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Switching direction affects switching costs: Behavioral, ERP and time-frequency analyses of intra-sentential codeswitching
Abstract
Bilinguals have the unique ability to produce utterances that switch between languages. Most language switching research has focused on isolated, unrelated items, which emphasizes separation of the languages. Fewer studies examined the cognitive and neural mechanisms of switching languages in natural discourse. The present study examined the effect of codeswitching direction on the comprehension of intra-sentential codeswitching in Spanish-English bilinguals, using self-paced reading behavioral measurements (Experiment 1) and electroencephalography (EEG) measurements (Experiment 2), analyzed via both event-related potentials (ERPs) and time-frequency analysis (TFR). Reading times showed a significant switching cost for codeswitched sentences in both codeswitching directions, though switching costs were somewhat higher into the dominant language than into the weaker language. ERPs showed that codeswitched as compared to non-switched words elicited a late positivity, but only when switching from the dominant into the weaker language, not in the reverse direction. TFRs showed complementary and converging results: switches into the weaker language resulted in a power decrease in lower beta band while switches into the dominant language resulted in a power increase in theta band. These multi-method findings provide novel insights into neurocognitive resources engaged in the comprehension of intra-sentential codeswitches related to sentence-level restructuring processes to activate and access the weaker language.
... Only a handful of studies have examined language switching in natural reading tasks such as sentence comprehension (Bultena et al., 2015;Hoversten & Traxler, 2020;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno et al., 2002;Proverbio et al, 2004). Three of these studies employed methodologies with excellent temporal resolution such as eye tracking (Hoversten & Traxler, 2020) and EEG/ERP (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno et al., 2002, Proverbio et al., 2004. ...
... Only a handful of studies have examined language switching in natural reading tasks such as sentence comprehension (Bultena et al., 2015;Hoversten & Traxler, 2020;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno et al., 2002;Proverbio et al, 2004). Three of these studies employed methodologies with excellent temporal resolution such as eye tracking (Hoversten & Traxler, 2020) and EEG/ERP (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno et al., 2002, Proverbio et al., 2004. Despite considerable variability in the proficiency profile of participants across these studies (ranging from highly proficient, professional translators to L1 dominant, unbalanced bilinguals), all studies converge in observing a switch cost. ...
... Two of the studies cited earlier included both switch directions and both converge in finding switch costs in both directions (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Proverbio et al., 2004). These switch costs were observed in early time windows corresponding to the N1 and N400. ...
Prominent models of the bilingual lexicon do not allow for language – wide inhibition or any effect of general cognitive control on the activation of words within the lexicon. We report evidence that global language inhibitory control and cognitive general control mechanisms affect lexical retrieval during comprehension. Spanish–English bilinguals read language-pure or sentences with mid-sentence switches while their eye movements were recorded. A switch cost was observed in aspects of the eye-tracking record reflecting early spread of lexical activation, as well as later measures. The switch cost was larger for L2-to-L1 switches and was not attenuated when switched words were cognates (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, switch costs were reduced when the sentences contained a language color cue. These findings are inconsistent with the predictions of the Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus (BIA+) but support the architecture of its predecessor, the BIA. They refute the assumption that early lexical activation is impervious to nonlinguistic cues.
... When it comes to directionality, L1 English-HL Spanish bilingual adults seem to have slower processing and lower accuracy rates with Spanish DET switches (Fairchild and Van Hell, 2017). In Litcofsky and Van Hell (2017), for instance, processing costs related to the directionality of the switch were contingent on the dominant language so that English DET switches were harder to process for Spanish-dominant bilinguals (i.e., when switching into the dominant language), while ...
... Taking these premises as our framework, we have compared different switched DPs in order to determine how the feature valuation construct shapes codeswitching patterns and how these relate to language inhibition and language activation as two defining processes characterizing bilingual acquisition. We set out to explore intra-sentential codeswitching and, in particular, English-Spanish codeswitching happening between DET and N. We investigated the presence of switch costs as this is a topic of wide interest in the literature on bilingual acquisition in general and on codeswitching in particular (i.e., Gollan and Ferreira, 2009;Gullifer et al., 2013;Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017). ...
... What we would like to suggest is the following: English DET switches (1b) are processed faster as no gender agreement mechanism needs to be enforced because English DETs bear no gender features; when a Spanish DET appears (1a), and given the strength of grammatical gender features in Spanish (the L1 of the children), gender agreement mechanisms are enforced, which results in longer processing times; furthermore, when gender agreement operations result in non-congruent switches (2b and 3b), this is seen as a violation for these L1 Spanish bilinguals, which also results in even longer processing times when compared to congruent switches. This is in line with previous studies considering adult data, both in offline acceptability judgment data (Liceras et al., 2008(Liceras et al., , 2016Valenzuela et al., 2012) as well as in online data Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017). ...
Codeswitching has been used as a tool to investigate how the properties of the two language systems interact in the bilingual mind with relatively few studies investigating bilingual children. We target two groups of L1-Spanish–L2-English children in Spain to address language activation and language inhibition in the processing of codeswitching between a determiner (DET) and a noun (N). We investigate how the mental representation of the formal features involved is responsible for the sensitivity to grammatical gender, which in turn affects how bilinguals’ language activation and inhibition processes are at play and shape processing. We target both the directionality of the switch (English-DET–Spanish-N vs. Spanish-DET–English-N) and the type of implicit gender agreement mechanism (in the case of Spanish-DET–English-N switches) by using offline acceptability judgment data and eyetracking during reading data. Results suggest lower processing costs of English DET switches and higher ones of non-congruent Spanish DET switches. We interpret the preference for classifying the non-gendered Ns along the lines of the gendered Ns in the gendered language as evidence for the integrated representation hypothesis which states that both Ns depicting the same concept are connected in the mind of the bilingual.
... As a hallmark of bilingual language processing, code-switching is often acknowledged as an effortless and natural language phenomenon in linguistic description (Fernandez et al., 2019;Pérez-Leroux et al., 2016). However, this seemingly easy task in fact bears processing costs (Faroqi-Shah & Wereley, 2022;Hell et al., 2015;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). Prior research named the increased processing costs in code-switching as switching costs, which is often characterized by greater response times and more errors relative to non-switched conditions (Gosselin & Sabourin, 2021;Prior et al., 2017). ...
... Compared with isolated word switching or single-word insertion, language switching within a sentence, or say intra-sentential code-switching (hereafter intra-sentential CS) has received far less attention in the literature. Psycholinguists generally argued that intrasentential CS preserves more linguistic contexts and natural discourse that are likely to eliminate switching costs (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). It is worth noting that the effect of sentence context on language switching is prone to be syntax-related (Declerck & Philipp, 2015). ...
... Present comprehension studies on language switching showed mixed results on the issue whether the switching costs are symmetrical in forward and backward directions (Bultena et al., 2015a;Bultena, Dijkstra, & Van Hell, 2015;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Wang, 2015). Some held that switching into the weaker language (L2) was more costly than switching into dominant language (L1) (Bultena et al., 2015b;Bultena, Dijkstra, & Van Hell, 2015;Wang, 2015). ...
In order to better understand the role of syntactic similarity in a code-switched sentence, the current study explored the effect of similar and different syntactic structures on Chinese-English bilinguals’ intra-sentential switching costs. L2 proficiency and switching directions as factors that potentially intervene in bilingual performance were together explored to see if there was any interaction. We manipulated the degree of syntactic similarity by utilizing clauses in active voice (greater similarity) and passive voice (lesser similarity). The study conducted a self-paced reading paradigm as a more natural language reading processing. Results showed overall longer reading times for active sentences than passive counterparts, which supported a syntactic similarity impediment rather than facilitation. The impediment seemed to be predominant irrespective of L2 proficiency. Furthermore, syntactic similarity modulated the asymmetry of switching costs between forward (L1-L2) and backward (L2-L1) direction: word RTs for the 1st and the 2nd switched word yielded greater costs in L2-L1 condition, while greater costs in L1-L2 condition was observed in 3rd switched word RTs and average RTs. The present study observed syntactic similarity impediment rather than facilitation for Chinese-English bilinguals. Notably, syntactic similarity plays a predominant role compared to L2 proficiency, and modulates the asymmetry between switching directions.
... The second open question concerns the role of (top-down) language control during the processing of language switches. Some studies have attributed switching costs to inhibition or top-down language control (e.g., Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). Control to manage interference during switching (through overactivation and/or inhibition resulting in larger L1 than L2 costs) can also be accounted for in models of bilingual processing. ...
... Our findings are at odds with the frequent observation that comprehension switching costs are larger when switching to the L2 (e.g., Aparicio & Lavaur, 2014;Bultena et al., 2015;Grainger & Beauvillain, 1987;Liu et al., 2020;Proverbio et al., 2004;Struck & Jiang, 2022). However, our results do align with other comprehension studies showing larger costs to the L1 (Declerck & Grainger, 2017;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Olson, 2017;Philipp & Huestegge, 2015) and with the more typically observed direction of asymmetries in the production literature (e.g., Meuter & Allport, 1999). This pattern of asymmetry suggests, and is often interpreted to imply (e.g., Declerck & Grainger, 2017;Olson, 2017), that the bilinguals relied on some form of topdown language control to manage access to and interference between their two languages. ...
... The opposite pattern of asymmetry, larger L2 switching costs, could be explained without this top-down control, as more time might be needed for the L2 to reach its activation threshold due to relatively lower resting activation levels. However, larger L1 switching costs (as observed here) are more typically explained through the involvement of top-down language control, either in the form of L2 overactivation (e.g., Philipp et al., 2007) or through L1 inhibition (e.g., Green, 1998;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). L2 overactivation accounts would explain this asymmetry through bilinguals proactively overactivating the L2 to allow for easier L2 processing in dual-language contexts, which in turn can interfere with the L1 when switching to the L1. ...
We examined how bilinguals process language switches between their first (L1) and second language (L2). Language switching costs (slower responses to language switch than nonswitch trials) appear to arise more systematically in production than in comprehension, possibly because the latter context might sometimes elicit less language coactivation (Declerck et al., 2019). This might reduce language competition and in turn the need for bilinguals to apply language control when processing language switches. Yet even in comprehension, language coactivation may vary depending on variables such as the accent of the speaker (e.g., whether the L2 words are pronounced with an L1 or L2 accent) and input modality (spoken or written). In three experiments conducted during 2021–2022, we tested how unbalanced Mandarin–English bilinguals processed language switches during comprehension and the potential influence of a speaker’s accent and input modality. Overall, across settings, participants experienced significant language switching costs. In some conditions, switching costs were larger to L1-Mandarin than to L2-English, an asymmetry consistent with the participants’ dominance in L1-Mandarin and the application of language control. However, manipulating accent and input modality did not influence language switches, suggesting they did not impact language coactivation sufficiently to modulate language control.
... In a self-paced reading task, Bultena et al. (2015) found language switch costs only when bilinguals had to switch from the dominant to the nondominant language, but not in the other direction. Similar results were shown in ERP research (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Proverbio et al., 2004; also see Alvarez et al., 2003 for this reversed asymmetry in isolated word recognition). While the asymmetry found in production supports the ICM, the reversed asymmetry in comprehension is more consistent with the predictions of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model (BIA/BIA + ) (Dijkstra & Heuven, 2002;Dijkstra & van Heuven, 1998;Grainger & Dijkstra, 1992;van Heuven et al., 1998), in which words must reach a "recognition threshold". ...
... The P600/LPC component is a positivegoing deflection that peaks around 600 ms post-stimulus onset and was originally found to be sensitive to grammatical anomalies or syntactic processing difficulty or both (e.g., Hagoort et al., 1993;Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992, or sentence level re-analysis (Friederici, 2002;Li et al., 2023). In language switching studies, the increased P600/LPC component on switch words has been associated with sentence-level restructuring and reanalysis (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Ng et al., 1 Strictly speaking, self-paced reading still requires some decision-making regarding when to press a button. The present study focused on the ERP approach, which resembles passive comprehension better. ...
... To date, most studies that examined comprehension of in-context switches only focused on content words (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno et al., 2002;Ng et al., 2014;Proverbio et al., 2004;Van Der Meij et al., 2011), and rarely addressed switches on function words. In Kaan et al. (2020), Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences with language switches from the dominant language English to the nondominant language Spanish on function words, and switch costs were revealed as an early anterior-central positivity (200-300 ms time window) and a P600/ LPC component compared to the nonswitch condition. ...
... While the facilitation effects of masked translation priming are quite robust and not in question, it must be noted that switching from one language to another comes at a processing cost. This observation has yielded a vibrant literature exploring the generality vs. specificity of cognitive control for bilinguals [15][16][17]. Perhaps the dominant view, until recently, has been that the reason for inhibition in code switching is external to the mechanisms that are specific to language, and that the cost is due to executive control factors, such as those related to decision making in laboratory tasks [15,[17][18][19]. ...
... The inhibition that takes place in language switching comprehension for bilinguals has been found to be asymmetrical in that the cost for the switch from L1 to L2 is greater, while in language switching production, the cost is greater switching from L2 to L1 [16,18]. In the present work, the goal is to explore if evidence of inhibition can be uncovered within translation-masked priming. ...
... The fastest RTs were for identity cognates and the slowest for unrelated primes. This phenomenon has been discussed in previous literature as facilitation [15][16][17][18][19]. We interpret this finding within an evidence accumulation account. ...
This manuscript addresses the phenomenon of masked priming and the cognitive process of switching from Spanish to English while reading in sequential bilingual texts compared to heritage speakers. A lexical decision task was employed in the present study with masked translation priming, which serves as a valuable tool for elucidating the orthographic and lexical processes involved in the initial stages of reading. This study builds upon previous research conducted on monolingual masked priming, which consistently demonstrates shifts in the response time (RT) distributions when comparing related and unrelated primes. Within the framework of a diffusion model, we implemented two theoretical positions. First, we posited that translation priming operates at the orthographic level, resulting in enhanced efficiency during the encoding process. Second, we explored the possibility that translation priming operates at the semantic level, influencing the accumulation of evidence during the lexical decision task. The findings of the present study indicate that translation priming elicits outcomes similar to those observed in monolingual priming paradigms. Specifically, we observed that translation priming facilitation is manifested as shifts in the RT distributions. These findings are interpreted to suggest that the benefits derived from the encoding process are not specific to the accessed lexicon following a brief stimulus presentation.
... A similar heterogeneity exists in the literature on sentence comprehension regarding the association between cognitive control and bilingual language comprehension. Though some studies did not observe an overlap between domain-general inhibition and bilingual language comprehension (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017;Bultena et al., 2015aBultena et al., , 2015b, there is also evidence for an overlap between cognitive control (and, more specifically, domain-general inhibition) and bilingual language comprehension in sentence context (Abutalebi et al., 2007;Adler et al., 2020;Bosma & Pablos, 2020;Faroqi-Shah & Wereley, 2022;Gross et al., 2019;Ibáñez et al., 2010;Liao & Chan, 2016;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno et al., 2002;Pérez & Duñabeitia, 2019;Ratiu & Azuma, 2017;Stasenko et al., 2020). ...
... The application of Hofweber et al. (2020aHofweber et al. ( , 2020b's hypothesis about a dual control involvement to bilingual language comprehension research could account for at least some of the existing inconsistencies. Specifically, the existing evidence for the engagement of domain-general inhibition during comprehension mainly derives from studies of alternational and insertional code-switching sentences (Adler et al., 2020;Bosma & Pablos, 2020;Faroqi-Shah & Wereley, 2022;Gross et al., 2019;Liao & Chan, 2016;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Stasenko et al., 2020). Nevertheless, several studies that failed to find the involvement of domain-general inhibition during comprehension used stimuli involving dense code-switching sentences (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017). ...
