A cognitive view of the Bilingual Lexicon: Reading and Speaking

words in two languagesJudith F. Kroll, Bianca M. Sumutka,

and Ana I. Schwartz

Presented by Irem Tumer

April 10, 2014

Outline of the Presentation

1. Background

1.1. Lexical Access in Bilingual Word Recognition

1.2. Lexical Access in Bilingual Word Production

2. Cross language competition

2.1. Models of Bilingual Word Recognition and Production

2.2. Factors that modulate cross-language interactions in Word Recognition

2.3. Factors that modulate cross-language interactions in Word Production

3. Conclusions and Future Perspectives

L1 lexical processing• Psycholinguistics studies have shown that

when we recognıze a word in our native language, not only the target word but also other words sharing similar lexical forms with the target word are also activated.

• Cohort Model

• Parallel- Series Models

• Interactive Models

How does a speaker of two languages

select the words to produce?

“fiets”

Selective access: The intention to speak in one language

determines which word to become active. The two

languages are functionally separate

Dutch-English speaker

“bike” “fiets”

Dutch-English speaker

Non-selective access: Distinct language cues may

eventually allow access for candidates in the intended

language or inhibit those in the unintended language

1.1. LEXICAL ACCESS IN BILINGUAL WORD RECOGNITION

• Recent studies of bilingual word recognition supports the non-selectivity account.

• Dijkstra, et al. - Dutch-English Bilinguals activate lexical candidates in Dutch in their native language even though they read the words in English and vice versa.

• Surprise: They do this although the two languages do not share the same alphabetic or orthographic forms (e.g. Gollan, Forster & Frost, 1997)

• Does cross-language similarities effect the word recognition?

• Cognates (e.g. bed in English - Dutch)

• Homographs/false friends (e.g. room means cream in Dutch)

• Lexical Decision Tasks: Dijkstra et al, 1998

• Dutch- English bilinguals1. When the task was purely in English (L2), the bilinguals were

as fast to judge homographs as unambiguous controls as they were able to access English selectively.

2. When the English words were cognates, they were significantly faster to judge them as words than the controls.

3. When the task included Dutch (L1) words as non-words, there was inhibitory effect of homographs relative to unambiguous controls.4. General Lexical decision task to accept real words in both languages: they were faster to judge homographs than controls.RESULTS• bilingual lexicon is non-selective • When bilinguals read words in one of their languages, the

orthographic, phonologic and semantics features of words in both languages become active

1.2. LEXICAL ACCESS IN BILINGUAL WORD PRODUCTION

• Similar non-selectivity rule has also been demonstrated in language production.

• Intention of producing a word in target language also activates related words in the non-target language

• Because of the top-down nature of production, the activated words in the non-target language are semantically related.

Stroop task (1935): a classic

interference task

Single language version of Stroop tasks

• A picture is named in one language

• A distracting word is presented (spoken or written)

• -before

• -during

• -after the picture`s presentation

• The aim was to find out the stages of the word production

• RESULT: semantically related distractors inhibit whereas phonologically related ones facilitate the production time.

Bilingual Version of Stroop Studies

coche• buur

• The results were also similar for bilingual studies.• Word selection occurs after the competition of lexical

candidates and before specifying the phonology of that word

Problem of Stroop Task

• Distractor word initiates bottom-up processing (recognition)

• Whereas naming a picture (production) requires top-down processing

• So the two processes interfere and we can not reach firm conclusions

Cued picture naming Tasks• Mixed conditions: Name the picture in English if you hear

the high tone and in Dutch if you hear the low tone.• (tones were presented on one of three SOA with respect to the presentation of

the picture.)

