My overarching research question examines the ways that language and cognition are interlinked. I have two lines of work to explore that question in adults and children:

1.The first thread of research investigates the structure of language as it is related to cognition, both in monolinguals and in learners of a second language. Primarily this work has focused on motion event language in so-called verb-framed and satellite-framed languages as well as recently in the equipollently-framed language of Mandarin Chinese. In addition, this research explores the ways that metaphorical and literal motion events are processed by speakers of different languages. I’m currently leading a project entitled ‘An exploration of Spanish- and English-speaking adults’ processing of metaphorical and literal motion language’ (with Santiago de Torres, University of Granada and Ibarraxete, University of Zaragoza).

2.The second line of research addresses the ways that children and other learners gain insight to understandings of science through everyday or informal conversation. Some of this work has been conducted in conjunction with museums; whereas other studies have involved families in their home environments. This set of studies focuses, in particular, on explanations and questions in family conversation to understand the development of dialogic practice as related to cognitive development.

Selective Publications
DeWitt, J. & Hohenstein, J. (2010).  A tale of two contexts: Teacher-student talk on a
    school trip and in the classroom. School Trips and Classroom Lessons: An
    Investigation into Teacher-Student Talk in Two Settings. Journal of Research
    in Science Teaching, 47, 454-473.
Hohenstein, J. (2013). Parent-child talk about motion events in Spanish and English.
    First Language, 33, 411-425.
Hohenstein, J. (2012). Metaphorical motion in cultural context: The case of language
    processing. International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics, 2, 41-59.
Hohenstein, J. & Akhtar, N. (2007). Two-year-olds' productivity with verbal
    inflections. Journal of Child Language 34, 4, p. 861-873.
Hohenstein, J., Eisenberg, A. & Naigles, L. (2006). Is he floating across or
    crossing afloat? Cross-influence of L1 and L2 in Spanish–English
    bilingual adults. In: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9 (3), 249-
    261.
Hohenstein, J. (2005). Language-related motion event similarities in English-
    and Spanish-speaking children. In: Journal of Cognition and
    Development, 6 (3), 402-425.
Hohenstein, J., Naigles, L. & Eisenberg, A. (2004). Keeping verb acquisition in
    motion: A comparison of English and Spanish. Weaving a lexicon. Hall,  
    G. & Waxman, S. (eds.). Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 569-602.
Ji, Y. & Hohenstein, J. (in press). The expression of caused motion by adult Chinese
    learners of English. Language and Cognition.
Ji, Y. & Hohenstein, J. (2014). The syntactic packaging of caused motion components
    in a second language: English learners of Chinese. Lingua, 140, 100-116.