... Regarding the neural markers associated with the switch cost, the comprehension studies have largely reported that relative to non-switched words, code-switched words enhanced the magnitude of the N400, the Left Anterior Negativity (LAN), and the Late Positive Complex (LPC) (Chauncey et al., 2008(Chauncey et al., , 2011Fernandez et al., 2019;Geyer et al., 2011;Kaan et al., 2020;Liao & Chan, 2016;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Midgley et al., 2009;Moreno et al., 2002;Ng et al., 2014;Pellikka et al., 2015;Phillips et al., 2006;Ruigendijk et al., 2016;Valdés Kroff et al., 2020;Van Der Meij et al., 2011;Yacovone et al., 2021;Zeller, 2020). ...
This study investigated the engagement of domain-general cognitive control during the comprehension of dense code-switching sentences. Stimulus-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while L1-dominant Chinese–English bilinguals read switch and non-switch sentences. The results of the reading task revealed language dominance effects on the N400, left anterior negativity (LAN) and late positive component (LPC). The language dominance effects at lexical level (i.e., on the N400 and LAN) were modulated by individual differences in monitoring capacity. In contrast, inhibition capacity predicted code-switching costs at the sentence level (i.e., for the LPC component). The results suggest that proactive monitoring and reactive inhibition affect different processing stages during the comprehension of dense code-switching sentences. These findings partially align with processing models of code-switching incorporating a dual control mode perspective and contribute new insight into the dynamic interplay between reactive and proactive control processes.
... LPC modulation in response to a mixed language design was found in Kaan et al.'s (2020) study with Spanish-English bilinguals described above, with switch trials eliciting a larger positivity than non-switch ones. Importantly, LPC switch effects have been found to be particularly prominent in higher proficiency bilinguals (Van Der Meij et al. 2011) and more robust for switches into the non-dominant language (Litcofsky and Van Hell 2017). Litcofsky and Van Hell (2017) used a self-paced reading paradigm with intrasentential codeswitches in both language directions with highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals who were habitual codeswitchers. ...
... Importantly, LPC switch effects have been found to be particularly prominent in higher proficiency bilinguals (Van Der Meij et al. 2011) and more robust for switches into the non-dominant language (Litcofsky and Van Hell 2017). Litcofsky and Van Hell (2017) used a self-paced reading paradigm with intrasentential codeswitches in both language directions with highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals who were habitual codeswitchers. The participants were asked to read sentences which switched from L1 to L2 or in the opposite direction. ...
... While no significant differences were found between switched and non-switched sentences for switches into the dominant language, switches into the weaker language elicited a large posterior positivity. According to Litcofsky and Van Hell (2017), this switching cost asymmetry might relate to the fact that, when switching into the nondominant language, bilinguals would need to exercise more cognitive effort to activate their weaker language (cf. Green 1998). ...
We conducted a lexical decision task to measure Spanish-English/English-Spanish bilinguals’ behavioral (RT) and electrophysiological (EPN, Early Posterior Negativity and LPC, Late Positive Complex) responses to English emotion words and their Spanish translation equivalents. Bilingual participants varied in age of acquisition (AoA of Spanish/English: early, late), language status (L1 Spanish, L1 English) and language dominance (English-dominant, Spanish-dominant, balanced) but were all highly immersed bicultural individuals, uniformly more proficient in English than Spanish. Behavioral data showed faster and more accurate responses to English than Spanish targets; however, the emotion effect was only present for Spanish, with positive Spanish words recognized significantly faster than those that were negative or neutral. In the electrophysiological data, the emotion response was affected by language of the target stimulus, with English targets eliciting larger EPN amplitudes than Spanish targets. The reverse effect was found on the LPC component, where Spanish targets elicited a higher positivity than English targets. Dominance did not turn out to be a significant predictor of bilingual performance. Results point to the relevance of proficiency in modulating bilingual lexical processing and carry implications for experimental design when examining immersed bilinguals residing in codeswitching environments.
... Notably, several studies have reported that language control during comprehension involved monitoring instead of inhibition (Jiao et al., 2020a;Jylkkä et al., 2018a;Struys et al., 2019). Yet, some other studies found that language control engaged domain-general inhibition, both during single-word (Wu & Thierry, 2013) and sentence comprehension (Abutalebi, Brambati, Annoni, Moro, Cappa & Perani, 2007;Adler, Valdés Kroff & Novick, 2020;Bosma & Pablos, 2020;Fernandez, Litcofsky & van Hell, 2019;Gross, Lopez, Buac & Kaushanskaya, 2019;Ibáñez, Macizo & Bajo, 2010;Litcofsky & van Hell, 2017;Moreno, Federmeier & Kutas, 2002;Pérez & Duñabeitia, 2019;Ratiu & Azuma, 2017;Wang, 2015). ...
... Therefore, the discrepant findings in the previous comprehension literature might be attributed to the lack of differentiating between different intra-sentential code-switching types. Specifically, most of the studies that have observed the involvement of domain-general inhibition in language control during comprehension used stimuli involving alternation (Adler et al., 2020;Gross et al., 2019;Litcofsky & van Hell, 2017). However, some other studies that failed to find such a relationship used stimuli involving dense CS (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017). ...
... There is growing evidence that habitual code-switchers find the processing of code-switches cognitively effortless, as the experimentally induced code-switches are congruent with their usual mode of language use. On the contrary, the non-habitual code-switchers find it challenging to process the code-switches, which contrast with their usual mode of language use (Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017; Gosselin & Sabourin, 2021;Litcofsky & van Hell, 2017;Valdés Kroff, Guzzardo Tamargo & Dussias, 2018;Valdés Kroff, Román & Dussias, 2020). Therefore, the bilinguals tested in Hofweber et al. (2020b) may find it effortless to process the code-switched sentences (Hofweber et al., 2020b), thus minimizing the need for the recruitment of control processes during language comprehension and mitigating the possible effects of code-switching types on control processes. ...
Previous research about learning new meanings for known words in second language (L2) has found that semantic relatedness, i.e., congruency, between new and existing meanings benefits encoding and explicit memory of new meanings, and reduces instant interference on accessing existing meanings. However, they did not take the memory consolidation process into account. Thus, integration of new meaning into long‐term semantic memory, update of existing meaning representation, and the impact of semantic relatedness between new and existing meanings in this process remain unclear. The present study used the event‐related potential (ERP) technique to explore these questions. We asked Chinese students to learn English known words' subdominant meanings variedly related to existing meanings and probed semantic representations with EEG recorded in primed lexical decision tasks four times before and after consolidation. We found that new meaning needs to go through offline consolidation to get integrated. Semantic relatedness/congruency boosted new meaning integration, not by directly expediting it during encoding or preliminary offline consolidation, but by promoting the update of existing meaning representation first, which presumably paved the way for better incorporation of new meaning in the long run. The whole pattern of results implies that long‐term semantic representation of existing meaning is updated to integrate related new meaning after consolidation, which not only draws a clearer picture of L2 ambiguous word acquisition but also bears broader implications for research on memory updating.
... Furthermore, the role of language control when processing switches made by others remains unclear. While various studies have suggested that comprehension too might be influenced by language competition and show language-switching costs (e.g., Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Olson, 2017), others question the robustness of comprehension switching costs and suggest that language competition might be less influential during comprehension (e.g., Declerck, Koch, Duñabeitia, Grainger & Stephan, 2019). ...
... Although the way in which this competition is resolved varies, most models predict switching costs to arise during comprehension. Some studies have indeed shown switching costs in at least one language (e.g., Bultena, Dijkstra & Van Hell, 2015;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;cf. Van Hell, Fernandez, Kootstra, Litcofsky & Ting, 2018, for a review), with cross-modal studies suggesting there is overlap between production and comprehension (e.g., Gambi & Hartsuiker, 2016;Peeters, Runnqvist, Bertrand & Grainger, 2014). ...
... However, we still observed a language-switching cost (contrary to e.g., Declerck et al., 2019, but in line with e.g., Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Olson, 2017). It is possible that this languageswitching cost at least partly reflects a switch-cost at the orthographic level, given that switches in language also requested a switch in orthography. ...
Language switching is often associated with language competition and switching costs. However, the underlying mechanisms might differ depending on context (free versus cued naming) and modality (production or comprehension). In this study, we assessed how response-stimulus intervals (RSI) influence language-switching costs. Longer RSIs might provide more time for interference from the previous trial to decay and result in smaller switching costs. Mandarin–English bilinguals completed two dual-language production tasks (Experiment 1: cued and voluntary picture naming) and one comprehension task (Experiment 2: animacy judgement) with a short RSI and a long RSI condition. While switching costs were present in all tasks, they were only influenced by RSI length in the cued-production task, with smaller switching costs in the long RSI condition. In contrast, RSI did not influence voluntary-production or comprehension costs. This suggests that bilinguals might apply language control differently to switch languages depending on the type of switching and modality.
... There is evidence, however, that these components, namely the LPC, can be sensitive to bilingual specific factors, such as the direction in which the switch occurs (Litcofsky and Van Hell 2017;Fernandez et al. 2019;Liao and Chan 2016), the frequency with which bilinguals experience language switches in daily life (Gosselin and Sabourin 2021;Valdés Kroff et al. 2020), and even the presence of another bilingual during comprehension (Kaan et al. 2020). Moreover, individual variability, such as differences in language proficiency, modulate the codeswitching late positivity (Moreno et al. 2002;Van Der Meij et al. 2011). ...
... For example, the more proficient bilinguals are in a language, the smaller the LPC to Languages 2022, 7, 178 3 of 28 switches into that language (Ruigendijk et al. 2016; but see Moreno et al. 2002;Van Der Meij et al. 2011). Similarly, the LPC can be modulated asymmetrically depending on the direction of the switch, typically with an increased LPC only when switching into a weaker language (Litcofsky and Van Hell 2017;Fernandez et al. 2019), although the LPC has also been observed in both directions of switch in proficient bilinguals (Liao and Chan 2016), or only when switching into a dominant language (Van Der Meij et al. 2011). The LPC is more robust for codeswitches on nouns than verbs (Ng et al. 2014), is observed even to switched function words (Kaan et al. 2020;Gosselin and Sabourin 2021) and may depend on syntactic structure of the sentence (matrix) language (Vaughan-Evans et al. 2020). ...
... However, given that Moreno et al. (2002) only used translations of the expected continuation, which were supported by the sentence context, it is less clear if processing of an unexpected word would be equally unaffected by a language switch, e.g., how far does cross-linguistic activation spread. Several studies in the two decades since this seminal study have provided mixed evidence to suggest that codeswitching might actually incur an additional cost in accessing a word from semantic memory under certain circumstances (Proverbio et al. 2004;Gosselin and Sabourin 2021;Liao and Chan 2016;Yacovone et al. 2021;Van Der Meij et al. 2011;Litcofsky and Van Hell 2017;Valdés Kroff et al. 2020;Ruigendijk et al. 2016). ...
Switching between languages, or codeswitching, is a cognitive ability that multilinguals can perform with ease. This study investigates whether codeswitching during sentence reading affects early access to meaning, as indexed by the robust brain response called the N400. We hypothesize that the brain prioritizes the meaning of the word during comprehension with codeswitching costs emerging at a different stage of processing. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while Spanish–English balanced bilinguals (n = 24) read Spanish sentences containing a target noun that could create a semantic violation, codeswitch or both. Self-reported frequency of daily codeswitching was used as a regressor to determine if the cost of reading a switch is modulated by codeswitching experience. A robust N400 to semantic violations was followed by a late positive component (LPC). Codeswitches modulated the left anterior negativity (LAN) and LPC, but not the N400, with codeswitched semantic violations resulting in a sub-additive interaction. Codeswitching experience modulated the LPC, but not the N400. The results suggest that early access to semantic memory during comprehension happens independent of the language in which the words are presented. Codeswitching affects a separate stage of comprehension with switching experience modulating the brain’s response to experiencing a language switch.
... Inducing a momentary language switch on phrase-final nouns would create a purely formal modification, where the canonical form of idioms is altered without affecting the meaning of the original component words. 1 From a 1 Choosing language-switching as our manipulation of interest calls for a methodological caveat. A wide body of experimental research has already investigated the effect of temporary language shifts on comprehension, consistently reporting a processing cost with respect to non-switched stimuli (Altarriba, Kroll, Sholl, & Rayner, 1996;Bultena, Dijkstra, & Van Hell, 2015;Gullifer & Titone, 2019;Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016;Halbertstadt, 2017;Litcofsky & methodological standpoint, the benefits of eye tracking as a paradigm were twofold. First, instead of forcing speakers to make an overt semantic judgment, here, they were only required to silently read sentences for comprehension. ...
... Footnote 1 (continued) Van Hell, 2017). Of note, the experimental paradigms employed in these studies call for strictly controlled stimuli materials, whereby researchers should aim at controlling the effect of confounding variables (e.g., word frequency, word length) while maximizing the effect of the manipulation of interest. ...
... First, an across-the-board disadvantage that was recorded in language-mixed phrases is consistent with past experimental research detecting a measurable cost in the comprehension of cued language switches (Altarriba et al., 1996;Bultena et al., 2015;Gullifer & Titone, 2019;Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016;Halbertstadt, 2017;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). Extant literature indicates that the relative magnitude of forward (L1-L2) versus backward (L2-L1) switches is dependent on the experimental task. ...
Idioms are semantically non-compositional multiword units whose meanings often go beyond literal interpretations of their component words (e.g., break the ice, kick the bucket, spill the beans). According to hybrid models of idiom processing, idioms are subject to both direct retrieval from the lexicon in early stages of processing, and word-by-word compositional reanalysis in later stages of comprehension. However, a less clear aspect is how disrupting an idiom’s canonical form, and thus its direct retrieval, impacts the time course of comprehension. In this eye-tracking reading study, healthy English-French bilingual adults with English as their dominant language read sentences containing English idioms in their canonical form (e.g., break the ice), or in a switched form where the phrase-final noun was translated into French (e.g., break the glace). Thus, within this manipulation, momentary language switches modified the canonical form of idioms, while at the same time minimally altering the semantics of their component words, thus nudging readers towards a compositional processing route. Analyses of eye-movement data revealed switching costs in longer reading times at early (but not late) processing stages for idioms compared to matched literal phrases. Interestingly, the cost of language switching was attenuated by the availability of a translationally equivalent idiom in the non-target language (French, e.g., briser la glace). Taken together, these results suggest that direct retrieval is the preferential route in the comprehension of idioms’ canonical forms, which acts as an effective repair strategy by the language-processing system when recovering the underlying form of modified idioms.
... Psycholinguistic and cognitive neuroscience studies on codeswitching have typically found that the comprehension and production of code-switches is costly (Costa & Santesteban, 2004;Meuter & Allport, 1999), but that this cost is modulated by participant characteristics, such as proficiency and language dominance (Bultena et al., 2015;Kheder & Kaan, 2019;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017), code-switching habits (Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Kheder & Kaan, 2016;Valdés Kroff et al., 2020), frequency of switching patterns in the language (Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016), and social cues (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017;Kaan et al., 2020;Martin et al., 2016). This suggests that code-switching is not necessarily costly, yet that its processing depends on how felicitous it is in a given context. ...
