Effects of Multilingualism on the Use of Linguistic Spatial Frames of Reference in Dholuo

Abstract

The influence of multilingualism on the nature of spatial frames of reference remains largely unexplored in spatial cognition studies. The present study investigates verbal spatial representation amongst Dholuo multilinguals. It employs a photo-object matching game where participants were engaged in dyads. A total of 80 multilingual Dholuo speakers were involved across Dholuo and English language contexts. Findings indicate the presence of multiple linguistic spatial frames of reference across both language contexts. The findings further reveal a preference for relative and object-centred frames of reference, depending on whether the spatially related objects have inherent orientations or not. Given that the L1-Dholuo L2-English participants used the relative frames of reference system much more often than the monolingual Dholuo speakers in a previous study, the results may partly be explained in terms of the influence of English and its dominant relative frame of reference. The approach adopted herein is novel in the sense that it focuses on multilingualism, in contrast to the previous studies, which gave prominence to monolingual populations. This presents a different perspective on viewing and conceiving of spatial representation not used before in the literature on linguistic spatial frames.

Keywords

• linguistic spatial frames of reference
• feature categories
• multilingualism
• default system