remembering in one or two languages: bilingual vs. monolingual lexicalization and memory for motion events

The aim of this study is to test whether balanced English–Spanish bilingual speakers behave like monolinguals in each of their languages when describing and remembering complex motion events. The semantic domain in question is motion, because some components (namely the manner of motion) are more difficult to lexicalize in Spanish than in English because of typological constraints (see Filipović, 2007; Slobin, 1996, 1997; Talmy, 1985). As a result, performance on a recognition task involving motion verbs could be expected to vary depending on the language used in the experiment. English and Spanish monolinguals and bilinguals performed the recognition task. Results from the monolinguals indicate that there is a language effect based on this typological difference. Specifically, English monolingual speakers performed significantly better than their Spanish peers in the recognition task in both of our conditions, i.e., with verbalization and without verbalization. The bilingual results on the other hand strongly suggest that these speakers tend to adhere to a single lexicalization pattern that is acceptable in both languages, which is the Spanish one in this case. We discuss further implications of these results for language processing and for memory of motion events in general.