Most research on cognates has focused on words presented in isolation that are easily defined as cognate between L1 and L2. In contrast, this study investigates what counts as cognate in authentic texts and how such cognates are read. Participants with L1 Danish read news articles in their highly proficient L2, English, while their eye-movements were monitored. The experiment shows a cognate advantage for morphologically simple words, but only when cognateness is defined relative to translation equivalents that are appropriate in the context. For morphologically complex words, a cognate disadvantage is observed which may be due to problems of integrating cognate with non-cognate morphemes. The results show that fast non-selective access to the bilingual lexicon is conditioned by the communicative context. Importantly, a range of variables are statistically controlled in the regression analyses, including word predictability indexed by the conditional probability of each word.

When participants are asked to translate an ambiguous word, they are slower and less accurate than in the case of single-translation words (e.g., Láxen & Lavour, 2010; Tokowicz & Kroll, 2007). We report an experiment to further examine this multiple-translation effect by investigating the influence of variables shown to be relevant in bilingual processing. The experiment included cognates and non-cognates with one translation or with multiple translations. The latter were presented with their dominant or subordinate translations. Highly-proficient balanced bilinguals responded to a translation recognition task in the two language directions (Catalan–Spanish and Spanish–Catalan). The results showed a significant multiple-translation effect in both cognates and non-cognates. Moreover, this effect was obtained regardless of language dominance and translation direction. Participants were faster and more accurate when performing translation recognition for the dominant than for the subordinate translations. The findings are interpreted adopting the Distributed Representation Model (de Groot, 1992b).

The present study examines the effect of cross-varietal prosodic characteristics of two German varieties, Northern Standard German (NG) and Swiss German (SG), on the production and perception of foreign accent in L2 Belfast English. The analysis of production data revealed differences in the realisation of nuclear pitch accents in L1 German and L2 English produced by the two groups of speakers. Foreign accent ratings of L2 English sentences produced by NG speakers with no or extensive experience, native Belfast English speakers and SG speakers were obtained from native Belfast English listeners. The findings showed that segmental and prosodic characteristics play a role in the perception of foreign accent. In addition, they can be more similar across languages than across varieties of the same language. This in turn affects which and how cross-varietal differences in L1 impact on the degree of perceived foreign accentedness. The results are consistent with a usage-based account.

Much previous experimental research on morphological processing has focused on surface and meaning-level properties of morphologically complex words, without paying much attention to the morphological differences between inflectional and derivational processes. Realization-based theories of morphology, for example, assume specific morpholexical representations for derived words that distinguish them from the products of inflectional or paradigmatic processes. The present study reports results from a series of masked priming experiments investigating the processing of inflectional and derivational phenomena in native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers in a non-Indo-European language, Turkish. We specifically compared regular (Aorist) verb inflection with deadjectival nominalization, both of which are highly frequent, productive and transparent in Turkish. The experiments demonstrated different priming patterns for inflection and derivation, specifically within the L2 group. Implications of these findings are discussed both for accounts of L2 morphological processing and for the controversial linguistic distinction between inflection and derivation.

This study compared the effectiveness of balanced and skewed input at facilitating the acquisition of the transitive construction in Esperanto, characterized by the accusative suffix -n and variable word order (SVO, OVS). Thai university students (N = 98) listened to 24 sentences under skewed (one noun with high token frequency) or balanced (equally-low token frequency) presentation following either inductive (rule not given) or deductive (rule given) instructions. In the testing phase, they heard 20 sentences (10 SVO, 10 OVS) with new nouns and identified the object. Only the group that received balanced input and deductive instructions detected the novel pattern.

Executive control abilities and lexical access speed in Stroop performance were investigated in English monolinguals and two groups of bilinguals (English–Chinese and Chinese–English) in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Predictions were based on a bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, implicating cognitive control ability as the critical factor determining Stroop interference; and two bilingual lexical disadvantage hypotheses, focusing on lexical access speed. Importantly, each hypothesis predicts different response patterns in a Stroop task manipulating stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). There was evidence for a bilingual cognitive advantage, although this effect was sensitive to a number of variables including proficiency, language immersion, and script. In lexical access speed, no differences occurred between monolinguals and bilinguals in their native languages, but there was evidence for a delay in L2 processing speed relative to the L1. Overall, the data highlight the multitude of factors affecting executive control and lexical access speed in bilinguals.

