Specific Questions

1. Intralingual Homographs: The impact of L2 lexical acquisition on L1 Julia Peters & Manuel SinorUniversity of Alberta, Canada Manuel Sinormsinor@ualberta.ca Julia Petersjuliap@ualberta.ca Specific Questions Methodology Basic Question Will the acquisition of another language change the way in which words of the first language are stored and organized in the Mental Lexicon? Will ‘form overlap’ in one language (e.g., voler) create links between the translation equivalents in the other language (e.g., fly & steal)? Means of Testing:primed lexical decision task to see if the one of the intralingual homographs translation equivalents (e.g., fly) will prime the other translation equivalent (e.g., steal) • PROCEDURE for Bilingual E/F Group • Part A: Primed Lexical Decision Task in English -- Monolingual language mode  E(F) • Part B: Short recorded interview in French to activate French lexicon and gather background information on participant • Part C: Dual Language Primed Lexical Decision Task -- Bilingual language mode  E/F Evidence that knowledge of an L2 changes the relationship of L1 words to other L1 words could indicate a close proximity of words from different languages within one unified bilingual word storage system. ? FLY STEAL VOLER • PROCEDURE English Only Group • Primed Lexical Decision Task completely in English E Current Views on Bilingual Lexicon • External communicative circumstances will affect the level of interlingual interaction, with more interaction taking place within a bilingual mode of processing (Grosjean 1998). So….. Results Dual Lexicon View – one lexicon per language • intuitive appeal: proficient bilinguals would typically report little interlingual interference • slower perception of code-switched speech (Grosjean & Soares 1986) • alternate availability of the two languages in bilingual aphasics (Paradis et al. 1982) • Error & Delayed Response Analysis • Eliminated target ‘wore’ from subsequent analysis due to errors/delays Will the language mode (monolingual mode vs. bilingual mode) alter the extent of activation between words of the two languages, with more activation occurring during bilingual mode processing? Homogenous Lexicon View – all words in one lexicon • history of bilingual memory modeling legitimizes this hypothesis (cf. Libben, 2000) • ample evidence for cross-linguistic priming (e.g., Hernandez et al. 1996, Van Heuven et al. 1998) • INTERLINGUAL HOMOGRAPH priming (Beauvillain & Grainger 1987, de Groot et al. 2000) • one word form with meanings in two languages (e.g., ‘pain’ > Eng. ache, Fr. bread) • PILOT STUDY • conducted a dual language lexical decision task with the translation equivalents (fly or steal) acting as the prime and the intralingual homograph (voler) acting as the target • conducted a translation accuracy task with timed response • results: verified interlingual priming, eliminated certain problematic stimuli • However, no ‘WORE’ responses were problematic when primed by translation equivalent of intralingual homograph ‘CARRIED’ Intralingual Homographs Our Stimuli: • Response Time Analysis • Overall, no difference in processing target words between English Only (E), bilinguals in English monolingual mode (E(F)) and bilinguals in bilingual mode (E/F) • INTRALINGUAL HOMOGRAPHS: words with two distinct meanings in one of the bilingual's languages • Fr.volermeans both ‘to steal’ and ‘to fly’ (i.e., it has two distinct translation equivalents in English) • Item Criteria: • no cognate translation equivalents (e.g., pêche/peach) • no interlingual homographs (e.g., courses) MAIN STUDY REVISED STIMULUS SET PRIMETARGETFrench Intralingual Homograph 1. fly steal voler2. carried wore portait3. book pound livre4. mouse smile souris5. wood drink boit6. cheek play joue7. summer been été8. fact does fait9. worms towards vers10. end thin fin • However, when looking at prime/target pairs of the SAME SYNTACTIC CATEGORY, may be a priming effect in bilingual mode (E/F) References Beauvillain, C. and J. Grainger, (1987). Accessing interlingual homographs: some limitations of a language-selective access. Journal of Memory and Language 26, 658-672. de Groot, A. M. B., Delmaar, P., & Lupker, S. J. (2000). The processing of interlexical homographs in translation recognition and lexical decision: Support for nonselective access to bilingual memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53, 397-428. Grosjean, F. and Soares, C. (1986). Processing mixed language: Some preliminary findings. In Vaid, J. (Ed.). Language Processing in Bilinguals: Psycholinguistic and Neuropsychological Perspectives. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Grosjean, F., (1998). Studying bilinguals: Methodological and conceptual issues. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1 (2), 131-149. Hernandez A. E., Bates, E. A. & Avila, L. X. (1996). Processing across the language boundary: A cross-modal priming study of Spanish-English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1996, 22, 4, July, 846-864. Libben, G., (2000). Representation and processing in the second language lexicon: the Homogeneity Hypothesis. In Archibald, J. (ed.), Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Paradis, M. Goldblum, M.-C, and R. Abidi (1982) Alternate antagonism with paradoxical translation behavior in two bilingual aphasic patients. Brain and Language, 15:55-69. Van Heuven, W.J.B., Dijkstra, A., & Grainger, J. (1998). Orthographic neighborhood effects in bilingual word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 458-483. Discussion • PARTICIPANTS • 16 speakers of French and English (bilingual) • English is either first or early dominant language (if simultaneous acquisition) • all functionally bilingual, at ease in French, and currently use both languages • 16 native speakers of English with no or little knowledge of French (E) • No evidence of links between general English words that share translation equivalents in French • When processing in bilingual mode, connections may be enhanced as shown by • priming of words that share both syntactic category & translation equivalent • lack of problems with ‘wore’ in bilingual mode when primed by ‘carried’