PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Bilingualism

Bilinguals & Polyglots Many people speak more than one language

Tucker (1999) - multilinguals outnumber monolinguals What is the impact of knowing/using more than one

language? Factors affecting second language acquisition What does the bilingual lexicon look like? Interesting effects in bilinguals

Interference Code switching Cognitive advantages

Second language learning Learning a new language

What if we already know one language, but want to learn another?

Johnson and Newport (1989) Native Chinese/Korean

speakers moving to US Task: Listen to sentences

and judge whether grammatically correct

Concluded that around the age of 16 something happens

Different factors operate on language acquisition before and after the age of 16

Second language learning Learning a new language

What if we already know one language, but want to learn another?

Adults learning another language typically have a persistent foreign accent – perhaps a critical period for phonology (Flege & Hillenbrand, 1984)

Adults typically do better initially at learning a new language compared to kids, but kids typically do better over the long term (Krashen, Long, & Scarcella, 1982)

Important factors Contexts of childhood bilingualism

Simultaneous Both languages are acquired at the same time

Vocabulary growth of bilinguals is similar to that of monolinguals Some aspects of acquisition may be slowed, but by age of 4

typically caught up Doesn’t seem to matter whether languages are “related” or not

(e.g., English - French versus English Japanese) Can achieve “fluency” in both languages

Sequential acquisition The second language is learned after a first language

When the second language (L2) is acquired is important Early versus late learning (e.g., see the Johnson and

Newport study)

Mode of acquisition Native bilingualism - growing up in a two language

environment Immersion - schooling provided in a non-native language Submersion - one learner surrounded by non-native

speakers (e.g., English speaker moving to another country) Frequency of usage of both languages

How often and in what contexts do you use the two languages

“Use it or lose it” - language attrition Language dominance effects

Relative fluency of L1 and L2 may impact processing

Important factors

How do we represent linguistic information in a bilingual lexicon?

How do we process (comprehend and produce) language when we know more than one?

Main Theoretical Questions

Models of the bilingual lexicons

Potter et al (1984): Separate Stores Models – separate lexicons for each language – could be constructed 2 ways

L1 L2

CONCEPTS

Word Association Model

L1 L2

CONCEPTS

Concept Mediation Model

hund

dog

hund

dog

EnglishGerman

EnglishGerman

Evidence for separate storage:“dog” primes “dog” better than “hund” primes “dog”

Evidence most consistent with Concept mediation model: mostly from picture and word naming, and translation studiesIn L1 picture naming slower than word naming. In L2 pictures named about the same time as L1 translated into L2

Models of the bilingual lexicons

Paivio, Clark, & Lambert (1988): Common Stores Models – words from both languages in same store

L1 & L2

CONCEPTS

hund

dog

English &German

Evidence:

“hund” does prime “dog”

And

“dog” primes “hund”

Models of the bilingual lexicons

L1 L2

concepts

lexicallinks

conceptuallinks

conceptuallinks

Revised Hierachical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) Proposed that the fluency of

L2 needs to be considered in the processing model

Evidence: translation tasks

The results are mixed, supporting more complex models

hund

dog L1 -> L2: looks like conceptual

mediation L2 -> L1: looks like word association

Models of the bilingual lexicons

The results are mixed, supporting more complex models (e.g., BIA+, Dijkstra & vanHeuven, 2002)

May be different in different bilinguals depending on things: age of acquisition relative proficiency

May be different for different tasks: Translation (production) Word recognition (comprehension)

For those interested in recent discussion check out:Kroll, vanHell, Tokowicz, and Green (2010)

Interesting effects in bilinguals Interference Code switching Cognitive advantages

Interference between languages

As you read or listen, determine who or what is the one performing the action.

The waitress pushes the cowboys. The telephones pushes the cowboys. Kisses the table the apple. The baskets the teacher kicks.

A native speaker can use many cues (available at different times while processing):

Word order Animacy Noun-Verb agreement

Not all languages use the same cues to the same extent e.g., relative to English, German doesn’t rely as much on word order, but

relies more on morphological agreement processes

Found that German-English bilinguals (English as L2) typically carry over the dominant processing strategies from their native languages.

This interacts with their level of fluency in the second language

Monolingual English

German speakers use all three, in both German and English

Kilborn (1989, 1994)

Does knowing two languages lead to interference? When found, interference is at multiple levels For simultaneous learners

Phonological - least amount of interference Lexical - mixing words from different languages

Initially, appear to use a one word per thing strategy But as they realize there that they’re speaking two language,

then they’ll use words from both languages simultaneously Syntactic

Until year two, may use only one syntactic system which is common to both languages

Then a brief period with two sets of lexical items, but still a common syntax

Finally, two lexicons and two sets of syntax

Interference between languages

Code switching When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one

language with a phrase or word from another language

“I want a motorcycle VERDE”

Switching is systematic, not random – there are certain important structures where code-switches do / do not occur

Social reasons: participants in conversation, purpose, context etc. Also syntactic reasons. And not just ‘forgetting’ a word: code-switching is an active choice

to achieve a social or linguistic aim through conversational strategy. (Active, though does not mean ‘conscious’)

When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language

“I want a motorcycle VERDE”

Code switching

The Spanish adjective “verde” follows a grammatical rule that is observed by most bilingual speakers that code-switch

“I want a VERDE motorcycle” Would be incorrect

because language switching can occur only if the adjective is placed according to the rules of the language of the adjective

In this case, the adjective is in Spanish; therefore, the adjective must follow the Spanish grammatical rule that states that the noun must precede the adjective (in English adjectives precede the noun)

When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language

“I want a motorcycle VERDE”

Code switching

Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and comprehend sentences containing code-switched words

May be due to a “mental switch mechanism” that determines which of the bilingual’s two mental dictionaries are “on” or “off” during language comprehension.

This mental switch is responsible for selecting the appropriate mental dictionary to be employed during the comprehension of a sentence.

E.g., if reading an English, a Spanish code-switched word is encountered, the mental switch must disable the English linguistic system, and enable the Spanish linguistic system.

When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language

“I want a motorcycle VERDE”

Code switching

Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and comprehend sentences containing code-switched words

This time difference depends on similarity of the languages Chinese-English bilinguals take longer to recognize English code-

switched words in Chinese sentences only if the English words contain initial consonant-consonant (e.g., flight) clusters, simply because the Chinese language lacks this phonotactic structure.

Another current view suggests that language dominance (i.e., which language is used more frequently) plays an important role in code-switching

Heredia & Altarriba (2001) is a good review

Some evidence suggest that being bilingual can have an impact on cognition outside of language

Bialystok and colleagues Bilinguals are very proficient at switching between languages Bilinguals also have to be good at suppressing the contextually inappropriate

language

Bilingual advantage has been found in several non-linguistic tasks that may involve task switching and inhibition processes

E.g., Stroop task, flanker task, card sort task, Simon task

Cognitive advantages