We investigated the effects of grammatical and stereotypical gender information on the comprehension of human referent role nouns among bilinguals of a grammatical (French) and a natural gender language (English). In a sentence evaluation paradigm, participants judged the acceptability of a gender-specific sentence referring to either a group of women or men following a sentence containing the plural form of a role noun female (e.g., social workers), male (e.g., surgeons) or neutral (e.g., musicians) in stereotypicality. L1 French and L1 English bilinguals were tested both in French and English. The results showed that bilinguals construct mental representations of gender associated with the language of the task they are engaged in, shifting representations as they switch languages. Specifically, in French, representations were male-dominant (i.e., induced by the masculine form), whereas in English, they were stereotype-based. Furthermore, the results showed that the extent to which representations shifted was modulated by participants’ proficiency in their L2, with highly proficient L2 participants resembling native speakers of the L2 and less proficient L2 participants being influenced more by their native language.

Children growing up bilingual face a unique linguistic environment. The current study investigated whether early bilingual experience influences the developmental trajectory of associative word learning, a foundational mechanism for lexical acquisition. Monolingual and bilingual infants (N = 98) were tested on their ability to learn dissimilar-sounding words (lif and neem) in the Switch task. Twelve-month-olds from both language backgrounds failed to detect a violation of a previously taught word–object pairing. However, both monolinguals and bilinguals succeeded at 14 months, and their performance did not differ. The results indicate that early bilingual experience does not interfere with the development of the fundamental ability to form word–object associations, suggesting that this mechanism is robust across different early language environments.

Many words have more than one translation across languages. Such translation-ambiguous words are translated more slowly and less accurately than their unambiguous counterparts. We examine the extent to which word context and translation dominance influence the processing of translation-ambiguous words. We further examine how these factors influence translation ambiguity stemming from two sources, specifically translation ambiguity derived from semantic ambiguity and from near-synonymy. Bilingual participants were presented with English–German word pairs that were preceded by a related or unrelated prime and were asked to decide if the word pairs were translations. Translation-unambiguous pairs were recognized more quickly and accurately than translation-ambiguous pairs. Related pairs and dominant translations were responded to more quickly than unrelated pairs and subordinate translations, respectively. We discuss the results in relation to models of bilingual memory and propose a new model that makes specific predictions about translation ambiguity, the Revised Hierarchical Model of Translation Ambiguity.

Dual-route models of second language (L2) morphology (Clahsen & Felser, 2006; Ullman, 2004) argue that adult L2 learners rely on full-form retrieval, and therefore cannot use combination to produce inflected forms. We tested this prediction with learning of Spanish verb conjugations. Beginning (Experiment 1) and intermediate (Experiment 2) learners (total N = 816) completed 80–90 minutes of web-based training, conjugating regular and subregular verbs in present and preterite tense. Tests of generalization items showed that training led to substantial improvement, equally for metalinguistic and analogical feedback. Comparison with an untrained group showed that gains were maintained 18 weeks after training. In contrast with dual-route model predictions, pre-test accuracy and learning gains were strongly predicted by conjugation pattern, showing that full-form retrieval was insufficient to explain learner performance. Results indicate that adult L2 learners apply compositional analysis, and that conjugation patterns are learned on the basis of their relative cue validity.

This study examined intelligibility of twelve American English vowels produced by English, Chinese, and Korean native speakers in quiet and speech-shaped noise in which vowels were presented at six sensation levels from 0 dB to 10 dB. The slopes of vowel intelligibility functions and the processing time for listeners to identify vowels were dependent on speakers’ language backgrounds and non-native speakers’ vowel intelligibility in quiet. These results indicated that noise background affected non-native speakers’ vowel intelligibility more greatly than native speakers, possibly due to the acoustic deviations in non-native speech and lack of listeners’ experience to non-native produced speech.

This study focuses on English onset cluster production in spontaneous speech samples of 10 children aged 5;04–6;09 from Chinese and Hindi/Punjabi first language (L1) backgrounds, each with less than a year of exposure to English. The results suggest commonalities between early second language (L2) learners and both monolingual and adult L2 learners in the location of cluster repair and the sometimes-exceptional treatment of s+stop clusters. We also provide evidence that accuracy rates and repairs used in early L2 cluster production show L1 influences. We conclude that early L2 learners represent a unique learner group, whose study is crucial to the understanding of phonological development.

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that the parallel processing of the target language (TL) during source language (SL) comprehension in interpreting may be influenced by two factors: (i) link strength from SL to TL, and (ii) the interpreter's cognitive resources supplement to TL processing during SL comprehension. The influence of the first factor was supported by the contrasting performance on bidirectional SL and TL interpreting tasks by unbalanced bilingual student interpreters, and the second factor was supported by the contrasting performance between participants’ two developmental stages in interpreting. Implications are discussed.

