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Psycholinguistics

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Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics
In brief
POR psicolinguística SPA psicolingüística
origins
Psycholinguistics is a field of cognitive science that is concerned with the mental processes of
language production, comprehension, and representation in the brain. It is commonly considered to
be a branch of both linguistics and psychology. The term psycholinguistics was first presented by
Jacob Kantor (1936) in the book An objective psychology of grammar. It gained traction over the
next decade, particularly arising from the publication of the paper “Language and psycholinguistics:
A review,” published by Nicholas Pronko, one of Kantor’s students, in 1946. The etymology of
psycholinguistics is from the Greek word for 'mind' and the Latin word for ‘tongue’.
other names
Another name for psycholinguistics is the psychology of language.
abstract
Psycholinguistics is the study of the cognitive mechanisms that underpin the use of human
language. According to Carroll (2008), the field has been concerned with at least two key questions.
The first query involves what language competencies are required to effectively use a linguistic
system. Although language competence refers to “knowing” a language, our awareness of a
language and its specific nuances are not always part of our conscious, explicit knowledge. The
second query asks what cognitive processes are recruited in the ordinary use of language. Within
the Chomskyan dichotomy, ordinary use of language refers to typical communicative practices such
as reading a book, holding a conversation, and understanding the language around us. Cognitive
processes refer to the mental procedures that are critical to language use, such as perception,
thinking, updating, and memory, among others.
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John W. Schwieter
2024
Schwieter, John W. 2024. "Psycholinguistics" @ ENTI (Encyclopedia of Translation &
Interpreting). AIETI.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10949532
https://www.aieti.eu/enti/psycholinguistics_ENG
On this backdrop, the present work offers an overview of psycholinguistic theories and approaches
that have been applied to the fields of bilingualism and Cognitive Translation and Interpreting
Studies. It draws on prominent theoretical models that explain the integration, access, and control of
multiple languages in one mind and some of the cognitive and neurological implications that
translation and interpreting entail.
record
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Entry
POR psicolinguística SPA psicolingüística
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nchNoLr2U10
The multilingual mind
contents
Introduction | Models for minds with more than one language | Visual recognition of words |
Translation between languages | Cognitive control of languages | Cognitive and neurological effects
of translating and interpreting | Research potential
Introduction
As an interdisciplinary field, psycholinguistics finds its
home in several academic areas including linguistics,
psychology, and translation and interpreting studies.
In the present work, we will focus on how
psycholinguistics informs and synergizes with the
latter of these disciplines. Given that translators and
interpreters are individuals with highly-proficient
knowledge of two or more languages, we will focus on
research that pertains to these specific populations. In
the below sections, we will first discuss a few key
psycholinguistic models and cognitive processes
involved in translation and interpreting. We then
consider the cognitive and neurological implications
that bilinguals may demonstrate from training and
sustained experience with translation and interpreting.
Finally, we discuss the research potential of
examining “two or more languages in one mind,” and
the synergy between the fields of bilingualism and Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies by
emphasizing the vast array of potentially shared methods.
Before beginning our discussion, please note that we use the terms bilingual/bilingualism and
multilingual/multilingualism interchangeably, as this is a common practice in the literature. This said,
there are some studies that have reported cognitive and neurological differences bilinguals and
individuals who speak three languages (e.g., Schroeder & Marian 2017). Individuals with various
levels of knowledge of two or more languages have been referred to as bilinguals, trilinguals,
multilinguals, and polyglots. Elaborating on a specific definition of “who is bilingual” or “what is
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What our eyes can tell us about language
bilingualism” goes beyond the scope of the present work. These individuals can range from regularly
and equally using their languages in various contexts to exclusively using one language in certain
settings and other languages in different settings. Moreover, bilinguals can vary in terms of their
proficiency in their languages, ranging from having more, less, or (less common) equal proficiency in
each of their languages. For a review on defining bilingualism, see de Bot (2019).
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Models for minds with more than one language
Common in psycholinguistics are theoretical models that hypothesize the cognitive processes
involved in language use, including production, comprehension, and translation. Here we will focus
on models that pertain to bilinguals/multilinguals, and more specifically, those that help to inform
processes observed in translators and interpreters. These models explain access to the mental
lexicon and concepts, perception of words in textual form, and how languages currently not in use
are inhibited in order to exclusively use one language without interference from another.
Among the many issues investigated in the
psycholinguistics of bilingualism is the mental
organization of multiple languages. There have been
two approaches that offer explanations of how first
(L1) and second (L2) languages are accessed and
selected for use: the selective and nonselective
accounts. According to the former, speakers of two
languages have independent mental lexicons that
have little to no interlingual interaction or overlap
(Scarborough, Gerard & Cortese 1984). As such,
when processing one language, only words and
features specific to that language are activated
(Rodríguez, Rotte, Hanze et al. 2002). The
nonselective account holds that there is a single,
integrated lexicon for both language systems
(Dijkstra & Van Heuven 2002) and that when
processing one language, words and features are
both languages are activated and readily available for selection (Spalek, Hoshino, Wu et al. 2014).
Moreover, other researchers have argued that there is not a separate repository for the mental
lexicon from other stored information (Elman 2009). In general, there has been more support for the
nonselective account than the selective account and it is often accepted that there is parallel
activation of languages due to an integrated framework and mutual inhibition within an integrated
lexicon.
