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Introduction
Introduction
Introducton
Teliteratureonbilingualismaboundsinreportsofindividualswhoonlearningto
speakanotherlanguageacquiredanewperspectiveonlife,anewmodeofthinking
andrespondingtotheworldatlarge,andanewblueprintforexpressingthemselves
andunderstandingothers(Grosjean1982;Hofman1989;Pavlenko2003,2005;
Wierzbicka1997,2005,2008).Apartfromecologicalvaliditymanifestingitselfin
thepersonaltestimoniesofnumerousbilinguals,andindeedthehistoriesofbilin-
gualcommunities,thesereportsmusthaveanempiricalbasis.TeConceptual
TransferHypothesisprovidesasuitabletestinggroundforprobingthelanguage-
thoughtinterface,andthusinterpretingtheexperiencesofsomany.However,to
haveexplanatorypower,thehypothesisneedstheoreticalandempiricalvalidation.
Accordingly,thisprojectevaluatestheclaimsofthehypothesisbyexaminingrel-
evanttheoreticalpositionsandconductingresearchbasedonitsrecommendations.
Tebookopenswithanoverviewoftheoreticalpositionsandpertinentresearch
concernedwiththearchitectureofthebilingualmentallexiconandlevelsofrepre-
sentation.Accordingly,specialattentionispaidtothequestionofwhethersemantic
andconceptualrepresentationsconstituteoneandthesamelevelortwoseparate
ones,andtotheoriesofconceptsthathaveevolvedovertheyearsasaresultofinten-
siveresearchandtheoreticalspeculation.Teseencompasstheideaoflexicalized
concepts,i.e.conceptualrepresentationswithlexicallabels,whichissubsequently
elaboratedonthroughtheprismofAnnaWierzbicka’sNaturalSemanticMetalan-
guage(NSM)andsemanticexplications.
Tebilingualmentallexiconmaintainsitsfunctionalityduetolinguisticand
non-linguisticprocessesoperatingwithinandacrossitsvariouslevels.Someof
themareassumedtofunctionatthelanguage-cognitioninterface,bringinginto
existencewhatJarvisandPavlenko(2008)havetermedconceptualtransfer.Asit
involvescross-modalinfluenceoflinguisticcategoriesoncognition,thediscussion
focusesonlanguage-mediatedprocesseswithinthelexicon,includingthosepre-
dictedbytheTeoryofLinguisticRelativityanditsmodifiedversionsintheform
oftheTinkingforSpeakingHypothesis(Slobin1996,2003)andvonStutterheim’s