Verb–particle constructions are a notoriously difficult aspect of English to acquire for second-language (L2) learners. The present study investigated whether L2 English speakers are sensitive to gradations in semantic transparency of verb–particle constructions (e.g., finish up vs. chew out). French–English bilingual participants (first language: French, second language: English) completed an off-line similarity ratings survey, as well as an on-line masked priming task. Results of the survey showed that bilinguals’ similarity ratings became more native-like as their English proficiency levels increased. Results from the masked priming task showed that response latencies from high, but not low-proficiency bilinguals were similar to those of monolinguals, with mid- and high-similarity verb–particle/verb pairs (e.g., finish up/finish) producing greater priming than low-similarity pairs (e.g., chew out/chew). Taken together, the results suggest that L2 English speakers develop both explicit and implicit understanding of the semantic properties of verb–particle constructions, which approximates the sensitivity of native speakers as English proficiency increases.

We investigated the influence of word class and translation ambiguity on cross-linguistic representation and processing. Bilingual speakers of English and Spanish performed translation production and translation recognition tasks on nouns and verbs in both languages. Words either had a single translation or more than one translation. Translation probability, as determined by normative data, was the strongest predictor of translation production and translation recognition, after controlling for psycholinguistic variables. Word class did not explain additional variability in translation performance, raising the possibility that previous findings of differences between nouns and verbs might be attributed to the greater translation ambiguity of verbs relative to nouns. Proficiency in the second language was associated with quicker and more successful production of translations for ambiguous words, and with more accurate recognition of translations for ambiguous words. Working memory capacity was related to the speed of recognizing low probability translations for ambiguous words. These results underscore the importance of considering translation ambiguity in research on bilingual lexical and conceptual knowledge.

While Hulk and Müller (2000) predict that the direction of cross-linguistic syntactic influence is unidirectional when the construction involves syntax–pragmatics interface and surface overlap between two languages, they explicitly rule out language dominance as a factor involved. This study questions their latter claim and argues that the syntax of the dominant language can influence that of the weaker, based on a Korean–English bilingual boy's attriting English data; Korean null subjects triggered English subject drop when his Korean became more dominant. Thus, I propose a revised model of cross-linguistic influence that accounts for both Hulk and Müller's proposal and my data.

The current project examined whether and to what degree continued L2 input, operationalized as length of residence (LOR), and age of acquisition (AOA), defined as the first intensive exposure to the target language, can be predictive of adult Japanese learners’ production of word-initial English /ɹ/. Data were collected from 65 participants, consisting of three groups of Japanese learners of English (n = 13 for Short-, Mid-, and Long-LOR groups, respectively) and two groups of baseline speakers (n = 13 for Japanese- and English-Baseline groups, respectively). Their production of /ɹ/ was elicited via three oral tasks (i.e., word reading, sentence reading, timed picture description). Acoustic analyses were carried out along four dimensions: third formant (F3), second formant (F2), first formant (F1) frequencies, and formant transition duration. The results demonstrated that (a) all learners reached native-like proficiency with respect to the use of existing cues (F2, transition duration) within approximately one year of LOR, (b) their performance was negatively related to AOA to some degree, and (c) longer LOR was predictive of the development of the new cue (F3). These results suggest that late L2 speech sound acquisition and proficiency may be characterized by different levels of phonetic processing.

Previous studies have showed that at age 3;0, monolingual children acquiring rhythmically different languages display distinct rhythmic patterns while the speech rhythm patterns of the languages of bilingual children are more similar. It is unclear whether the same observations can be found for younger children, at 2;6. This study compared five Cantonese–English simultaneous bilingual children with five monolingual children in each language using both rhythmic metrics and qualitative data on syllable structure complexity and lexical stress. Results show that while the speech rhythms of monolingual children are different at 2;6, the rhythmic patterns of bilingual children are less distinct.

The present study investigates the link between multilingualism and the personality trait Tolerance of Ambiguity (TA) among 2158 mono-, bi- and multilinguals. Monolinguals and bilinguals scored significantly lower on TA compared to multilinguals. A high level of global proficiency of various languages was linked to higher TA scores. A stay abroad of more than three months was also linked to higher TA although the effect levelled off after one year. Growing up in a multilingual family had no effect on TA. These findings show that a high level of multilingualism makes individuals more at ease in dealing with ambiguity, but we acknowledge that a higher level of TA can also strengthen an individual's inclination to become multilingual.