• Force activation of both languages

• Blocked conditions: Name the picture in English

• (or Dutch) if you hear the high tone and say “no” if

• you hear the low tone•

• Activation of the nontarget language is optional

The aim was to compare the two conditions where you have

to activate one language and don`t have to activate both

languages.

if non selective model is right, then activation of both

languages must have little effect on performance

Cognate and Non-cognate picture naming tasks

• English-Dutch bilinguals- Kroll et al. • Cognates: bed- bed

• Non-cognate: bike-fiets

• There was cognate facilitation effect in Mixed Condition cued picture naming task for both L1 and L2.

• There was cognate facilitation effect in Blocked Condition only for L2.

RESULTS: L1 is always active in L2 production but L2 is not active in L1 production. Because in Blocked language production task, L2 cognates did not facilitated L1 production.

2. MODULATING CROSS-LANGUAGE COMPETITION

• The lexicon in both languages become active

• However, this activation must be controlled

• In order to perform fluently in reading and speaking

• Where does this selection occur?

2.1. Models of bilingual word recognition and production

• Bilingual Interactive Activation Model (BIA)

• Bottom up processing: (Dijkstra et al., 1998)Visual input Letter Features Letters Word Language

(word recognition)

• Language Nodes control the selection of lexical codes (phonologic or orthographic codes which are activated in both languages) in the target language.

• Language nodes are sensitive to context and relative dominance of the two languages

• Model of Spoken Language Production

• Poulisse and Bongaerts, 1994 & Hermans,2000

• Top-down Processing

Conceptual level lemma level phonological level

• Language cue is sufficient to activate the dominant language lemmas in the dominant language (L1) but not enough when the target language is L2 because there will be competition.

2.2. What factors affect language selection?

1. Attributes of the Languages

2. Processing Strategies of the languages

3. Linguistic and non-linguistic context

4. Characteristics of bilingual individual

5. Properties of the task used

1. Language attributes

• Is there any difference between Dutch-English and Chinese-English bilinguals perception of words?

• No, even though the two languages are orthographically different the cross-language interaction persists.

• Masked Priming Experiment: Gollan et al., 1997

• Hebrew-English

• Cognates facilitate the word recognition.

• Why?

• Because of the shared phonological features

2. Language-specific Processing Strategies and Constraints

• Deep orthography- Shallow orthography distinction means distinct lexical parsing strategies. (e.g. syllable parsing, phological)

• So bilinguals should adjust their lexical parsing strategies.

• It is a paradox for bilinguals to choose which parsing strategy to employ especially when the two languages require different parsing strategies.

A study on Auditory parsing strategy

• Cutler et al., 1989

• Compared auditory parsing strategies of French-English and English-French bilinguals

• French: clear syllable boundaries

• English: ambiguous syllable boundaries

• Participants were asked to listen to phonemes in French words. Some phonemes were on syllable boundary, some were not.

• French-English speakers were faster at identifying the phonemes when it was in a syllable.

• Eng-Fr bilinguals appeared to not have acquired the syllable parsing strategy even though they were highly proficient in Fr.

What are the consequences for language selection?

• One account: Parsing would be a late process in word recognition so it is effected by decision mechanisms.

• The other account: if it was an early process, it wouldn`t be affected by language specific parsing strategies.

• Future Research should be on whether parsing strategies influence language selection during reading.

3. Context

• In priming experiments, it has been found out that there is semantic priming between languages/words.

• Only a few studies investigated whether sentence context overrides the cross-language interaction between lexical codes.

• Altarriba, Kroll, Sholl & Rayner,1996• Van Hell, 1998• Elston-Guttler, 2000• Schwartz, 2003

Finding

• In the highly constrained context of a sentence, cross-language activity is reduced.

• But this finding is not firm.

• If this finding can be proven, the semantic activation of a word may have more influence on cross-language processes.

• And lexical word recognition becomes a top-down process contrary to early lexical decision experiments

4. Characteristics of the bilingual

• Most of the research on bilingual word recognition and production was conducted with late bilinguals who acquired L2 after early childhood.

• Even though they are highly proficient in L2, their L1 is more dominant.

• L2 proficiency and cognitive abilities in language processing are also important factors.