... One component that has been consistently found for switches versus non-switches is a late posterior positivity, often labeled LPC (Late Positive Complex). This component is larger for switches into the weaker than into the more dominant language (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017), larger for less proficient bilinguals (Ruigendijk et al., 2016), and larger when a monolingual is present in the context compared to a bilingual (Kaan et al., 2020). This component has been interpreted as reflecting either the unexpectedness of a language change or sentence level restructuring processes (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). ...
... This component is larger for switches into the weaker than into the more dominant language (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017), larger for less proficient bilinguals (Ruigendijk et al., 2016), and larger when a monolingual is present in the context compared to a bilingual (Kaan et al., 2020). This component has been interpreted as reflecting either the unexpectedness of a language change or sentence level restructuring processes (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). Other components found for code-switching are the N400 (Fernandez et al., 2019;Moreno et al., 2002) reflecting lexical access or semantic integration difficulties, and an early positivity especially in those who are not habitual switchers (Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Valdés Kroff et al., 2020) or in situations in which code-switching is not socially permitted (Kaan et al., 2020). ...
Beta band power Alpha band power Gamma band power A B S T R A C T Code-switching, i.e. the alternation between languages in a conversation, is a typical, yet socially-constrained practice in bilingual communities. For instance, code-switching is permissible only when other conversation partners are fluent in both languages. Studying code-switching provides insight in the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language control, and their modulation by linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Using time-frequency representations, we analyzed brain oscillation changes in EEG data recorded in a prior study (Kaan et al., 2020). In this study, Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences with and without switches in the presence of a bilingual or monolingual partner. Consistent with prior studies, code-switches were associated with a power decrease in the lower beta band (15-18 Hz). In addition, code-switches were associated with a power decrease in the upper gamma band (40-50 Hz), but only when a bilingual partner was present, suggesting the semantic/pragmatic processing of code-switches differs depending on who is present.
... Notably, several studies have reported that language control during comprehension involved monitoring instead of inhibition (Jiao et al., 2020a;Jylkkä et al., 2018a;Struys et al., 2019). Yet, some other studies found that language control engaged domain-general inhibition, both during single-word (Wu & Thierry, 2013) and sentence comprehension (Abutalebi, Brambati, Annoni, Moro, Cappa & Perani, 2007;Adler, Valdés Kroff & Novick, 2020;Bosma & Pablos, 2020;Fernandez, Litcofsky & van Hell, 2019;Gross, Lopez, Buac & Kaushanskaya, 2019;Ibáñez, Macizo & Bajo, 2010;Litcofsky & van Hell, 2017;Moreno, Federmeier & Kutas, 2002;Pérez & Duñabeitia, 2019;Ratiu & Azuma, 2017;Wang, 2015). ...
... Therefore, the discrepant findings in the previous comprehension literature might be attributed to the lack of differentiating between different intra-sentential code-switching types. Specifically, most of the studies that have observed the involvement of domain-general inhibition in language control during comprehension used stimuli involving alternation (Adler et al., 2020;Gross et al., 2019;Litcofsky & van Hell, 2017). However, some other studies that failed to find such a relationship used stimuli involving dense CS (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017). ...
... There is growing evidence that habitual code-switchers find the processing of code-switches cognitively effortless, as the experimentally induced code-switches are congruent with their usual mode of language use. On the contrary, the non-habitual code-switchers find it challenging to process the code-switches, which contrast with their usual mode of language use (Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017; Gosselin & Sabourin, 2021;Litcofsky & van Hell, 2017;Valdés Kroff, Guzzardo Tamargo & Dussias, 2018;Valdés Kroff, Román & Dussias, 2020). Therefore, the bilinguals tested in Hofweber et al. (2020b) may find it effortless to process the code-switched sentences (Hofweber et al., 2020b), thus minimizing the need for the recruitment of control processes during language comprehension and mitigating the possible effects of code-switching types on control processes. ...
This study investigated whether the deployment of cognitive control was modulated by the intra-sentential code-switching types during comprehension. L1-dominant Chinese-English bilinguals were administered a self-paced reading task in two reading contexts, namely, alternation context and dense code-switching context. We assessed language switch cost and reversed language dominance effect in the self-paced reading task and examined how these language control measures related to domain-general inhibition and monitoring capacities. The results showed a larger switch cost asymmetry in alternation context compared to dense CS context. In addition, bilinguals’ inhibition skills were associated with second language (L2) switch cost in alternation context, while monitoring tended to predict the language dominance effect in dense code-switching context. These findings suggest that alternation context exerts high requirement to reactive inhibition while dense code-switching context tends to induce proactive monitoring during comprehension. We conclude that intra-sentential code-switching types trigger different aspects of cognitive control during comprehension.
... More recent ERP research challenges the processing costs attributed to code-switching. For instance, Litcofsky and van Hell (2017) examined the effects of switching directionality on intra-sentential Spanish-English code-switching. Participants silently read single-language sentences, and sentences that contained a multi-word switch at the DP boundary. ...
... Strikingly, unlike all other previous ERP studies, code-switches in Litcofsky and van Hell and Kaan et al. (2020) did not elicit any negativities. Interestingly, the absence of negative ERP components was observed even though code-switches yielded a significant behavioural switch cost (Litcofsky and van Hell, 2017). ...
... The question might be asked as to why the results from Litcofsky and van Hell (2017) (and, in part, Kaan et al., 2020) are so distinct from earlier comprehension-related findings in the literature. It appears that code-switching can indeed incur processing costs for some bilinguals, but not necessarily for all bilinguals (see also Beatty-Martínez and Dussias, 2017). ...
A bank of past electrophysiological research suggests that code-switching (i.e., the use of multiple languages during a single conversational event) is characterized by increased processing costs. However, the majority of these studies tested bilinguals who did not necessarily code-switch on a regular basis. In order to investigate the impact of switching habits on language processing, two groups of French-English bilinguals (habitual code-switchers and non-habitual code-switchers) read sentences containing unilingual and switched determiner phrases while their EEG was recorded. The findings indicate important processing differences between the groups. Notably, switched trials (particularly those with a French determiner) generated an increased negativity from 300 to 500 ms for non-habitual code-switchers, but not for habitual code-switchers. The veritable impact of switching habits were also supported by a correlation analysis. This finding suggests that code-switching is not inherently effortful to process, but rather, that comprehension costs are related to idiosyncratic factors, such as the extent of prior exposure to code-switched input. An LPC was also observed from 500 to 900 for habitual code-switchers; for non-habitual switchers, this effect may have been attenuated by the long-lasting N400 effect. We advance several possible interpretations for the late positivity. Altogether, the results from the current study support the claim that the code-switching cost observed in previous literature may be linked to the bilingual samples tested in those studies: habitual code-switchers may not find switches effortful to process, but not all bilinguals code-switch. We highlight the importance of experience and individual differences in the study of bilingual cognition.
... Another line of research has investigated single-word codeswitching. Studies of bilinguals' comprehension of code-switching (see for a cognitive review) suggest that it comes with cognitive costs (for reviews of switching cost effects, see Bobb & Wodniecka, 2013;Declerck et al., 2015) both in isolation and in the comprehension of sentences (Bultena et al., 2015;Dijkstra et al., 2015;Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016;Kootstra et al., 2012;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Valdés Kroff et al., 2018;Wang, 2015). ERP studies on cross-linguistic auditory sentence comprehension have indicated two ERP components for code-switching: the N400, which is related to lexical integration, and the Late Positive complex (LPC), related to sentence reanalysis . ...
... We used a MATLAB (2019) script to mark the codes for lexical forms at the onsets of the critical words within the corresponding participants' EEG data. EEG signal curves were extracted between À200 and 1,500 ms post-critical word onset with a baseline of 200 ms pre-critical-word activity, referring to previous studies on the comprehension of code-switching (following Fernandez et al., 2019;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). ...
This study explores lexical borrowing and loanword nativization from a neuro-cognitive perspective testing bi-dialectal speakers of Standard Chinese and Shanghainese Chinese. We created holistic and morpheme-based cross-dialectal loanwords for auditory sentence processing and compared them with Shanghainese-specific words, code-switches, and pre-existing etymologically related words. Participants rated their acceptance of each word, indicating Shanghainese-specific lexical nativeness. GAM analysis of EEG signals revealed that reduced acceptance correlated with frontal positive shifts in ERPs. Holistic loanwords triggered P300-like shifts associated with form-mismatch, whereas morpheme-based loanwords produced LPC-like shifts, suggesting sentence-level re-analysis, and N400-like early frontal negative shifts, indicating lexical integration challenges. Our results indicate that both lexical acceptance and adaptation strategies are pivotal in the cognitive integration of loanwords, revealing distinct neuropsychological stages and pathways in loanword nativization.
... Most EEG-based neurocognitive research on L2 learning and processing used the ERP technique. This field would be further enhanced by adapting new advancements in EEG techniques, including analyses of oscillatory neural dynamics using time frequency representations (e.g., Bakker et al., 2015;Kielar et al., 2014;Lewis et al., 2016;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Rossi & Prystauka, 2020) and of neural network activation patterns associated with L2 processing (e.g., Pérez et al., 2015). Time frequency representations index the ongoing oscillatory dynamics of the EEG signal and reflect the (de)synchrony of functional neural networks. ...
... The surge of studies on L2 learning and brain plasticity has been paralleled by an increased conceptualization of bilingualism as a gradient measure. Rather than describing bilinguals along the dimensions of AoA or L2 proficiency, researchers have increasingly called for taking a more holistic experiencebased perspective that not only includes AoA and L2 proficiency but also current language use, environmental context (including immersion), quality and quantity of switching between languages, language dominance rather than L1 versus L2, and the like (e.g., Beatty-Martínez & Titone, 2021;Gullifer et al., 2018;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Marian & Hayakawa, 2021;Navarro-Torres et al., 2021;. Relatedly, acknowledging that variation among bilinguals in terms of learner-internal and learner-external variables yields variable L2 learning outcomes and processing strategies, researchers have increasingly shied away from categorizing bilinguals into dichotomous groups (e.g., early vs. late bilinguals; lowproficiency vs. high-proficiency L2 learners). ...
The past decades have seen an explosion of research using electrophysiological or neuroimaging techniques for studying the neurocognitive underpinnings of second language (L2) processing. Although this field has a shorter history than does research on language learning more generally, important insights into the neurocognitive basis of L2 processing have driven it to the center stage of language science. In this target article for Language Learning’s 75th Jubilee volume, I illustrate the field's impressive achievements by selectively reviewing electrophysiological and neuroimaging research on L2 processing and bilingual brain organization. I also review changing perspectives in the field (including individual difference and experience‐based perspectives, neural network approaches, neuroplasticity, and L2‐learning related neural changes) and identified challenges, promises, and future directions (revisit native‐speaker benchmark, increase linguistic diversity, enhance ecological validity, intensify research on child L2 learners’ brain, adopt lifelong approach to L2 learning) that can lead to a better understanding of the neural underpinnings of L2 learning and processing.
... In the context of language switching, while there is evidence for a role of alpha power decreases in language control during comprehension 48 , to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study reporting its involvement during overt speech production. ...
... Theta power increases have been widely implicated in switch cost effects across language switching 30,48,65 and task switching paradigms [66][67][68][69] . For instance, studies showing theta modulations during comprehension 48 and, particularly, during speech production 30 , report power increases for switches into the L2 as compared to the L1. However, in the studies mentioned above, participants were low-proficiency bilinguals, and thus the executive control demands posed by cross-language interference may have been higher compared to bilinguals with more balanced proficiency levels in their L1 and L2. ...
Bilinguals with a high proficiency in their first (L1) and second language (L2) often show comparable reaction times when switching from their L1 to L2 and vice-versa (“symmetrical switch costs”). However, the neurophysiological signatures supporting this effect are not well understood. Here, we ran two separate experiments and assessed behavioral and MEG responses in highly proficient Spanish-Basque bilinguals while they overtly name pictures in a mixed-language context. In the behavioral experiment, bilinguals were slower when naming items in switch relative to non-switch trials, and this switch cost was comparable for both languages (symmetrical). The MEG experiment mimicked the behavioral one, with switch trials showing more desynchronization than non-switch trials across languages (symmetric neural cost) in the alpha band (8–13 Hz). Source-localization revealed the engagement of right parietal and premotor areas, which have been linked to language selection and inhibitory control; and of the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL), a cross-linguistic region housing conceptual knowledge that generalizes across languages. Our results suggest that highly proficient bilinguals implement a language-independent mechanism, supported by alpha oscillations, which is involved in cue-based language selection and facilitates conceptually-driven lexical access in the ATL, possibly by inhibiting non-target lexical items or disinhibiting target ones.
... To further underscore the seemingly challenging demands that face the bilingual comprehender, lab-based studies on sentential codeswitching find apparent switch costs to comprehension. Using time-based measures such as reaction times (e.g., self-paced reading), fixations and regressions (eye-tracking), pupil dilation (pupillometry), and neurocognitive measures (e.g., event-related potentials, ERPs), encountering a switch into another language can lead to a slowdown or an unexpectancy in processing (e.g., Altarriba et al., 1996;Moreno et al., 2002;Bultena et al., 2015;Johns & Dussias, 2022;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). However, some studies show that these switch costs can be attenuated under certain circumstances, such as when the codeswitch is more frequent (e.g., Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016;Kheder & Kaan, 2019;Salig et al., under review;Vald es Kroff et al., 2017, when taking into account language dominance and direction of the switch (e.g., Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Fernández et al., 2019), or when considering the ecological validity or the pragmatic context underlying the experimentally presented codeswitch (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkk€ anen, 2017;Johns et al., 2019;Kaan et al., 2020;Tomi c & Vald es Kroff, 2022;Tomi c & Kaan, 2022. ...
... Using time-based measures such as reaction times (e.g., self-paced reading), fixations and regressions (eye-tracking), pupil dilation (pupillometry), and neurocognitive measures (e.g., event-related potentials, ERPs), encountering a switch into another language can lead to a slowdown or an unexpectancy in processing (e.g., Altarriba et al., 1996;Moreno et al., 2002;Bultena et al., 2015;Johns & Dussias, 2022;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). However, some studies show that these switch costs can be attenuated under certain circumstances, such as when the codeswitch is more frequent (e.g., Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016;Kheder & Kaan, 2019;Salig et al., under review;Vald es Kroff et al., 2017, when taking into account language dominance and direction of the switch (e.g., Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Fernández et al., 2019), or when considering the ecological validity or the pragmatic context underlying the experimentally presented codeswitch (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkk€ anen, 2017;Johns et al., 2019;Kaan et al., 2020;Tomi c & Vald es Kroff, 2022;Tomi c & Kaan, 2022. See Beatty-Martínez et al., 2018Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkk€ anen, 2017;Vald es Kroff et al., 2018 for extended discussions on these issues and why they may arise). ...
... The late negativity elicited by the codes switch from L2 to L1 (from the weaker language to the dominant language) has been reported to suggest that switching may engage the activation costs of the specific lexical forms Frontiers in Psychology 14 frontiersin.org in the less active language and effortful sentence-level restructuring mechanisms (Palmer et al., 2010;Shukhan Ng et al., 2014;Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017;Zeller, 2020). ...
... That is to say, the integration of two distant domains involving the scientific reasoning increases the difficulties of L2 processing so that L2 users might switch to their L1 in this case. Therefore, the right-biased distribution of the late negativity elicited by English scientific metaphors might result firstly from the code switch from English to Chinese, and secondly from the coarse semantic processing of scientific metaphors (Ng et al., 2014;Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017). ...
While the processing mechanisms of novel and conventional metaphors were widely investigated in previous monolingual studies, little attention has been devoted to how metaphoric utterances are processed by the bilingual brain as well as how scientific context might modulate such processes. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this paper investigates the way in which scientific metaphors are electrophysiologically processed in Chinese (L1) and English (L2), with the aim of investigating the different mechanisms for understanding metaphorical language in first (L1) and second (L2) languages. By time-locking the N400 and later LPC time windows, the research show how meaning integration differs between L1 and L2 at different stages when comprehending figurative language. We found that compared with Chinese scientific metaphors, English scientific metaphors elicited greater N400, smaller late positive component (LPC), and greater late negativity, and English literals elicited greater late negativity. Our findings suggest that the dynamics of processing figurative meaning in bilingual brains over time show a complex pattern, with language, context, inference and salience jointly modulating temporal dynamics and possible cerebral asymmetries, supporting the revised hierarchical model.
... N400 effects are believed to be present when word meanings are being contextualized (Hagoort et al., 2004), suggesting that participants were experiencing higher processing costs when asked to integrate code-switched nouns into the rest of the sentence. Lastly, some studies have provided neural evidence supporting the directionality effect discussed earlier, with larger ERP effects identified when CS occur from the dominant to the non-dominant language (Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017;Proverbio et al., 2004), compared to the opposite direction. ...
... tot͡ ʃɪd! tot͡ ʃɪd! tot͡ ʃɪd'). Due to previous evidence suggesting that processing costs associated with the presence of CS are present during word recognition (Byers-Heinlein, 2017; Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017;Proverbio et al., 2004), the sentence frame was omitted at test. ...
The present work examines the impact of code-switching (CS) on novel word learning in adult second language (L2) learners of Spanish. Participants completed two sessions (1–3 days apart). In the first session, they were taught 32 nonwords corresponding to novel creatures. Training occurred across 4 conditions: (1) a sentence in English only, (2) a sentence in Spanish only (the L2), (3) a sentence that contained CS from Spanish-to-English, (4) a sentence that contained CS from English-to-Spanish. Immediately after training, participants were tested on their ability to identify the newly trained words using a looking-while-listening paradigm in which videos of participants’ looking patterns were collected remotely via Zoom. In the second session, re-testing of the trained words was completed. In the first session, training in the English-only condition led to better initial learning compared to the other conditions. In the second session, the English-only condition still had the highest accuracy, but performance in the two CS conditions was significantly better compared to the Spanish-only condition. These findings suggest that CS during vocabulary training may aid the retention of newly acquired word-object relations in the L2, compared to when training occurs entirely in the L2. This work has important implications for theories of L2 acquisition and can inform instruction practices in L2 classrooms.
... Similarly, another study showed that the presence of switch costs exclusively existed in the switching into L2 reading, not in the reversed direction (Bultena et al., 2015). However, the study by Litcofsky and Van Hell (2017) showed the presence of switch costs in both switching directions and larger costs when switching into the dominant language, which shared similarities with the switching pattern in bilingual production. ...
... We predicted that the process of top-down language inhibition involved in speech production would be related to domaingeneral inhibitory control. Inconsistent with some prior findings in production (e.g., Linck et al., 2012;Liu et al., 2014Liu et al., , 2017 and in comprehension (Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017;Adler et al., 2020;Bosma and Pablos, 2020), we did not find any overlap in bilinguals between the inhibition-related language switch cost and the non-linguistic Simon congruency effect (as an index of inhibitory control), neither in speed nor accuracy. However, this result corresponds to some other previous findings of no association between linguistic inhibition and domain-general non-linguistic inhibitory control from the perspective of both behavioural (e.g., Calabria et al., 2012;Branzi et al., 2016) and neurocognitive studies (Verhoef et al., 2009;Magezi et al., 2012). ...
Bilingual language control in production tasks with language switches is supposed to be linked to domain-general cognitive control. In the present study, we investigated the role of language dominance, measured on a continuous scale, in the relationship between measures of language control elicited through language switching in a picture naming task and non-linguistic cognitive control induced by stimulus-response interference in a Simon task. In our sample of bilinguals who speak both a minority and majority language (language pair of Uyghur-Chinese), the results showed that as bilinguals were more L2-dominant, a pattern of reversed asymmetry switch costs in language control, i.e., larger L2 than L1 switch costs, was observed. Furthermore, the findings showed that recent exposure to the L1 minority language was associated with the change in language switch costs in terms of both response latencies and accuracy rates. This suggests a role for sociolinguistic context in bilingual language control. Concerning cross-domain generality, globally sustained language control was found to be correlated with domain-general monitoring control in response latencies for all bilingual participants. It lends support to the idea that bilinguals tap into monitoring control in the context of language switching. Additionally, the cross-domain overlap was found between two non-equivalent measures (global language control vs. cognitive inhibitory control) in response latencies, specifically for L1-dominant bilinguals. This suggests that language dominance may have an impact on cross-domain generality in language-switching processes.
... On the other hand, the significant P600/LPC effect yielded by the false-cognates might be largely due to the co-activation of both the Korean and Chinese versions of the false-cognates which induced supreme integration difficulties. Alternatively, the P600/LPC effect is also comparable to that found in intra-sentential code-switching studies (e.g., Jackson et al., 2001;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno, Federmeier, & Kutas, 2002). The sentences in the false-cognate condition might be processed by bilinguals as a 'hidden' code-switched sentence, as bilinguals might switch to Korean when they tried to integrate the false-cognate into the prior context, but have to switch back to Chinese to make the semantic plausibility judgment. ...
Previous studies have investigated whether lexical access in sentence reading is language-selective using interlingual homographs, but have yielded inconsistent results. In this study, event-related potentials were measured when Korean-Chinese bilinguals read the Chinese version of false-cognates (e.g., “放学”, after school) in Chinese sentence contexts that biased the meaning towards the Korean version (e.g., “방학”, school vacation). With the match words as the baseline, Chinese monolinguals elicited similar N400 and P600/LPC effects when reading the false-cognates and mismatch words, whereas Korean-Chinese bilinguals produced a smaller N400 effect for false-cognates than for mismatch words, indicating activation of the Korean version. The P600/LPC effect was observed for false-cognates in bilinguals, reflecting increased integration difficulties or enhanced cognitive control. The study supported the nonselective view and proposed a theoretical extension of the BIA+ model, claiming that bilingual interactive activation might be mediated by shared morphemic representations between languages.
... Code-mixing is the phenomenon of alternating between two or more languages within a single conversation or sentence (Thara and Poornachandran, 2018). Codemixing can occur in various forms, including intrasentential switching, where words from different languages appear within the same sentence, and intra-word switching, where elements from other languages combine to form a single word (Stefanich et al., 2019;Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017). Intra-sentential switching is more frequently observed in colloquial settings. ...
The widespread availability of code-mixed data can provide valuable insights into low-resource languages like Bengali, which have limited datasets. Sentiment analysis has been a fundamental text classification task across several languages for code-mixed data. However, there has yet to be a large-scale and diverse sentiment analysis dataset on code-mixed Bengali. We address this limitation by introducing BnSentMix, a sentiment analysis dataset on code-mixed Bengali consisting of 20,000 samples with 4 sentiment labels from Facebook, YouTube, and e-commerce sites. We ensure diversity in data sources to replicate realistic code-mixed scenarios. Additionally, we propose 14 baseline methods including novel transformer encoders further pre-trained on code-mixed Bengali-English, achieving an overall accuracy of and an F1 score of on sentiment classification tasks. Detailed analyses reveal variations in performance across different sentiment labels and text types, highlighting areas for future improvement.
... In lab-based psycholinguistic research, on the other hand, code-switching has mostly been used as a lens into language control and inhibition (Bobb & Wodniecka, 2013;Declerck & Philipp, 2015;Macizo et al., 2012;Jiao et al., 2022). Lab-based studies of the real-time processing of code-switches robustly document switch costs, e.g., behavioural slowdowns, (e.g., Altarriba et al., 1996;Bultena et al., 2015;Guzzardo Tamargo et al., 2016;Salig et al., 2023) or increases in neurophysiological responses associated with domain-general control and semantic/syntactic processing (Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017;Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Moreno et al., 2002;Kaan et al., 2020;Valdés Kroff et al., 2020). These effects are taken to reflect increased activation or inhibition of languages necessary to produce/comprehend a code-switch, or difficulties in lexico-semantic or syntactic integration (Valdés Kroff et al., 2022;Van Hell et al., 2018). ...
In emotionally neutral situations, bilinguals use code-switching as a politeness strategy to mitigate the emotional and social impact of taboo words, by distancing themselves from taboo concepts and/or warning interlocutors of upcoming taboo content. This study investigates whether bilinguals are sensitive to this pattern in comprehension, i.e., whether code-switches facilitate the processing or semantic integration of subsequent taboo words. Spanish-English heritage bilinguals in the US read Spanish-English code-switched sentences and English unilingual sentences with English neutral and taboo words, while their eye-movements were recorded. Results demonstrate the utility of code-switches in processing, such that taboo words in Spanish-English code-switched utterances caused less interference in reading compared to taboo words in English utterances, even though the target words were in the same language in both conditions. Our findings support the claim that sociolinguistic context can affect emotional word processing, and underline the connections between domain-general cognition, language, and emotion.
... For data cleaning procedures, we followed Nicklin and Plonsky (2020), which presents a comprehensive overview of data pre-processing practises in bilingual studies and adopted those that fitted our population and research objectives. Specifically, we started with a visual inspection of the data and looked at histograms, boxplots, and Q-Q plots (see Supplementary material) to determine appropriate cut-offs to exclude outliers: Trials in the reading time data sets that were faster than 100 ms (e.g., Luce, 1991;Jegerski, 2016;Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017;Kim et al., 2018) and slower than 8,000 ms (R-TV and R-SO) and 15,000 ms (R-FW) were excluded. Eight trials at R-TV, 12 at R-SO1 (6 th word − 8 trials; 7 th word − 3 trials), 14 at R-SO2 (8 th word − 8 trials; 9 th word − 6 trials), and 40 at R-FW regions were excluded. ...
Introduction
Studies with heritage language speakers (HLS) have often used offline measurements, investigating the post-interpretive effects which emerge after processing has been completed. Relatively few studies have investigated heritage language processing using time-sensitive methods that allow the collection of evidence regarding real-time language processing rather than post-interpretive judgments. Using a self-paced-reading paradigm, we aimed to expand our understanding of HLS language processing by investigating evidentiality-the linguistic marking of information source, which is grammatically expressed in Turkish, but not in English.
Method
Participants were 54 bilingual speakers of Turkish and English: 24 HLS (English onset: 0-5 yrs) and 30 emigrant Turkish speakers (ES) who grew up in Turkey before emigrating to Australia (English onset = 6-17 yrs). Participants read sentences with evidential-marked verb forms that either matched or mismatched to the information source context. Word-by-word reading times and end-of-sentence acceptability judgment speed and accuracy were measured.
Results
The results showed that although the HLS' responses were slower and less accurate than the ES in both reading times and end-of-sentence acceptability judgments, they showed similarities in online processing patterns. Both groups were faster at reading the mismatching sentences compared to the matching sentences; however, this pattern emerged during the time course of reading first for the indirect condition for the ES, and only later for the direct condition and for the HLS for both evidential conditions. Only HLS read faster in the target region with the direct evidential that is shown to be acquired earlier in childhood, than they did for the indirect evidential which is mastered later. In contrast, the end-of-sentence judgment data showed that while the ES group responded faster to matching direct sentences than matching indirect, this effect was missing for the HLS. Nevertheless, there were similar patterns for accuracy across evidential conditions: both groups were more accurate with the direct evidential.
Discussion
Overall, the use of the self-paced-reading paradigm allowed insights into HLS' evidentiality processing above and beyond their generally slower and less accurate processing compared to the reference group. This study provides further evidence for differences in the patterns observed using online vs. post interpretive measures in HLS, reinforcing the importance of combining these methodologies for further understanding of HLS competence and performance.
... The stronger the language makes it harder to be inhibited, and, once it is inhibited, it is harder to reactivate (Meuter & Allport, 1999). Neurological evidence was provided to understand the dynamic management of the two languages during CS (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). In their study, when switching from the weaker to the dominant language, an increase in the theta band was observed from the Time-Frequency Analysis. ...
Full text available here: https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/12383
Bilingualism has been attracting interest from the cognitive science field for years as it is suggested to be a protective factor against cognitive decline in ageing. It is often reported that bilinguals performed better than monolinguals in inhibitory control tasks. The mechanism behind the better inhibitory control was that bilinguals would have to suppress the interference from the unwanted language all the time, and such linguistic control is thought to be, at least partially, overlapped with the general inhibitory control network. However, inconsistent results have been reported. It is common for the literature to compare monolinguals with bilinguals as two homogenous groups without considering the individual variations between and among them. Moreover, as the Adaptive Control Hypothesis (Green & Abutalebi, 2013) suggested, the interaction context affects the cognitive demand in controlling the languages. Three experiments were designed to explore how different aspects of bilingualism contribute to cognition and the bilingual advantage effect.
The first experiment recruited older adults to complete a comprehensive set of cognitive tests together with questionnaires on their language and demographic profiles. Comparing the monolinguals and bilinguals, we found the classic bilingual advantage effect: bilinguals scored higher in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), indicating better cognitive status. Moreover, within the bilinguals, the scores in the cognitive battery were predicted with demographic and linguistic variables using linear regression analysis. We found that L2 proficiency predicts better inhibitory control and verbal ability performance in lifelong bilinguals. We propose that, because our participants are L1-dominant speakers, only the sufficiently proficient L2 would provide enough interference in the practice of linguistic inhibition control.
The second experiment investigated the cognitive changes in older foreign language learners. Older adults were recruited to study in an elementary English course for six weeks, with cognitive tests taken before and after the course. Although the statistical results between the intervention group and the active and passive control groups were not significant, the language learning-induced differences were observed in some tasks, including the accuracy of Picture Naming and the Conflicting Effect in the Attention Network Task. Correlation analysis suggested that successful language learners showed an improvement in inhibitory control and a decline in verbal fluency.
The third experiment investigated the organisation of the mental lexicon through an interesting language phenomenon in Hong Kong: dense code-switching. Whereas the literature often suggested that the comprehension of code-switching requires a switch in lexicon and is therefore challenging, we found that switching lexicon was needed only in the case of non-habitual word usage, regardless of whether it was unilingual and code-switching. From the result of this experiment, we proposed that the language input from the community had formed the bilingual prefabs, which integrated into the dominantly Cantonese lexicon.
Collectively, we suggest that the environment, language and cognition form a looping circle in that each component is interrelated. Moreover, they each affect the organisation of the bilingual mental lexicon and the retrieval of concepts from the lexicon. In view of that, we propose the Experience-based Bilingual Mental Lexicon Model, which is modified based on the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994). Two critical assumptions are incorporated into the existing model: (1) the language lexicon is organised by experience but not by language origin, and (2) language dominance is dynamic. We believe the proposed model could better capture the dynamic change of language by experience. It could explain how individual differences contribute to the bilingual advantage effect.
References:
Green, D. W., & Abutalebi, J. (2013). Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 515-530. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2013.796377
Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33(2), 149-174. https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1994.1008
... This entails that, for bilinguals who are switching between their languages, greater cognitive effort is required to suppress the L1 than to suppress the L2. This phenomenon has also been observed in neuroimaging studies, wherein code-switching in the dominant-to-weak direction elicits electrophysiological processing costs, but the weak-to-dominant direction does not (e.g., Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017). In the current study, the participants acquired French before English (see section 3.1.2). ...
Recent studies have begun to examine bilingual cognition from more nuanced, experienced-based perspectives. The present study adds to this body of work by investigating the potential impact of code-switching on bilinguals’ inhibitory control abilities. Crucially, our bilingual participants originated from a predominantly dual-language environment, the interactional context which is believed to require (and therefore, potentially train) cognitive control processes related to goal-monitoring and inhibition. As such, 266 French Canadian bilinguals completed an online experiment wherein they were asked to complete a domain-general (Flanker) and a language-specific (bilingual Stroop) inhibitory control task, as well as extensive demographic and language background questionnaires. Stepwise multiple regressions (including various potential demographic and linguistic predictors) were conducted on the participants’ Flanker and Stroop effects. The results indicated that the bilinguals’ propensity to code-switch consistently yielded significant positive (but unidirectional) inhibitory control effects: dual-language bilinguals who reported more habitual French-to-English switching exhibited better goal-monitoring and inhibition abilities. For the language-specific task, the analysis also revealed that frequent unintentional code-switching may mitigate these inhibition skills. As such, the findings demonstrate that dual-language code-switchers may experience inhibitory control benefits, but only when their switching is self-reportedly deliberate. We conclude that the bilinguals’ interactional context is thus of primary importance, as the dual-language context is more conducive to intentional code-switching. Overall, the current study highlights the importance of considering individualistic language experience when it comes to examining potential bilingual executive functioning advantages.
... In contrast, the present study uses a task in which there are varying degrees of language activation within a single language block with participants exposed to alternating unilingual and codeswitched stimuli. In processing and producing a codeswitched sentence, the child needs to continuously adjust the activation levels of the two languages, necessitating a relatively high activation level of both languages (Green and Abutalebi 2013;Kroll et al. 2014;Litcofsky and Van Hell 2017;Van Hell et al. 2015). Although we argue that both languages are activated throughout the task, more intense bilingual activation results when hearing and repeating a codeswitched sentence, and less intense bilingual activation when hearing and repeating a unilingual stimulus. ...
The present study investigated bilingual language control among preschool children in a sentence repetition task containing unilingual stimuli and codeswitched stimuli within prepositional phrases (PPs). Cross-language errors, that is, codeswitches that were not part of the stimulus sentences, were taken as evidence of difficulties in language control. Specifically, we investigated cross-language errors as a function of stimulus sentence type (codeswitched or unilingual), CS site within the PP, directionality (English or Hebrew stimulus sentences), and group status (children with typical language development (TLD), and children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)). We also examined cross-language errors in terms of word class and locus in the sentence. The participants were 65 English (home language)–Hebrew (societal language) bilinguals with TLD and 13 with DLD, ages 5;5–6;10 (M = 5;11). Stimulus sentences contained five codeswitch conditions within prepositional phrases, for example, a codeswitched preposition (P) or a codeswitched preposition, determiner and noun (P+DET+N), and a ‘no switch’ condition. The stimuli were 36 English and 36 Hebrew sentences (+24 fillers) matched for semantic content and syntax. English sentences contained switches to Hebrew, and Hebrew sentences contained switches to English. The results showed more cross-language errors for codeswitched than unilingual sentence stimuli. The children with TLD showed a directionality effect, producing more cross-language errors in Hebrew sentence stimuli than in English, but the children with DLD did not. The children with DLD had more cross-language errors than their peers with TLD for English stimuli. Most cross-language errors appeared in the sentence-final, adverbial temporal phrase. Findings are discussed in terms of language co-activation and competition in order to account for the difference in performance on unilingual versus codeswitched stimuli and in light of sociopragmatic and psycholinguistic factors to account for the directionality effect among children with TLD and the lack thereof among children with DLD.
... It is proposed that if bilingual recognition control recruits inhibitory control, the dominant language may need to be highly inhibited when words are presented in the non-dominant language; it may then require a higher cost to reactivate the dominant language than the non-dominant language when it was previously the non-target language. Some studies (e.g., Litcofsky and van Hell, 2017;Mosca and de Bot, 2017) have shown that language dominance has an impact on the degree or nature of bilingual recognition control in that larger switch costs existed when switching into the L1-dominant language than into the lessdominant L2. Bultena et al. (2015) indicated that the degree of cost when switching into an L2 was related to the level of L2 proficiency. ...
The ability of bilingual individuals to manage two competing languages is assumed to rely on both domain-specific language control and domain-general control mechanisms. However, previous studies have reported mixed findings about the extent and nature of cross-domain generality. The present study examined the role of language dominance, along with bilingual language experience, in the relationship between word recognition and domain-general cognitive control. Two single-language lexical decision tasks (one in L1 and another in L2) and a domain-general flanker task were administered to bilinguals who live in the sociolinguistic context of a minority and a majority language, namely, Uyghur (L1) and Chinese (L2), respectively. The results showed a diversity in language dominance patterns with better performance in L2 than L1 in the recognition modality, even for participants who self-identified as globally being dominant in L1. This finding reflected all bilinguals’ self-evaluation that their preferred language for reading was L2, suggesting that language dominance is dynamic, depending on what language modality is measured. Furthermore, it was found that an earlier onset age of L2 acquisition (but not recent exposure) and a higher across-modality dominance in L2 were related to faster L2 word recognition. When self-reported language dominance was operationalised as a grouping variable, it was further found that both across-modality L1- and L2-dominant bilingual participants demonstrated a significant relationship between L2 word recognition and domain-general monitoring control, while only L1-dominant bilinguals additionally tapped into inhibitory control, indexed by the flanker effect during L2 word recognition. These findings suggest that language dominance has an impact on the extent and nature of the overlap in control mechanisms across specific linguistic and domain-general cognitive domains and add evidence to a domain-general monitoring account of bilingual word recognition.
... Parallel findings were obtained by Titone et al. (2015) with speeded meaningfulness judgments. While a general switching cost is consistent with previous experimental literature (Altarriba et al. 1996;Bultena et al. 2015;Gullifer and Titone 2019;Guzzardo Tamargo et al. 2016;Litcofsky and Van Hell 2017), this specific idiom disadvantage confirmed a disruption in direct retrieval during early stage L1 idiom recognition. In the present study, L2 idioms and literals were not differentially impacted by the presence of a language switch in early measures; however, switched idioms in a figurative context (Idiomatic-Idiomatic) incurred greater processing costs with respect to idioms with a literal continuation (Idiomatic-Literal) in total reading time. ...
Idioms (e.g., break the ice, spill the beans) are ubiquitous multiword units that are often semantically non-compositional. Psycholinguistic data suggests that L1 readers process idioms in a hybrid fashion, with early comprehension facilitated by direct retrieval, and later comprehension inhibited by factors promoting compositional parsing (e.g., semantic decomposability). In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the role of direct retrieval and compositional analysis when idioms are read naturally in sentences in an L2. Thus, French–English bilingual adults with French as their L1 were tested using English sentences. For idioms in canonical form, Experiment 1 showed that prospective verb-related decomposability and retrospective noun-related decomposability guided L2 readers towards bottom-up figurative meaning access over different time courses. Direct retrieval played a lesser role, and was mediated by the availability of a congruent “cognate” idiom in the readers’ L1. Next, Experiment 2 included idioms where direct retrieval was disrupted by a phrase-final language switch into French (e.g., break the glace, spill the fèves). Switched idioms were read comparably to switched literal phrases at early stages, but were penalized at later stages. These results collectively suggest that L2 idiom processing is mostly compositional, with direct retrieval playing a lesser role in figurative meaning comprehension.
... Limited studies show that FT and BT can be doubly dissociated following brain damage (Garcı´a, 2013;Garcı´a, 2015) and that the former elicits greater amplitude in attention-sensitive event-related potentials (Christoffels et al., 2013) as well as enhanced activation Tommola et al., 2000;Quaresima et al., 2002) and functional connectivity (Zheng et al., 2020) along temporal, parietal, and frontobasal regions subserving lexico-semantic and cognitive control processes. Yet, such evidence fails to reveal whether and how translation asymmetry hinges on neural (de)synchronization patterns known to mediate fastchanging linguistic (Grabner et al., 2007;Kielar et al., 2014;Grady et al., 2015;Pe´rez et al., 2015;Elmer and Ku¨hnis, 2016;Garcı´a et al., 2016Garcı´a et al., , 2020Birba et al., 2020;Moguilner et al., 2021) and executive (Grundy et al., 2017a;Grundy et al., 2017b;Litcofsky and Van Hell, 2017) operations. This limits its integration with thriving trends in bilingualism research Birba et al., 2020;Sulpizio et al., 2020;Fan et al., 2021), while adding to the divide between psycholinguistic (Kroll et al., 1994;Dijkstra and Van Heuven, 1998;Dijkstra and Van Heuven, 2002) and neurocognitive (Abutalebi and Green, 2007;Kroll et al., 2013) models in the field. ...
Mainstream theories of first- and second-language (L1, L2) processing in bilinguals are crucially informed by word translation research. A core finding is the translation asymmetry effect, typified by slower performance during forward translation (FT, from L1 into L2) than backward translation (BT, from L2 into L1). Yet, few studies have explored its neural bases and none has employed (de)synchronization measures, precluding the integration of bilingual memory models with novel neural (de)coupling accounts of word processing. Here, 27 proficient Spanish-English bilinguals engaged in FT and BT of single words as we obtained high-density EEG recordings to perform cluster-based oscillatory and non-linear functional connectivity analyses. Relative to BT, FT yielded slower responses, higher frontal theta (4-7 Hz) power in an early window (0-300 ms), reduced centro-posterior lower-beta (14-20 Hz) and centro-frontal upper-beta (21-30 Hz) power in a later window (300-600 ms), and lower fronto-parietal connectivity below 10 Hz in the early window. Also, the greater the behavioral difference between FT and BT, the greater the power of the early theta cluster for FT over BT. These results reveal key (de)coupling dynamics underlying translation asymmetry, offering frequency-specific constraints for leading models of bilingual lexical processing.
... Both studies demonstrate that language dominance plays a strong role, either relatively enhancing (Study 1) or diminishing (Study 2) the effects of code-switches on the prediction of low frequency and negative content, respectively. This effect could be directly related to proficiency and different pressures on processing in more and less dominant languages or how these individual-level factors interact with aspects of code-switching such as switch direction (Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017). Predictive processing and emotional processing may be differentially affected by proficiency/dominance in each language, with emotionality potentially being more dependent on global emotionality levels in each language. ...
Monolinguals use various linguistic phenomena to guide prediction while comprehending. For bilinguals, the richer linguistic landscape provides additional resources. Code-switches (CS) are a particularly salient event which could play a role in bilingual prediction. Despite their ubiquity and diverse functions, experimental research has focused on CS processing costs, largely in comprehension (Litcofsky & Van Hell 2017). We argue that, despite apparent integration costs, code-switching can facilitate subsequent language processing, due to natural code-switching patterns. We illustrate this approach with two eye-tracking studies suggesting that code-switches are used as a cue that a less frequent or negative word follows. These studies underscore the need to integrate socio-pragmatic and corpus-modeling observations with experimentation to reach a comprehensive understanding of CS processing (Myers-Scotton, 2006).
... This distinction, however, is not without criticism, and debates continue on the status of these so-called nonce borrowings and their relationship to the bigger picture of language contact (see Myers-Scotton, 1993;Stammers & Deuchar, 2012;and Backus, 2012 for further discussion). In addition, codeswitching in particular has also received a great deal of scholarly attention, both in sociolinguistics (Poplack, 1980;Poplack, Sankoff, & Miller, 1988;Muysken, 2013;Torres Cacoullos & Travis, 2015; 2018, among many others) and psycholinguistics (Grosjean, 1995;Adler, Valdés Kroff, & Novick, 2020;Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017, among many others). There even exist some studies that examine single-word insertions specifically, although these studies often do not make recourse to the ongoing debate on nonce borrowings (Johns et al., 2019;Moreno, Federmeier, & Kutas, 2002). ...
The transfer of words from one language to another is ubiquitous in many of the world’s languages. While loanwords have a rich literature in the fields of historical linguistics, language contact, and sociolinguistics, little work has been done examining how loanwords are processed by bilinguals with knowledge of both the source and recipient languages. The present study uses pupillometry to compare the online processing of established loanwords in Puerto Rican Spanish to native Spanish words by highly proficient Puerto Rican Spanish-English bilinguals. Established loanwords elicited a significantly larger pupillary response than native Spanish words, with the pupillary response modulated by both the frequency of the loanword itself and of the native Spanish counterpart. These findings suggest that established loanwords are processed differently than native Spanish words and compete with their native equivalents, potentially due to both intra- and inter-lingual effects of saliency.
... Moreover, numerous sociolinguistic studies find that CS serves a variety of sociopragmatic purposes (Gumperz, 1982;Myers-Scotton, 1993). Recently, psycholinguists have investigated the neural and cognitive processes underpinning CS, focusing primarily on the processing costs of integration (e.g., Litcofsky & Van Hell, 2017;Olson, 2017) and attenuation of these costs under certain linguistic contexts (e.g., Fricke, Kroll & Dussias, 2016;Guzzardo Tamargo, Valdés Kroff & Dussias, 2016;Valdés Kroff, Dussias, Gerfen, Perrotti & Bajo, 2017). ...
Despite its prominent use among bilinguals, psycholinguistic studies reported code-switch processing costs (e.g., Meuter & Allport, 1999). This paradox may partly be due to the focus on the code-switch itself instead of its potential subsequent benefits. Motivated by corpus studies on CS patterns and sociopragmatic functions of CS, we asked whether bilinguals use code-switches as a cue to the lexical characteristics of upcoming speech. We report a visual world study testing whether code-switching facilitates the anticipation of lower-frequency words. Results confirm that US Spanish–English bilinguals (n = 30) use minority (Spanish) to majority (English) language code-switches in real-time language processing as a cue that a less frequent word would ensue, as indexed by increased looks at images representing lower- vs. higher-frequency words in the code-switched condition, prior to the target word onset. These results highlight the need to further integrate sociolinguistic and corpus observations into the experimental study of code-switching.
... A switching cost is incurred when activating the German word but ultimately fixating on the English word. In a study using both self-paced reading and EEG, Litcofsky and Van Hell (2017) found that switching from an L1 to an L2 (stronger to weaker language) incurred costs related to restructuring at a sentence level, and switching from an L2 to an L1 (weaker to stronger language) incurred costs related to the previous suppression of the stronger L1. Given that in the current study there is a switch from L2 to L1 back to L2, it is possible that switching costs were compounded, leading to an N+1 interference. ...
In this study we investigated parafoveal processing by L1 and late L2 speakers of English (L1 German) while reading in English. We hypothesized that L2ers would make use of semantic and orthographic information parafoveally . Using the gaze contingent boundary paradigm, we manipulated six parafoveal masks in a sentence ( Mark found th*e wood for the fire ; * indicates the invisible boundary): identical word mask ( wood ), English orthographic mask ( wook ), English string mask ( zwwl ), German mask ( holz ), German orthographic mask ( holn ), and German string mask ( kxfs ). We found an orthographic benefit for L1ers and L2ers when the mask was orthographically related to the target word ( wood vs. wook ) in line with previous L1 research. English L2ers did not derive a benefit (rather an interference) when a non-cognate translation mask from their L1 was used ( wood vs. holz ), but did derive a benefit from a German orthographic mask ( wood vs. holn) . While unexpected, it may be that L2ers incur a switching cost when the complete German word is presented parafoveally, and derive a benefit by keeping both lexicons active when a partial German word is presented parafoveally (narrowing down lexical candidates). To the authors’ knowledge there is no mention of parafoveal processing in any model of L2 processing/reading, and the current study provides the first evidence for a parafoveal non-cognate orthographic benefit (but only with partial orthographic overlap) in sentence reading for L2ers. We discuss how these findings fit into the framework of bilingual word recognition theories.
Full text available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0911604424000423?via%3Dihub
For multilinguals, acquiring and processing language is similar to other cognitive skills: they are grounded in mechanisms of sensory processing and motor control (Paradis, 2019). Recent clinical and experimental research on multilingualism have introduced innovative neuroimaging measures and psychological methods that have significantly shed light on what we know (and do not know) about how multiple languages are processed, represented, and controlled in the mind/brain (Schwieter, 2019).
Since the 1990s and 2000s, a plethora of behavioral and neurological research has demonstrated that for multilinguals, all languages are active to some degree in the mind, even when only using one. Furthermore, the need for the mind to manage the ongoing competition that arises from this parallel activation has been shown to affect cognition (e.g., executive functioning) (Giovannoli et al., 2020), modify the structure and functioning of the brain (e.g., changes in the areas where language control and executive control overlap) (Costa and Sebastian-Galles, 2014), and slow the onset or progression of cognitive and neural decline (Bialystok, 2017).
The goal of “Multilingualism: Consequences for brain and mind” is to bring together state-of-the art papers that examine the cognitive and neurological consequences of multilingualism through an exploration of how two or more languages are processed, represented, and/or controlled in one brain/mind. The included peer-reviewed papers are either theoretically or empirically oriented and present new findings, frameworks, and/or methodologies on how multilingualism affects the brain and mind.
In our increasingly multilingual modern world, understanding how languages beyond the first are acquired and processed at a brain level is essential to design evidence-based teaching, clinical interventions and language policy. Written by a team of world-leading experts in a wide range of disciplines within cognitive science, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the study of third (and more) language acquisition and processing. It features 30 approachable chapters covering topics such as multilingual language acquisition, education, language maintenance and language loss, multilingual code-switching, ageing in the multilingual brain, and many more. Each chapter provides an accessible overview of the state of the art in its topic, while offering comprehensive access to the specialized literature, through carefully curated citations. It also serves as a methodological resource for researchers in the field, offering chapters on methods such as case studies, corpora, artificial language systems or statistical modelling of multilingual data.
This manuscript addresses the phenomenon of masked priming in bilingual individuals. We employed a lexical decision task with masked translation priming, which serves as a valuable tool for elucidating the orthographic and lexical processes involved in the initial stages of reading. Our study builds upon previous research conducted on monolingual masked priming, which consistently demonstrates shifts in the response time (RT) distributions when comparing related and unrelated primes. Within the framework of a diffusion model, we implemented two theoretical positions. First, we posited that translation priming operates at the orthographic level, resulting in enhanced efficiency during the encoding process. Second, we explored the possibility that translation priming operates at the semantic level, influencing the accumulation of evidence during the lexical decision task. Our findings indicate that translation priming elicits outcomes similar to those observed in monolingual priming paradigms. Specifically, we observed that translation priming facilitation is manifested as shifts in the RT distributions. We interpret these findings as suggesting that the benefits derived from the encoding process are not specific to the accessed lexicon following brief stimulus presentation.
Previous research on language switching has debated whether high-proficient bilinguals exhibit symmetrical costs and one underlying reason for which may be the potential influence of cross-linguistic characteristics. The previous conflicting findings suggest their impact on language switching needs to be further investigated. In this study, we recruited 36 high-proficient Chinese-English bilinguals and investigated the effect of cross-linguistic similarity on the switching of quantifier expressions under three switch conditions. The results showed that switch costs were significantly greater when the quantifier expression was similar between Chinese and English than when it was different. Larger switch costs were found in the alternate switch condition than those in the non-switch or random switch conditions. In addition, participants exhibited larger switch costs when switching to the first language than when switching to the second language. The results suggest that the similarity of quantifier expressions between the first language and the second language would create more competition and thus induce larger switch costs in phrase-level language switching, which may be derived from the inner word recognition system of the mental lexicon. This study further improves the relevant theories on the origin of switch costs by supporting the Language Non-Specific Selection Hypothesis.
Language switching is encountered commonly and inevitably in bilingual society and often induces costs for target language's production. However, for auditory words' comprehension at sentence level, the limited research showed divergent findings. Some research observed comprehension costs when the language of target words was switched with the code of sentential contexts kept constant; but a potential switch advantage was also showed in non-dominant targets' processing when sentential context switches occurred. Additionally, it's well documented that the words' emotional connotations play a key role in both L1 and L2 word comprehension. Therefore, we aimed to explore which switch effect would occur when bilinguals comprehended L1/L2 emotional target nouns in auditory modality at behavioral and neural level through a visual object selection task. Behaviorally, switch related costs occurred in L1 targets' comprehension, whereas advantage effects were found in L2. Moreover, greater switch advantage occurred for positive and negative targets than for neutral ones. Consistently, larger LPC (Late Positive Component) defection was elicited for L2-Switch trials relative to L2-Nonswitch trials and the differences of LPC's amplitude could predict the behavioral advantageous effects of switching in nondominant targets' comprehension, which suggest that language switching lead to deeper re-analyses for emotional words. Taken together, it's suggested that bilinguals can adaptively utilize top-down (sentential prediction) and bottom-up (words' emotional information) cues to access weaker L2 representations.
Sensitive perception to environmental sound is important for an individual's daily life since it helps in responding to the environment quickly and avoiding potential risks. It remains unclear, however, whether and how bilingual experiences with different native language backgrounds influence brain responses reflecting environmental sound perception. The present study compared Chinese-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals, and English monolinguals on their brain response to environmental sound perception and further examined its processing mechanism. The present study did not find the differences between English monolinguals and two bilingual groups on the environmental sound perception. However, we found that compared with Spanish-English bilinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals showed significantly larger mismatch negativity (MMN), indicating that Chinese-English bilinguals were more sensitive to the environmental sounds than that of Spanish-English bilinguals. Further, compared with Spanish-English bilinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals showed significantly larger theta oscillation. In addition, the theta oscillation is significantly correlated with MMN for Chinese-English bilinguals. The results indicated that the advantage of Chinese-English bilingual experience on environmental sound perception may be due to the enhanced top-down cognitive ability. In summary, these findings suggest that compared with the Spanish-English bilinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals showed an advantage in environmental sound perception via enhanced top-down cognitive modulation.
The article comments on an infant research territory charted by Hinojosa et al. (2019) in Affective neurolinguistics: Towards a framework for reconciling language and emotion. Acknowledging the sprouting of affective neurolinguistics in the semantic and syntactic unification process, lexico-semantic and morphosyntactic and visual word and sentence processing domain, we expand on their thought to flesh out the aspect of bilingualism. Speakers of two or more languages are constantly fighting in receiving emotional input. One language may oust the other language to elicit the emotions, or bilinguals overthrow monolingual peers in perceiving emotion stimuli. This article claims that to amplify the significance of emotion-language intersection in the brain entirely, emotions should be studied in mono- and bilingual contexts.
The purpose of this study was to test the effects of concreteness and relationship type (similarity vs. association) on semantic processing using event-related potentials (ERP). Neurophysiological evidence has been found for the concreteness effect and for an effect of relationship type. This study replicated and extended these findings by investigating the interaction of concreteness and relationship type. Twenty-four neurologically healthy young adults performed lexical decision and semantic relatedness tasks while continuous scalp EEG was recorded. Larger N400 effects were found for concrete words in associative relationships than for concrete words in similarity relationships and abstract words in either type of relationship. The results are discussed in relation to the different representational frameworks account for abstract and concrete word processing.
Aims and objectives
Studies of code-switching (CS) in bilingual speakers using laboratory tasks have been equivocal on whether CS is cognitively demanding. The goal of this study was to examine time costs at the juncture of a CS in a more ecologically valid experimental paradigm.
Methodology
English (L1)–French (L2) bilingual speakers performed two tasks. The primary experimental task was a novel paradigm that elicited voluntary code-switches in conversation with a bilingual interlocutor. A silent self-paced reading task was used to compare with a laboratory task with involuntary switches.
Data and analysis
Intersyllabic durations (conversation task) and reading times (reading task) were analyzed. CS cost was the time difference between code-switches and matched non-switches. Cost-switching costs for each switch direction (English-to-French and French-to-English) and type of switch (alternations and insertions) were also compared.
Findings
Code-switches in conversation were associated with a time cost, and the magnitude was comparable in both directions although speakers more frequently switched from French-to-English. In self-paced reading, switching costs were observed only for switches into the dominant language. Across both tasks, there were no differences in CS time cost between insertions and alternations.
Originality
This study reports a novel measure of CS costs in conversation, intersyllabic duration, and provides a cross-task comparison in the same group of bilingual speakers to better inform theories of CS.
Implications
Bilingual speakers experience a time cost when making voluntary switches in conversations. The symmetrical switch costs suggest that both languages have similar activation levels throughout the conversation, and the cognitive costs arise from the act of momentarily switching languages, irrespective of their dominance. In self-paced reading, cognitive costs arise from disturbing the status quo of relative activation-inhibition of each language adopted to perform the task. The comparable CS time cost for insertions and alternations suggests similar cognitive control and linguistic planning mechanisms for both types of switches.
Bilingual speakers often switch between languages in conversation without any advance notice. Psycholinguistic research has found that these language shifts (or code-switches) can be costly for comprehenders in certain situations. The present study explores the nature of these costs by comparing code-switches to other types of unexpected linguistic material. To do this, we used a novel EEG paradigm, the Storytime task, in which we record readings of natural texts, and then experimentally manipulate their properties by splicing in words. In this study, we manipulated the language of our target words (English, Spanish) and their fit with the preceding context (strong-fit, weak-fit). If code-switching incurs a unique cost beyond that incurred by an unexpected word, then we should see an additive pattern in our ERP indices. If an effect is driven by lexical expectation alone, then there should be a non-additive interaction such that all unexpected forms incur a similar cost. We found three effects: a general prediction effect (a non-additive N400), a post-lexical recognition of the switch in languages (an LPC for code-switched words), and a prolonged integration difficulty associated with weak-fitting words regardless of language (a sustained negativity). We interpret these findings as suggesting that the processing difficulties experienced by bilinguals can largely be understood within more general frameworks for understanding language comprehension. Our findings are consistent with the broader literature demonstrating that bilinguals do not have two wholly separate language systems but rather a single language system capable of using two coding systems.
Do nonselected lexical nodes activate their phonological information? Catalan–Spanish bilinguals were asked to name (a) pictures whose names are cognates in the 2 languages (words that are phonologically similar in the 2 languages) and (b) pictures whose names are noncognates in the 2 languages. If nonselected lexical nodes are phonologically encoded, naming latencies should be shorter for cognate words, and because the cognate status of words is only meaningful for bilingual speakers, this difference should disappear when testing monolingual speakers. The results of Experiment 1 fully supported these predictions. In Experiment 2, the difference between cognate and noncognate words was larger when naming in the nondominant language than when naming in the dominant language. The results of the 2 experiments are interpreted as providing support to cascaded activation models of lexical access.
We investigated the relative independence of two key processes in language comprehension, as reflected in the P600 ERP component. Numerous studies have linked the P600 to sentence- or message-level reanalysis; however, much research has shown that skilled, cue-based memory retrieval operations are also important to successful language processing. Our goal was to identify whether these cue-based retrieval operations are part of the reanalysis processes indexed by the P600. To this end, participants read sentences that were either grammatical or ungrammatical via subject-verb agreement violations, and in which there was either no possibility for retrieval interference or there was an attractor noun interfering with the computation of subject-verb agreement (e.g., The slogan on the political poster(s) was/were…). A stimulus onset asynchrony manipulation (fast, medium, or slow presentation rate) was designed to modulate participants’ ability to engage in reanalysis processes. Results showed a reliable attraction interference effect, indexed by reduced behavioral sensitivity to ungrammaticalities and P600 amplitudes when there was an opportunity for retrieval interference, as well as an effect of presentation rate, with reduced behavioral sensitivity and smaller P600 effects at faster presentation rates. Importantly, there was no interaction between the two, suggesting that retrieval interference and sentence-level reanalysis processes indexed by the P600 can be neurocognitively distinct processes.
One approach used to gain insight into the processes underlying bilingual language comprehension and production examines the costs that arise from switching languages. For unbalanced bilinguals, asymmetric switch costs are reported in speech production, where the switch cost for L1 is larger than the switch cost for L2, whereas, symmetric switch costs are reported in language comprehension tasks, where the cost of switching is the same for L1 and L2. Presently, it is unclear why asymmetric switch costs are observed in speech production, but not in language comprehension. Three experiments are reported that simultaneously examine methodological explanations of task related differences in the switch cost asymmetry and the predictions of three accounts of the switch cost asymmetry in speech production. The results of these experiments suggest that (1) the type of language task (comprehension vs. production) determines whether an asymmetric switch cost is observed and (2) at least some of the switch cost asymmetry arises within the language system.
We employ code-switching (the alternation of two languages in bilingual communication) to test the hypothesis, derived from experience-based models of processing (e.g., Boland, Tanenhaus, Carlson, & Garnsey, 1989; Gennari & MacDonald, 2009), that bilinguals are sensitive to the combinatorial distributional patterns derived from production and that they use this information to guide processing during the comprehension of code-switched sentences. An analysis of spontaneous bilingual speech confirmed the existence of production asymmetries involving two auxiliary + participle phrases in Spanish–English code-switches. A subsequent eye-tracking study with two groups of bilingual code-switchers examined the consequences of the differences in distributional patterns found in the corpus study for comprehension. Participants’ comprehension costs mirrored the production patterns found in the corpus study. Findings are discussed in terms of the constraints that may be responsible for the distributional patterns in code-switching production and are situated within recent proposals of the links between production and comprehension.
Code-switching is prevalent in bilingual speech, and follows specific syntactic constraints. Several theories have been proposed to explain these constraints, and in this paper we focus on the Minimalist Program and the Matrix Language Frame model. Using a determiner-noun picture naming paradigm, we tested the ability of these theories to explain determiner-noun code-switches in Spanish–English bilinguals. The Minimalist Program predicts that speakers will use the determiner from the gendered language, whereas the Matrix Language Frame model predicts that the determiner will come from the language that dominates the syntactic structure in a code-switched utterance. We observed that the bilinguals had slowest naming times and decreased accuracy in Spanish determiner - English noun conditions (‘el dog’), and that adding a Matrix Language did not modulate this pattern. Although our results do not align with either theory, we conclude that they can be explained by the WEAVER++ model of speech production.
