How to speak “geocentric” in an “egocentric” language

A multimodal study among Ngigua-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals in a rural community of Mexico
Evangelia Adamou ,
1 Eréndira Calderón ,
2

and Stefano De Pascale 3

1CNRS, 2INALCO, 3KU Leuven

Introduction Localization Task Analysis Linguistic means

Theoretical background
o Neo-Whorfian approach: language has a strong
impact on human cognition (Brown and Levinson
1993; Pederson et al. 1998; Bowerman and
Levinson 2001; Levinson 2003).
o Universalist approach: languages draw on pre-
existing cognitive representations (Gallistel 2002; Li
and Gleitman 2002; Li et al. 2011).
Recent studies focusing on indigenous, rural
communities show that geocentric memorization
strategies are in use after the loss of a language with
geocentric terms (Meakins, Jones, and Algy 2016,
Adamou and Shen 2017).
Research question
If we think the way we speak, how do speakers of
communities with predominant geocentric thinking
speak a language like Spanish in which egocentric
terms are known to prevail in spatial descriptions?
To answer this question:
1. We investigate linguistic conceptualizations among
the last Ngigua-Spanish bilingual speakers when they
speak their native language, Ngigua, and the colonial,
state language, Spanish, to see whether they have
different linguistic conceptualizations of space or a
single one.
2. We compare the linguistic conceptualizations of
the bilinguals, as expressed in speech and co-speech
gesture, to those of the monolingual Spanish speakers
from the community.
Map. The localities where Ngiba/Ngigua
(Popolocan. Otomanguean) is spoken
(Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, Mexico).
Our study took place in the community
of San Pedro Buenavista (2400 m
altitude; less than 200 inhabitants small-
scale farming and cattle breeding).
Ngiba/Ngigua is severely endangered:
500–1,000 speakers.
Goals
Exploring linguistic conceptualizations by analyzing
speech and co-speech gesture (Gullberg 2011).
Predictions
We expect Spanish to favour egocentric
conceptualizations and Ngigua to favour non-
egocentric ones, similar to other Mesoamerican
languages.
Methodology
Participants
17 Ngigua-Spanish bilinguals. Ages 52-87 (M = 73.24,
SD=9.18).
Control group: 17 Spanish monolinguals. Ages 24-46 (M
= 33.12, SD = 6.98).
All participants lived in San Pedro Buenavista; low-
income levels; similar sociolectal background for
Spanish; younger speakers more educated.
Evaluating bilingual competence
o Sociolinguistic interview: Spanish for daily
communication for most bilinguals from early
adulthood.
o Comprehension test (picture-matching experiment):
similar accuracy in both languages.
o Verbal fluency test: Spanish dominant.
Procedure
8 questions: “Where is X in relation to Y?”;
o 4 locations in San Pedro Buenavista, 4 in
Coixtlahuaca, 11 km away.
o North/south and east/west axes.
Coding
ELAN format from the Max Planck Institute
for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen).
o Speech tier (egocentric, geocentric, intrinsic, deictic,
topological, toponymy).
o Co-speech gesture tier (direct pointing, geocentric,
egocentric, mixed). Gesture strokes N=661 (total):
bilinguals in Spanish (N=247); bilinguals in Ngigua
(N=216); Spanish monolinguals (N=198).
Mixed-effects Poisson regressions to model the
influence of the sociolinguistic profile/group of a
participant (in Ngigua or Spanish, split by bilinguals and
monolinguals) on the number of co-speech gestures
(Fig. 1) and the types of linguistic expressions (Fig.2).
Participants were included as random effects.
Results
Gestures
o Geocentric gestures: Bilinguals in Spanish (7.21) >
Spanish monolinguals (5.68) > Ngigua (3.83).
Bilinguals in Ngigua differ significantly from
themselves in Spanish (p < 0.001), but not from the
monolinguals (p > 0.05).
o Direct pointing: Ngigua (5.94) > bilinguals in Spanish
(4.02) > Spanish monolinguals (2.01). The pairwise
differences between those three groups are
significant (at least p < 0.05).
o Egocentric gestures: Bilinguals in Spanish (1.98) >
Spanish monolinguals (1.24) > Ngigua (0.77).
Bilinguals in Ngigua differ significantly from
themselves in Spanish (p < 0.05), but not from the
monolinguals (p > 0.05).
Figure 1. Fitted average number of Figure 2. Fitted average number of
Co-speech gestures for bilinguals (in Linguistic expressions for bilinguals
Ngigua and in Spanish) and (in Ngigua and in Spanish) and
monolinguals (Spanish) monolinguals (Spanish)
Figure 3. Example of geocentric Figure 4. Example of geocentric
gesture with topological gesture with geocentric expressions
expressions in Ngigua (bilingual) in Spanish (monolingual speaker)
o Deictic expressions: Bilinguals in Spanish (8.09) >
Ngigua (5.59) > monolinguals (2.34). The pairwise
differences are significant (at least p < 0.05).
o Geocentric terms: Monolinguals (4.06) > bilinguals in
Spanish (0.79) > Ngigua (0.26). Bilinguals in Ngigua
differ significantly from the monolingual group (p <
0.001), but not from themselves in Spanish (p = 0.14).
Monolinguals differ significantly from the bilinguals
when speaking Ngigua (p < 0.001).
o Egocentric terms: The pairwise differences between
those three groups turns out to be nonsignificant
(lowest p-value = 0.42).
o Topological expressions: Ngigua (6.31) > bilinguals
in Spanish (4.67) > monolinguals (2.40). Bilinguals in
Ngigua differ significantly from the monolinguals (p <
0.01), but not from themselves in Spanish (p = 0.13).
Monolinguals differ significantly from the bilinguals in
Ngigua (p < 0.001).
Discussion
 Bilinguals preferred direct pointing in both languages
as well as topological and deictic expressions. As in
Meakins (2011) after loss of the native geocentric
expressions.
 Geocentric gestures and linguistic expressions were
significantly more used in Spanish (terms in particular
by Spanish monolinguals, through access to
schooling and acquisition of cardinal terms).
 Egocentric gestures were not used in Ngigua, a
language that like other Mesoamerican languages
had no egocentric linguistic terms. In Spanish,
bilinguals and monolinguals used egocentric
gestures and terms in similar ways. Egocentric
conceptualizations are therefore most
likely introduced through contact with Spanish.
Conclusions
o Bilinguals use the native (geocentric) linguistic
conceptualizations in both languages, but restrict the
egocentric ones to the new, dominant language,
Spanish.
o Geocentric linguistic conceptualizations can thus
help maintain geocentric memorization strategies.
o In accordance with the Neo-Whorfian approach, but
updated to include co-speech gestures to fully
describe linguistic conceptualizations.