Affiliation:
1. Inner Mongolia Normal University
2. Yulin University
3. Hulunbuir University
4. Inner Mongolia Art College
5. Inner Mongolia Minzu University
Abstract
Abstract
This study investigates how integrated egocentric and environmental reference frames influence direction
determination and cardinal direction judgments in L1 speakers of Mongolian and Mandarin. The results show that in direction
determination, Mandarin participants’ integrated frame of reference is “front-north, back-south, left-west, and right-east.” By
contrast, Mongolian participants use two modes of integrated spatial representation: “front-south, back-north, left-east, and
right-west” and “front-north, back-south, left-west, and right-east”. This behavior points to influences from the participants’
dominant and non-dominant languages. Mongolian and Mandarin participants showed a north advantage in cardinal direction judgment
tasks with a “front-north” response configuration. Whereas Mandarin participants consistently showed a north advantage effect,
Mongolian participants showed a south advantage effect in the “front-south” configuration. This suggests that in addition to the
long-recognized difference in north-south/east-west axis preference, a north-south axis specification where south was the
normative direction instead of north can result from cultural and linguistic influence. The results corroborate the idea that
language affects the integration of spatial reference frames, lending support to linguistic relativism.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics