The role of conceptualization during language production: evidence from event encoding

Abstract

As Pim Levelt proposed in Speaking, language production begins with the preverbal, conceptual apprehension of an event or state of affairs that the speaker intends to talk about. Despite the obvious importance of this process, relatively few studies to date have explored how conceptual representations are formed prior to speaking. Here we present a programme of research that tackles this question, focusing on the domain of events. Three key findings emerge. First, conceptual event structure shows important homologies with language. Second, given that event encoding differs across languages, the assembly of event representations prior to speaking varies cross-linguistically. Finally, conceptualising an event for purposes of communication depends not only on conceptual and linguistic factors but also on the pragmatic assessment of the needs and knowledge of the speaker’s conversational partner. We sketch implications of this integrated approach to event conceptualisation for future research on how thought is transformed into language.