How does L2 proficiency influence the degree of cross-language competition?Even highly proficient bilinguals continue to show evidence of L1 influence when the language of the task is L2.-Sunderman (2002): English learners of Spanish with differing prof levels.-Finding: All learners, regardless of their prof level, were sensitive to cross-language form relations and to some degree to semantics of L2.-Only low prof learners were sensitive words related in form to translation equivalents of L2 words.

How does memory capacity modulate cross-language competition?

• Micheal, Dijkstra & Kroll, 2002• Replicated homograph interference study Of

Dijkstra, 1998.• A memory span task in Dutch and a translation

production task were given to participants prior to the experiment

• Finding: People with higher memory span were faster to translate the words.

• However, there was no effect of memory span on homograph interference

5. Properties of the Task

• Non-selectivity activation`s effects can vary across tasks

• Homograph Interference Studies• Experiment 2: Dijkstra et al. 2000- Participants were told they can see Dutch words as

distractors.- In the first half dutch words were never presented= No homograph interference- In the second half Dutch words presented= - Homograph interference• So by manipulating the conditions we can obtain

results either consistent with selectivity or non-selectivity.

2.3. FACTORS THAT MODULATE CROSS-LANGUAGE INTERACTIONS IN WORD

PRODUCTION1. Language Attribute

2. Language specific processing strategies, constraints , and context

3. Characteristics of the bilingual

4. Properties of the task

1. Language Attributes

• Production is initiated by conceptually driven processes. (top-down)

• The conceptual representation might be different in both of bilinguals` languages. Then the conceptual representation might be used to identify the language to be selected. (contrary to non-selectivity findings)

• Grammatical properties may effect lexical selection (gender markers)

• There is little evidence to suggest that meanings are distinct for bilingual`s both languages

2. Language specific processing strategies, constraints , and context

• Code switching studies can be conducted to understand the locus of lexical selection.

• Language switching studies under lab conditions: Meuter & Allport,1999

- Found out that there is a switch cost in naming numbers.- It was greater when switching from L2 into more dominant

L1.- Why? Inhibition of L1- The context doesn`t eliminate the switching cost, so it

cannot be used to reduce activation of candidates in the non-target language.

3. Characteristics of the bilingual

• As your L2 proficiency increases, production of L2 lexicalized concepts will be faster.

• However, even highly proficient bilinguals activate lexical and phonological information about L1, alternatives of L2 lexis.

• If this cross-linguistic competition continues even after later stages of L2 learning, can cognitive ability of the learner influence this selection problem?

A Reading Span Task• Kroll et al, 2000• Compared the performance of a group of L2

learners who differed in reading span.• The span task in L1 : ability to process and retain

info simultaneously .• Word naming and then word translation task• For translation of non-cognate words: higher

span learners were faster• For translation of cognate word: lower span

learners were faster and used the lexical transparency of cognates

• Finding: it is difficult to identify the locus of span and cognate effect??????

4. Properties of the task

• Picture naming tasks:

• Translation Tasks: serve as a language cue so selection of language occurs earlier

Testing language cue hypothesis in translation studies

• Miller & Kroll, 2002 • A word is presented for translation along with a

semantically or phonologically distractor• 1st version: the distractor was in the language of output

(spoken)• 2nd version: the distractor was in the language of input

(written)• Findings: In the 1st version, there were semantic

interference and phonological facilitation • In the 2nd version, there were no semantic or phonological

effect of the distractors on the production• In the presence of appropriate language cue, bilinguals can

reduce the cross-language competition

3. CONCLUSIONS• In both word recognition and production there is

language non-selectivity so there is competition across languages prior to selection.

• However, the nature of activated info differs for recognition and production.

• Recognition: lexical forms• Production: conceptual representations• Some factors are important to determine how the

cross-language competition is modulated in bilinguals mind. But there is no firm conclusions about them.

• Bilingualism research can also provides models for cognition in general.