Most empirical evidence on switch costs is based on bilingual production and interpreted as a result of inhibitory control. It is unclear whether such a top–down control process exists in language switching during comprehension. This study investigates whether a non-lexical switch cost is involved in reading code-switched sentences and its relation to language dominance with cross-script bilingual readers. A maze task is adopted in order to separate top–down inhibitory effects, from lexical effects driven by input. The key findings are: (1) switch costs were observed in both L1–L2 and L2–L1 directions; (2) these effects were driven by two mechanisms: lexical activation and inhibitory control; (3) language dominance modulated the lexical effects, but did not affect the inhibitory effects. These results suggest that a language control mechanism is involved in bilingual reading, even though the control process is not driven by selection as in production. At the theoretical level, these results lend support for the Inhibitory Control model during language switching in comprehension; while the BIA/BIA+ model needs to incorporate a top–down control mechanism to be able to explain the current findings.
During sentence level language comprehension, semantic and syntactic unification are functionally distinct operations. Nevertheless, both recruit roughly the same brain areas (spatially overlapping networks in the left frontotemporal cortex) and happen at the same time (in the first few hundred milliseconds after word onset). We tested the hypothesis that semantic and syntactic unification are segregated by means of neuronal synchronization of the functionally relevant networks in different frequency ranges: gamma (40 Hz and up) for semantic unification and lower beta (10–20 Hz) for syntactic unification. EEG power changes were quantified as participants read either correct sentences, syntactically correct though meaningless sentences (syntactic prose), or sentences that did not contain any syntactic structure (random word lists). Other sentences contained either a semantic anomaly or a syntactic violation at a critical word in the sentence. Larger EEG gamma-band power was observed for semantically coherent than for semantically anomalous sentences. Similarly, beta-band power was larger for syntactically correct sentences than for incorrect ones. These results confirm the existence of a functional dissociation in EEG oscillatory dynamics during sentence level language comprehension that is compatible with the notion of a frequency-based segregation of syntactic and semantic unification.
Language switching has been one of the main tasks to investigate language control, a process that restricts bilingual language processing to the target language. In the current review, we discuss the How (i.e., mechanisms) and Where (i.e., locus of these mechanisms) of language control in language switching. As regards the mechanisms of language control, we describe several empirical markers of language switching and their relation to inhibition, as a potentially important mechanism of language control. From this overview it becomes apparent that some, but not all, markers indicate the occurrence of inhibition during language switching and, thus, language control. In a second part, we turn to the potential locus of language control and the role of different processing stages (concept level, lemma level, phonology, orthography, and outside language processing). Previous studies provide evidence for the employment of several of these processing stages during language control so that either a complex control mechanism involving different processing stages and/or multiple loci of language control have to be assumed. Based on the discussed results, several established and new theoretical avenues are considered.
In bilingual processing, cognates are associated with facilitatory processing, while switching between languages is associated with a processing cost. This study investigates whether co-activation of cognates affects the magnitude of switch costs in sentence context. A shadowing task was conducted to examine whether verb cognates reduce switch costs in sentences that switched between participants' L1 and L2. In addition, we considered whether these effects were influenced by L2 proficiency, switching direction and cross-linguistic overlap in syntactic structure. Bilinguals were presented with L1 and L2 sentences that contained a language switch preceded by a cognate. Shadowing latencies showed that switching to L2 was more costly than switching to L1. Switch costs in both directions were not modulated by the presence of a verb cognate, and this effect was not affected by syntactic structure or L2 proficiency. The results are informative for the field of bilingual processing and the lexical trigger hypothesis.
The complementary learning systems account of word learning states that novel words, like other types of memories, undergo an offline consolidation process during which they are gradually integrated into the neocortical memory network. A fundamental change in the neural representation of a novel word should therefore occur in the hours after learning. The present EEG study tested this hypothesis by investigating whether novel words learned before a 24-hr consolidation period elicited more word-like oscillatory responses than novel words learned immediately before testing. In line with previous studies indicating that theta synchronization reflects lexical access, unfamiliar novel words elicited lower power in the theta band (4–8 Hz) than existing words. Recently learned words still showed a marginally lower theta increase than existing words, but theta responses to novel words that had been acquired 24 hr earlier were indistinguishable from responses to existing words. Consistent with evidence that beta desynchronization (16–21 Hz) is related to lexical-semantic processing, we found that both unfamiliar and recently learned novel words elicited less beta desynchronization than existing words. In contrast, no difference was found between novel words learned 24 hr earlier and existing words. These data therefore suggest that an offline consolidation period enables novel words to acquire lexically integrated, word-like neural representations.
Mixture of Spanish and English, whether in isolated loan words or in code-switching of clauses and sentences, while socially motivated, is subject to clear linguistic constraints. Quantitative analysis of mixing in conversations of Mexican-Americans suggests specific functional constraints to express tense/aspect/mood and subject/object relationships, as well as structural constraints which permit only surface structures which are grammatical in both languages. Resolution of structural conflict plays a key role, so that lexical cores trigger longer phrasal switches if they govern rules which create non-shared surface structures. The relative frequency of mixes without structural conflict is constrained by discourse function.
This paper argues that a set of codeswitching data has implications for the nature of cognitive control in bilingualism and for models of language production in general. The data discussed are Embedded Language (EL) nonfinite verbs that occur in Matrix Language (ML) frames with appropriate ML inflectional morphology in some codeswitching (CS) corpora. Notably EL infinitives are involved, as in wo mu conçevoir be nuɖe . . . “they don't imagine that something . . .” (from Ewe–French CS). The main argument is that such nonfinite forms are selected because they only need checking at the lexical-conceptual level of abstract structure with the speaker's intended semantic-pragmatic meaning. That is, they do not project information about syntactic and argument structure that is included in the abstract structure of finite verbs. Nonfinite EL verbs occur because they better satisfy the speaker's intentions regarding semantic and pragmatic meaning than NL finite verbs. The employment of nonfinite EL verbs instead of EL finite verbs partially explains why codeswitching in general and such verb phrases in particular is perceived as fast and effortless. How one lexical entry (the EL nonfinite verb) can take on the morphosyntactic role of another one (the ML finite verb) implies flexibility in cognitive control at an abstract level. It also implies a certain malleability at an abstract level in the ML morphosyntactic frame that makes it possible to take in a nonfinite verb in a slot for a finite verb.
This study investigated two prominent issues in the comprehension of language switches. First, how does language switching direction affect switch costs in sentence context? Second, are switch costs modulated by L2 proficiency and cross-linguistic activation? We conducted a self-paced reading task involving sentences that switched between participants’ L1 Dutch and L2 English. The cognate status of the main verb was manipulated to examine the influence of co-activation on intra-sentential switch costs. The reading times indicated the influence of switch direction: a cost was observed for switches into L2 but not for switches into L1, and the magnitude of the costs was correlated with L2 proficiency, indicating that switch costs in language comprehension depend on language dominance. Verb cognates did not yield a cognate facilitation effect nor did they influence the magnitude of switch costs in either direction. The results are interpreted in terms of an activation account explaining lexical comprehension based on L2 proficiency.
U n c o r r e c t e d p r o o f s - J o h n B e n j a m i n s P u b l i s h i n g C o m p a n y A large body of empirical research, accumulated over the last twenty years, has set the foundations for a generic model of word comprehension in relatively flu-ent bilinguals (the bilingual interactive-activation (BIA) model). This approach combines an initial language non-selective access process with inhibitory con-trol mechanisms in order to limit cross-language interference. However, it is still not clear how such an architecture could emerge during the learning of a second language. The present chapter briefly summarizes the key results in favor of the original BIA-model and describes the research agenda that hopefully will help fill in the "missing link" – that is, a developmental investigation of second language vocabulary acquisition. We present a theoretical framework (the de-velopmental BIA-model, BIA-d) designed to guide future research in this area.
The P600, a late positive ERP component following linguistically deviant stimuli, is commonly seen as indexing structural, high-level processes, e.g. of linguistic (re)analysis. It has also been identified with the P3 (P600-as-P3 hypothesis), which is thought to reflect a systemic neuromodulator release facilitating behavioural shifts and is usually response time aligned. We investigated single-trial alignment of the P600 to response, a critical prediction of the P600-as-P3 hypothesis. Participants heard sentences containing morphosyntactic and semantic violations and responded via a button press. The elicited P600 was perfectly response aligned, while an N400 following semantic deviations was stimulus aligned. This is, to our knowledge, the first single-trial analysis of language processing data using within-sentence behavioural responses as temporal covariates. Results support the P600-as-P3 perspective and thus constitute a step towards a neurophysiological grounding of language-related ERPs.
ERPLAB toolbox is a freely available, open-source toolbox for processing and analyzing event-related potential (ERP) data in the MATLAB environment. ERPLAB is closely integrated with EEGLAB, a popular open-source toolbox that provides many EEG preprocessing steps and an excellent user interface design. ERPLAB adds to EEGLAB’s EEG processing functions, providing additional tools for filtering, artifact detection, re-referencing, and sorting of events, among others. ERPLAB also provides robust tools for averaging EEG segments together to create averaged ERPs, for creating difference waves and other recombinations of ERP waveforms through algebraic expressions, for filtering and re-referencing the averaged ERPs, for plotting ERP waveforms and scalp maps, and for quantifying several types of amplitudes and latencies. ERPLAB’s tools can be accessed either from an easy-to-learn graphical user interface or from MATLAB scripts, and a command history function makes it easy for users with no programming experience to write scripts. Consequently, ERPLAB provides both ease of use and virtually unlimited power and flexibility, making it appropriate for the analysis of both simple and complex ERP experiments. Several forms of documentation are available, including a detailed user’s guide, a step-by-step tutorial, a scripting guide, and a set of video-based demonstrations.
One key issue in bilingualism is how bilinguals control production, particularly to produce words in the less dominant language. Language switching is one method to investigate control processes. Language switching has been much studied in comprehension, e.g., in lexical decision task, but less so in production. Here we first present a study of language switching in Italian–English adult bilinguals in a naming task for visually presented words. We demonstrate an asymmetric pattern of time costs to switch language, where participants incurred a greater time cost to switch into naming in their dominant language (Italian). In addition, costs were greater where the stimuli were interlingual cognates or homographs than words existing in only one language, implicating lexical competition as a source of the cost. To clarify the operation of control processes, we then present two connectionist models of bilingual naming, based on the previous models of Seidenberg and McClelland (1989), Cohen, Dunbar and McClelland (1990), Gilbert and Shallice (2002), and Karaminis and Thomas (2010). Crucially, both models acquired their differential language dominance via an experience-dependent learning process. The models embody different assumptions about the language control processes that produce the switch cost. We consider which processing assumptions are sufficient to explain asymmetric language switch costs and word class effects on language switching in individual word reading, as well as generating novel predictions for future testing.
Comprehending a language (or code) switch within a sentence context triggers 2 electrophysiological signatures: an early left anterior negativity post code switch onset - a LAN - followed by a Late Positive Component (LPC). Word class and word position modulate lexico-semantic processes in the monolingual brain, e.g., larger N400 amplitude for nouns than verbs and for earlier than later words in the sentence. Here we test whether the bilingual brain is affected by word class and word position when code switching, or if the cost of switching overrides these lexico-semantic and sentence context factors. Adult bilinguals read short stories in English containing 8 target words. Targets were nouns or verbs, occurred early or late in a story and were presented alternately in English (non-switch) or Spanish (switch) across different story versions. Overall, switched words elicited larger LAN and LPC amplitude than non-switched words. The N400 amplitude was larger for nouns than verbs, more focal for switches than non-switches, and for early than late nouns but not for early than late verbs. Moreover, an early LPC effect was observed only for switched nouns, but not verbs. Together, this indicates that referential elements (nouns) may be harder to process and integrate than relational elements (verbs) in discourse, and when switched, nouns incur higher integration cost. Word position did not modulate the code switching effects, implying that switching between languages may invoke discourse independent processes.
Code-switching (CS) is central to many bilingual communities and, though linguistic and sociolinguistic research has characterised different types of code-switches (alternations, insertions, dense CS), the cognitive control processes (CPs) that mediate them are not well understood. A key issue is how during CS speakers produce the right words in the right order. In speech, serial order emerges from a speech plan in which items are represented in parallel. We propose that entry into the mechanism for speech planning (a competitive queuing mechanism) is governed by CPs best suited to the particular types of code-switches. Language task schemas external to the language network govern access. In CS, they are coordinated cooperatively and operate in a coupled or in an open control mode. The former permits alternations and insertions whereas the latter is required for dense CS. We explore predictions of this CP model and its implications for CS research.
Although research has consistently shown that a bilingual's two languages interact on multiple levels, it is also well-established that bilinguals can vary considerably in their proficiency in the second language (L2). In this paper we review empirical studies that have examined how differences in L2 proficiency modulate cross-language co-activation and interaction during bilingual lexical processing. We review studies investigating cognate and homograph processing in visual word perception and word production, auditory word perception using the visual world paradigm, and cross-language priming, focusing specifically on how differences in proficiency modulate co-activation during lexical access. We further discuss differences in L2 proficiency in relation to immersion and age of L2 acquisition, how differences in L2 proficiency relate to neurocognitive aspects of cognitive control, and how changes in L2 proficiency relative to L1 proficiency may affect lexical processing.
This study examined the asymmetrical language switching cost in a word reading task (Experiment 1) and in a categorization task (Experiment 2 and 3). In Experiment 1, Spanish–English bilinguals named words in first language (L1) and second language (L2) in a switching paradigm. They were slower to switch from their weaker L2 to their more dominant L1 than from L1 to L2. In Experiment 2 and 3, high vs. low English proficiency bilinguals decided whether a word visually presented in their L1 or L2 referred to an animate or to an inanimate entity. In this case, bilinguals did not show asymmetrical cost when they switched between languages. These results suggest that inhibitory processes in bilingual processing as indexed by the asymmetrical language switching cost are only observed when L1 and L2 lexical representations compete for selection (e.g. word naming task). In addition, L2 proficiency did not influence the absence of asymmetrical switching cost.
The occurrence of codeswitching, or the seemingly random alternation of two languages both between and within sentences, has been shown (Gumperz, 1976; Pfaff, 1975; Wentz, 1977) to be governed not only by extralinguistic but also linguistic factors. For the balanced bilingual, codeswitching appears to be subject to an ‘equivalence constraint’ (Poplack, 1978): i.e. it tends to occur at points in discourse where juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a surface syntactic rule of either language. If correct, the equivalence constraint on codeswitching may be used to measure degree of bilingual ability. It was hypothesized that equivalence would either be violated by non-fluent bilinguals, or that switch points which are ‘risky’ in terms of syntactic well-formedness (i.e. those which occur within a sentence) would tend to be avoided altogether. To test this hypothesis, I analysed the speech of 20 Puerto Rican residents of a stable bilingual community, exhibiting varying degrees of bilingual ability. Quantitative analysis of their switches revealed that both fluent and non-fluent bilinguals were able to code-switch frequently and still maintain grammaticality in both Lx and L2. While fluent bilinguals tended to switch at various syntactic boundaries within the sentence, non-fluent bilinguals favoured switching between sentences, allowing them to participate in the codeswitching mode, without fear of violating a grammatical rule of either of the languages involved. These results suggest that the codeswitching mode proceeds from that area of the bilingual's grammar where the surface structures of Lx and L2 overlap, and that codeswitching, rather than representing debasement of linguistic skill, is actually a sensitive indicator of bilingual ability.
