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Knowing More than One Language: The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism Marina Blekher Department of Linguistics

Knowing More than One Language: The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

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Marina Blekher Department of Linguistics. Knowing More than One Language: The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism. Bilingualism a variety of definitions : - a person who is equally proficient in 2 languages - a person with minimal competence in L2 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Knowing More than One Language: The Psycholinguistics of

Bilingualism

Marina BlekherDepartment of Linguistics

Page 2: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

What does it mean to be ‘bilingual’?

Bilingualism a variety of definitions:

- a person who is equally proficient in 2 languages

- a person with minimal competence in L2

- a person with a functional command of 2 languages (and whose linguistic competence is in a stable state)

 

 

Page 3: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Co-ordinate & Compound Bilinguals

(Weinreich, 1953; Ervin & Osgood, 1954)

 

 

Compound bilingualism

church église

Coordinate bilingualism

church église

Subordinate bilingualism

church église

Page 4: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Coordinate bilinguals:have separate, language-specific meanings associated with L1 & L2(2 sets of meaning + 2 linguistic systems)

Compound bilinguals:have one meaning system for L1 & L2 (fused representations) but 2 different means of expression(1 meaning set + 2 linguistic systems)

*Subordinate bilinguals:low-proficiency: the weaker language is interpreted through the stronger language

Page 5: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Context of Acquisition may lead to differences in cognitive organization:

 

coordinate: L1 & L2 used separately in childhoode.g.,‘Mommy/Daddy language’,home/school language etc.

compound: mixing L1 & L2, using them in the same environment/with the same person

Page 6: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Some things bilinguals commonly do:

- mix L1 & L2

- keep L1 & L2 separate

- translate

- in many cases, experience interference

Page 7: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Bilingual processing: the Switch Hypothesis (early proposal)

    a language switch (on/off): accounts for the bilingual’s ability to switch between L1 & L2 based on the situation (e.g., MacNamara & Kushnir, 1971)

    substantial evidence against such a switch: both languages can be activated at the same time e.g. chat pain coin (both meanings are activated)

also, orthographic neighbours in both languages of a bilingual are activated during word recognition (Van Heuven et al., 1998):e.g. English target doom English neighbours: room, dorm, door Dutch neighbours: boom, drom, doos

Page 8: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

More recent proposals:

 language-taggingeach word bears a ‘language tag’ (info about its language), e.g., ‘English’

activation & control (Green, 1986, 1993, 1998)

- a bilingual’s language systems may take on different levels of activation (selected/active/dormant)

- a bilingual can suppress activation & output from one of the languages (i.e., items with particular language tags)

Page 9: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

3 levels of language activation:

1) Selected: currently being spoken

2) Active: plays a role in ongoing processing (works parallel to ‘selected’)

3) Dormant: stored in long-term memory, no role in ongoing processing

Page 10: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Some techniques used to investigate bilingual representation and processing:

Bilingual version of the priming task: examines connections between words of L1 & L2

e.g. apple (preceded by pomme)

vs. apple (preceded by livre)

(repetition priming: apple & pomme are translation equivalents)

Page 11: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

*

Page 12: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

livre

Page 13: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

apple

Page 14: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

*

Page 15: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

pomme

Page 16: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

apple

Page 17: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

*

Page 18: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

carafe

Page 19: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

frim

Page 20: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Bilingual version of the priming task (cont.)

1) repetition priming: apple & pomme are translation equivalents.apple (preceded by pomme) vs. apple (preceded by livre)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) semantic priming: peach & pomme are semantically related words

e.g. peach (preceded by pomme)

vs.

peach (preceded by livre)

Page 21: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

*

Page 22: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

livre

Page 23: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

peach

Page 24: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

*

Page 25: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

loi

Page 26: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

neep

Page 27: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

*

Page 28: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

pomme

Page 29: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

peach

Page 30: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Bilingual Version of the Stroop Experimental Task

What happens on the monolingual task?

e.g., name the colour of the ink

Page 31: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

red

Page 32: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

blue

Page 33: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

green

Page 34: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

red

Page 35: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

blue

Page 36: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

green

Page 37: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Stroop Task (cont.)

name the colour of the ink:

e.g. red bluegreen (congruent)red bluegreen (incongruent)

Stroop effect: interference from the word meaning in the incongruent condition, processor cannot be shut off

Page 38: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Bilingual version of the Stroop task (cross-language colour naming):

Can you shut off your other language?

name the colour of the ink:e.g. rouge bleu vert (congruent) rougebleu vert (incongruent)

Stroop effect: same as with monolinguals, processor cannot be shut off

Page 39: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

The Bilingual Lexicon: How are words of the 2 languages represented in the mind of bilinguals?

Page 40: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

The Bilingual Lexicon: Common or Separate Storage?

1) Two separate storesL1 & L2 words stored separately (in language-specific lexicons)

2) One common store L1 & L2 words stored together (in a language-independent lexicon)

L1 L2

L1 + L2

Page 41: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Perhaps common at one level of representation but separate at another?

Conceptual Store (language-independent) and Lexical Store (language-specific)

OK but how are the two linked?

Page 42: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

The Bilingual Lexicon:

Concept-Mediation or Word-Association?

 Conceptual Store

L1

WordsL2

Words

Concept Mediation

Conceptual Store

Word Association

L1

WordsL2

Words

Page 43: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Concept-mediation:- no direct links between L1 & L2 items- L1 & L2 words are connected via a language-independent conceptual store

Word- association:- there are direct links between equivalent L1 & L2 words- L2 word meaning is always retrieved via L1

A later revision: A developmental shift from Word-Association to Concept-Mediation?

Page 44: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

More recently:Distributed models of bilingual representation(recall connectionism?)

- each word is represented as a collection of interconnected nodes

- some nodes are shared across L1 & L2

Page 45: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Conceptual features(meaning)

Lexical features(form)

L1: tulipe

(Cognates) (Non-Cognates)

L2: tulip L1: pont L2: bridge

Page 46: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

So what do we learn from all this?

- there is probably one language system but individual languages show ‘reality’

- how languages are represented and processed depends on the characteristics of the bilingual as well as on the properties of linguistic units

- languages can be activated to varying extents depending on the linguistic context & nature of the task* (please see note below)

*note for this last point that I had meant to mention in class:the statement contained in it concerns, e.g., producing speech in L1 or L2 depending on the linguistic context/task demands; suppressing speech output from a particular language based on the situation. However, as far as, e.g., word recognition is concerned, there has been much debate about the degree to which a bilingual can exercise control over the activation of words from L1 or L2. There seems to be a substantial body of evidence that bilingual lexical access is non-selective and automatic in nature (for instance, even in tasks that are monolingual in nature, i.e., those that do not require explicitly the use of both L1 & L2, words from both languages are activated in bilinguals).

 

 

Page 47: Knowing More than One Language:  The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism

Thank you