Background In order to better understand the nature of language and the cognition that makes it possible in normal and pathological states, current psycholinguistic research reveals the necessity to place linguistic diversity at centre stage of the brain/language investigation [1]. In the domain of space, typological research has shown significant differences in the way semantic elements are mapped onto lexical and syntactic structures across languages [2]. With respect to the expression of motion events, languages are classified into: Satellite‐framed, those expressing Manner of motion in the verb root and Path in satellites (e.g., English); and Verb‐framed, those lexicalizing Path information in the verb leaving Manner implicit or expressing it in the periphery of the sentence (e.g., French). Such typological properties seem to strongly constrain how speakers encode motion in discourse [3;4;5], thereby raising new questions concerning the relationship between language and thought. This lexical/grammatical distribution is particularly interesting for the study of aphasia in a cross‐ linguistic perspective [6;7;8;9], especially in comparison to monolingual and bilingual agrammatic speakers who show dissociations between lexical/grammatical knowledge and who possess one or two languages with typologically divergent patterns. Method The present study aims to determine the role of typological vs. language‐independent factors in accounting for similarities and differences in verbalizations during normal and impaired language use. It compares how several groups of speakers describe motion events (video clips): monolingual English and French controls (N=40); agrammatic monolingual speakers of English and French (N=2); early bilingual English‐French speaker (N=1). The analyses examined what information was expressed (Path and/or Manner), by what verbal means (verbs, adjuncts) and with which compensation strategies in the case of agrammatic speakers. Results and discussion Results show, crosslinguistic differences in the structures used by controls resulting in more semantic density in English (Manner verbs with Path adjuncts) than in French (Path verbs, infrequent Manner). The aphasic data of the monolingual and bilingual speakers show some similarities: they all express less information than controls; in French the monolingual agrammatic speaker focuses on Path, omitting most grammatical elements; in English the speaker uses either Path particles alone, devices marking goals or Manner verbs omitting tensed auxiliaries. The bilingual speaker seems to adopt distinct strategies when describing events in different languages. In English he often omits tensed auxiliaries, and either uses light verbs together with Path particles or when using Manner verbs he mostly omits Path adjuncts. In French, he focuses almost exclusively on Path verbs or uses light verbs together with idiosyncratic Path prepositions possibly influenced by the English pattern. Conclusion The present crosslinguistic experimental study suggests that: (1) typological factors strongly constrain spatial encoding across populations; (2) monolingual agrammatics develop strategies that are dependent both on the spatial system of their language and on their specific deficit, whereas (3) the bilingual despite some similarities with the performance of monolinguals due to common syndrome‐related factors (4) develops diverging strategies that reflect different underlying processes for verbal encoding. References [1] Evans, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32(5), 429‐492. [2] Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Volume 1: Concept structuring systems. 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In C. Fuchs & S. Robert (eds.) Language diversity and cognitive representations, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 195‐207. [9] Soroli, E., Hickmann, M., Nespoulous, J‐L., Sahraoui, H., Tran, T. M. (2010). Encoding Motion Events in Aphasia : Cross‐Linguistic Perspectives in Monolingual and Bilingual Agrammatism, Elsevier Procedia in Social and Behavioral Sciences, AoA 2010, 48th Academy of Aphasia Proceedings, Volume 6 : 206‐207.