We have argued that the grammatical features spell-out hypothesis (GFSH) (Liceras, Spradlin, Perales, Fernández, & Álvarez, 2003; Spradlin, Liceras & Fernández, 2003a) accounts for the functional-lexical mixing patterns that prevail in the case of Determiner Phrases produced by bilingual (English-Spanish) children. This hypothesis (Liceras, 2002; Spradlin, Liceras & Fernández, 2003b) states that in the process of activating the features of the two grammars, the child, who will rely on the two lexicons, will make codemixing choices which will favor the functional categories containing the largest array of uninterpretable features (Chomsky, 1998, 1999). This implies that in the case of English/ Spanish child acquisition data, mixed utterances such as el book (Spanish Determiner + English Noun) will prevail over mixed utterances such as the libro (English Determiner + Spanish Noun). Thus, in the process of acquisition, children pay special attention to the visible morpho-phonological triggers which lead to the activation of abstract formal features.
Bilingual speakers often code-switch from one language to another, especially when both languages are used in the environment. This article explores the potential theoretical explanations for this language behavior, the costs and benefits associated with language switching, and the role of language dominance in the direction of the switch. In short, code switching follows functional and grammatical principles and is a complex, rule-governed phenomenon. Although significant progress has been made in understanding the psycholinguistics of code switching, research is needed to examine the cognitive mechanisms underlying the bilingual's ability to integrate and separate two languages during the communicative process.
Stimuli used in cued language switching studies typically consist of digits or pictures. However, the comparability between both stimulus types remains unclear. In the present study, we directly compared digit and picture naming in a German–English language switching experiment. Because digits represent a semantic group and contain many cognates, the experiment consisted of four conditions with different stimulus sets in each condition: digits, standard language switching pictures, pictures depicting cognates, and semantically-related pictures. Digit naming caused smaller switch costs than picture naming. The data suggest that this difference can be attributed to phonology. Both methodological and theoretical implications are discussed.
We report two experiments that investigate the effects of sentence context on bilingual lexical access in Spanish and English. Highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences in Spanish and English that included a marked word to be named. The word was either a cognate with similar orthography and/or phonology in the two languages, or a matched non-cognate control. Sentences appeared in one language alone (i.e., Spanish or English) and target words were not predictable on the basis of the preceding semantic context. In Experiment 1, we mixed the language of the sentence within a block such that sentences appeared in an alternating run in Spanish or in English. These conditions partly resemble normally occurring inter-sentential code-switching. In these mixed-language sequences, cognates were named faster than non-cognates in both languages. There were no effects of switching the language of the sentence. In Experiment 2, with Spanish-English bilinguals matched closely to those who participated in the first experiment, we blocked the language of the sentences to encourage language-specific processes. The results were virtually identical to those of the mixed-language experiment. In both cases, target cognates were named faster than non-cognates, and the magnitude of the effect did not change according to the broader context. Taken together, the results support the predictions of the Bilingual Interactive Activation + Model (Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2002) in demonstrating that bilingual lexical access is language non-selective even under conditions in which language-specific cues should enable selective processing. They also demonstrate that, in contrast to lexical switching from one language to the other, inter-sentential code-switching of the sort in which bilinguals frequently engage, imposes no significant costs to lexical processing.
Editor’s note:
Today, more of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual than monolingual. In addition to facilitating cross-cultural communication, this trend also positively affects cognitive abilities. Researchers have shown that the bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain, thanks to its developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. In addition, bilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Bilingual children as young as seven months can better adjust to environmental changes, while bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive decline.
Compares several methods of presenting text, including a new paradigm that produces reading-time data with many of the characteristics of naturally occurring eye-fixation data. In the "moving window" condition, a reader presses a button to see each successive word in a text, and the previous word is removed when a new word appears. 35 undergraduates read short passages under cumulative, moving-, and stationary-window conditions. The moving-window condition most closely resembled gaze durations. Results suggest that readers initiate the processing of each word as soon as they encounter it rather than buffer words and delay processing. It is considered that the tendency to immediately process text might interact with other techniques for text presentation, such as the rapid serial visual presentation condition. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Until recently, cognitive science virtually ignored the fact that most people of the world are bilingual. During the past ten years this situation has changed markedly. There is now an appreciation that learning and using more than one language is the more natural circumstance of cognition. As a result, there is a wealth of new research on second-language learning and bilingualism that provides not only crucial evidence for the universality of cognitive principles, but also an important tool for revealing constraints within the cognitive architecture. In this volume, Judith Kroll and Annette de Groot have brought together the scientists at the forefront of research on second-language learning and bilingualism to present chapters that, rather than focusing simply on their own research, provide the first comprehensive overviews of this emerging field. Bilingualism provides a lens through which each of the central questions about language and cognition can be viewed. The five sections of this book focus on different facets of those questions: How is language acquired when infants are exposed to multiple-language input from birth, and how is it acquired when adults are required to learn a second language after early childhood? How do adult bilinguals comprehend and produce words and sentences when their two languages are potentially always active and in competition with one another? What are the neural mechanisms that underlie proficient bilingualism? What are the general consequences of bilingualism for cognition and for language and thought? This handbook will be essential reading for cognitive psychologists, linguists, applied linguists, and educators who wish to better understand the cognitive basis of bilingualism and the logic of experimental and formal approaches to language science.
Considerable work has used language-switching tasks to investigate how bilinguals manage competition between languages. Language-switching costs have been argued to reflect persisting inhibition or persisting activation of a non-target language. However, these costs might instead reflect the use of bivalent stimuli (i.e. pictures or digits that can be responded to in either language). That is, language-switching costs may simply reflect a cost of selecting the task-appropriate response for a given item and so may not be reflective of bilingual lexical access [Finkbeiner, M., Almeida, J., Janssen, N., & Carramaza, A. (2006). Lexical selection in bilingual speech production does not involve language suppression. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32(5), 1075–1089]. The present study addresses this concern by having Chinese/English bilinguals switch between languages in response to inherently univalent stimuli (English words and Chinese Characters) as well as lexically univalent, but orthographically bivalent, stimuli (English words and Chinese Pinyin). Speakers showed switch costs when naming both univalent and orthographically bivalent stimuli, showing that switch costs can be found even with inherently univalent stimuli.
Using code-switching as a tool to illustrate how language experience modulates comprehension, the visual world paradigm was employed to examine the extent to which gender-marked Spanish determiners facilitate upcoming target nouns in a group of Spanish-English bilingual code-switchers. The first experiment tested target Spanish nouns embedded in a carrier phrase (Experiment 1b) and included a control Spanish monolingual group (Experiment 1a). The second set of experiments included critical trials in which participants heard code-switches from Spanish determiners into English nouns (e.g., la house) either in a fixed carrier phrase (Experiment 2a) or in variable and complex sentences (Experiment 2b). Across the experiments, bilinguals revealed an asymmetric gender effect in processing, showing facilitation only for feminine target items. These results reflect the asymmetric use of gender in the production of code-switched speech. The extension of the asymmetric effect into Spanish (Experiment 1b) underscores the permeability between language modes in bilingual code-switchers.
Aims
The present study adopted the electroencephalogram (EEG) technique to investigate whether inhibition advantage could modulate different language switches, regardless of the time spent on second language learning.
Design
The inhibitory control (IC) ability of 80 low-proficient Chinese (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals was assessed by the Simon task. Half of these bilinguals were then subdivided into 20 high- and 20 low-IC participants to perform switching between L1 and L2 (L1–L2 switching), and the other half were subdivided into 20 high- and 20 low-IC participants to conduct switching between L1 and Lnew (L1–Lnew switching). All participants were required to name pictures (picture naming task) in their L1 and L2/Lnew in language switching task.
Data and analysis
Both response latencies and EEG data were obtained, and then evoked and induced oscillations were calculated using time–frequency analysis.
Findings
The results of language switching showed similar naming latencies for L1 and L2/Lnew switch trials in the high-IC group, whereas the low-IC group showed larger naming latencies for L1 switch trials than L2/Lnew switch trials. In contrast, the high-IC group exhibited larger theta evoked and induced power for L2/Lnew switch trials than L1 switch trials at the lexical selection level, whereas the low-IC group did not. These findings indicate that inhibition advantage helps the high-IC group to suppress effectively the non-target word via recruiting bottom-up (evoked oscillation) and top-down (induced oscillation) processes.
Innovation
The present study was a first attempt to provide evidence that theta oscillation indicates cross-language interference at the lexical selection level.
Significance
Inhibition plays a modulatory role in language switching, which is independent of the time spent on second language learning, and such role involves bottom-up (i.e., evoked oscillation) and top-down (i.e., induced oscillation) processes which were mainly evident at the lexical selection level.
In two lexical decision experiments, we investigated how sentence language affects the bilingual's recognition of target words from the same or a different language. Dutch–English bilinguals read Dutch (L1) or English (L2) sentences, presented word by word, followed by English (Experiment 1) or Dutch (Experiment 2) target words. Targets were Dutch–English cognates or non-cognates in isolation or preceded by sentences providing a high or a low semantic constraint. English cognates were facilitated irrespective of whether they were preceded by high or low constraining English sentences (no language switch) or Dutch sentences (switch). For Dutch cognates, inhibition effects arose in low constraining sentences (irrespective of Dutch or English) and in English (switch) sentences (irrespective of semantic constraint). Thus, under mixed language conditions, sentence constraint modulates target word processing but does not always completely eliminate cross-linguistic effects. The results are interpreted in a BIA+ model that extends monolingual views on sentence comprehension.
Meuter and Allport (1999) were among the first to implicate an inhibitory mechanism in bilingual language control. In their study, bilinguals took longer to name a number in the L1 directly following an L2 naming trial than to name a number in the L2 following an L1 naming trial, suggesting that bilinguals suppress the more dominant L1 during L2 production. Since then, asymmetric switch costs have not been replicated in all subsequent studies, and some have questioned whether switch costs necessarily reveal language inhibition. Based on methodological grounds and interpretability problems, we conclude that switch costs may not be the most reliable index of inhibition in bilingual language control. We review alternative proposals for the source of switch costs, and point to other indices of inhibition within the switching paradigm and from adapted paradigms.
The complex span measure of working memory is a word/digit span measured while performing a secondary task. Two experiments investigated whether correlations between the complex span and reading comprehension depend on the nature of the secondary task and individual skill in that task. The secondary task did not have to be reading related for the span to predict reading comprehension. An arithmetic-related secondary task led to correlations with reading comprehension similar to those found when the secondary task was reading. The relationship remained significant when quantitative skills were factored out of the complex span/comprehension correlations. Simple digit and word spans (measured without a background task) did not correlate with reading comprehension and SAT scores. The second experiment showed that the complex span/comprehension correlations were a function of the difficulty of the background task. When the difficulty level of the reading-related or arithmetic-related background tasks was moderate, the span/comprehension correlations were higher in magnitude than when the background tasks were very simple, or, were very difficult.
The determinants of performance in word translation by unbalanced bilinguals, fairly fluent in their second language, were studied. Translation was both from the subjects′ native (L1) to their second (L2) language and in the reverse direction ("forward" and backward" translation, respectively). The predictor variables were imageability, context availability, definition accuracy, familiarity, word frequency, length (each of these six was determined for the L1 and L2 words separately), and the cognate status of the translation equivalents. Both forward and backward word translation were influenced by meaning variables, familiarity variables, and cognate status. However, meaning played a somewhat more important role in forward than in backward translation, whereas familiarity appeared to have a larger influence in backward translation. A few other differences between forward and backward translation were detected, but, when considering the complete stimulus set, the differences between translation directions were generally small. In some of the subsets of the stimulus materials (particularly noncognates) larger directional differences occurred. Particularly relevant is the finding that meaning affects backward translation, because it suggests a qualification of the "asymmetry model" of word translation as proposed by Kroll and Stewart (1994).
Previous work on intrasentential codeswitching has noted that switches between determiners and their noun complements are frequent in both Spanish–English and Welsh–English data. Two major recent theories of codeswitching, the Matrix Language Frame model and a Minimalist Program approach, make potentially competing predictions regarding the source language of the determiner in these mixed nominal constructions.In this paper we evaluate the predictions of each theory with reference to comparable sets of Spanish–English and Welsh–English codeswitching data. Mixed nominal constructions are extracted to test the compatibility of these data with the predictions, taking into account coverage and accuracy.We find that the data are broadly consistent with each set of predictions but do not find statistically significant differences between the accuracy of the predictions of the two theories. We examine in detail the counterexamples to the predictions of each theory to see what further factors may influence codeswitching patterns between determiners and their nouns, and also discuss the differences in observed patterns in the data from each language pair.
In an experimental study of language switching and selection, bilinguals named numerals in either their first or second language unpredictably. Response latencies (RTs) on switch trials (where the response language changed from the previous trial) were slower than on nonswitch trials. As predicted, the language-switching cost was consistently larger when switching to the dominant L₁ from the weaker L₂ than vice versa such that, on switch trials, L₁ responses were slower than in L₂. This "paradoxical" asymmetry in the cost of switching languages is explained in terms of differences in relative strength of the bilingual's two languages and the involuntary persistence of the previous language set across an intended switch of language. Naming in the weaker language, L₂, requires active inhibition or suppression of the stronger competitor language, L₁; the inhibition persists into the following (switch) trial in the form of "negative priming" of the L₁ lexicon as a whole. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The informal conversational data presented in this paper were collected in the course of a larger participant observation study of a set of ten Chinese/English bilingual families in the Tyneside area of northeastern England. A sequential analysis is offered in an attempt to illuminate patterns underlying code-switching both within and between speaker turns. The procedures of Conversational Analysis (CA) are adopted, with particular attention to the way in which code-switching might be said to contextualise particular conversational procedures. Evidence is presented to suggest that these bilingual conversationalists deploy code-switching as a resource to help them contextualise preference organisation and repairs. It is argued that code-switching functions in a manner similar to other contextualisation cues which have been discussed in the literature, and that it is available to bilingual conversationalists as an additional conversation management resource. It is suggested that some of the code-switching patterns discussed in the paper are specific to generational subgroups in the community, and an attempt is made to associate the strategic use of conversational code-switching by these subgroups with wider intergenerational patterns of language choice and language competence in the community as a whole.
The paper opens with an evaluation of the BIA model of bilingual word recognition in the light of recent empirical evidence. After pointing out problems and omissions, a new model, called the BIA+, is proposed. Structurally, this new model extends the old one by adding phonological and semantic lexical representations to the available orthographic ones, and assigns a different role to the so-called language nodes. Furthermore, it makes a distinction between the effects of non-linguistic context (such as instruction and stimulus list composition) and linguistic context (such as the semantic and syntactic effects of sentence context), based on a distinction between the word identification system itself and a task/decision system that regulates control. At the end of the paper, the generalizability of the BIA+ model to different tasks and modalities is discussed.
A key aspect of higher cognitive function is the ability to switch rapidly and efficiently between alternative modes of response where this is appropriate behaviourally. Such suppression appears to be highly dependent upon the integrity of the prefrontal cortex, yet other cortical areas are likely to be necessary to implement response switching. Language switching in bilingual speakers is a clear example of a task in which response switching is required. Functional brain imaging studies have demonstrated parietal cortex activation during repeated language switching within a translation task. Here we used event-related dense-sensor EEG recording techniques to examine the time course of language switching during a visually cued naming task in which bilingual participants named digits in either their first or second language. Switch-related modulation of ERP components was evident over parietal and frontal cortices, and in the latter case showed an asymmetry across first and second languages. Correspondence with a frontal ERP component found when suppressing manual responding in a Go/No-Go reaction time task may imply that similar inhibitory mechanisms are involved in both response suppression and language switching.