Research supporting the non-selective account has shown that languages are co-activated and
integrated into a unified mental lexicon and that one language cannot simply be “turned off,” even
when exclusively using another language. This approach has laid the foundation for theoretical
models that offer explanations of the multilingual mind. For instance, in a well-cited study, Marian &
Spivey (2003) used eye tracking to examine the selectivity of access to two languages among
Russian (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals. In the study, participants were visually presented with four
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Figure 1. The
Bilingual Interactive
Activation+ Model,
from Dijkstra & Van
Heuven (2002: 182).
© Cambridge
University Press,
reprinted with
permission.
Figure 2. The Multilink
computational model for
bilingual word recognition and
word translation, from Dijkstra,
Wahl, Buytenhuijs et al. (2019:
662). © Cambridge University
Press, reprinted with
permission.
objects and were asked to simply choose the object whose name was auditorily played in the L2
through headphones. The critical condition in the experiment was that the L2 auditory stimuli (e.g.,
marker in English) had phonological overlap with one of the L1 distracter objects (e.g., marka
‘stamp’ in Russian). The eye movements of the participants demonstrated that the individuals looked
significantly more often at distracter items that had phonological overlap with the targets than at
distracters with no overlap, suggesting that there is co-activation of words in the two languages.
Although some work is being done to put forth a single model that accounts for both production and
comprehension processes among bilinguals, there is a vast amount of evidence suggesting that a
bilingual’s languages are constantly active and readily available for selection and use to some
degree in both of these modalities, regardless of their intention to do so in only one of their
languages (Dijkstra 2005). This revelation has led to a shift away from examining language
selectivity/non-selectivity to an exploration of how words in a target language are ultimately selected
and processed for further use, how translation and interpreting processes function, and what
cognitive control mechanisms facilitate these tasks. Prominent models explaining these issues
include the Bilingual Interactive Activation+ (BIA+) Model (and its recent successor, the Multilink
Model), the Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) and an expanded version, the Trilingual Modified
Hierarchical Model (TMHM), and the Inhibitory Control Model (ICM), which we will review in the
upcoming subsections.
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Visual recognition of words
How do bilinguals recognize visually-
presented words in one language in the
context of co-activation of the other language?
Perhaps the most well-cited theoretical
explanation of this question is the BIA+ Model
(Dijkstra & van Heuven 2002; see Figure 1),
which explains visual word recognition among
bilingual speakers. According to the model,
bottom-up information in the form of
perceptual features serves as a cue for the
target language based on language-specific
properties that are phonological and
orthographic in nature. Moreover, the BIA+
Model posits two functionally independent
systems: an identification system including
hierarchically-ordered sublexical and lexical
orthography that are connected to their
representative phonological realizations, and
a task schema system which supervises
nonlinguistic information (e.g., task
requirements/difficulty and an individual’s
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Word recognition in bilinguals
expectations) and temporarily facilitates the relationship between the activation of
orthographical, phonological, and semantic representations, and the decision parameter
setting that best optimizes performance.
The BIA+ Model has served a foundational role in subsequent accounts. For instance, the Multilink
Model (Figure 2; Dijkstra, Wahl, Buytenhuijs et al. 2019), often considered a successor to the BIA+
Model, posits similar assumptions as the BIA+ Model based on empirical and computer simulated
evidence. The Multilink Model offers a unified explanation of lexical-semantic processing that is
localist-connectionist in nature. This model is argued to account for word recognition, retrieval, and
production processes among bilingual speakers. Although the Multilink model does not consider the
spreading of semantic activation between associated representations, the authors put forth the
following caveats and updates:
[The Multilink Model] “allows the simulation of monolingual
and bilingual processing of words that vary in frequency of
usage, length, and cross-linguistic similarity” (p. 661).
[The Multilink Model] “includes a task/decision system, it
allows simulating word processing in psycholinguistic
tasks such as lexical decision, orthographic and semantic
priming, word naming, and word translation production”
(p. 661).
[The Multilink Model] “can simulate performance of both
high and low L2-proficiency bilinguals in these tasks
[because] lexicon and parameter settings can be fine-
tuned to L2-proficiency” (p. 662).
One limitation of the Multilink Model, as is generally identified
with other statistical models of language processing, is that
humans must input and implement the assumptions of the
model, a task which may reduce some ecological validity of the
experimental design. Nonetheless, Dijkstra, Wahl, Buytenhuijs et al. (2019) argue that the model
provides an important opportunity: “Computational modelling of word retrieval requires making hard
choices about the general theoretical framework, lexical representations, and underlying processing
mechanisms. Making these choices to specify a model clarifies one’s thinking about general and
specific theoretical issues” (p. 676).
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Translation between languages
For concepts that share multiple lexical items in languages, what is the cognitive framework that
underpins the relationship between translation equivalents and how do bilinguals accurately perform
translation and interpreting between their languages? These are important questions to ask given
the amount of work suggesting that words in two or more languages share the same conceptual
store. In other words, the lexical items cat in English and gatto in Italian map onto the same concept,
that is, the domestic feline with which we are all familiar. However, it has been suggested that the
link between the more dominant language (e.g., L1) and the concept store is stronger than the link
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Figure 3. A. The Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM),
adapted from Kroll & Stewart (1994). B. The RHM,
hypothesized for highly-proficient, balanced bilinguals.
between the less dominant language (e.g., L2) and that same conceptual store. This differential
association is illustrated in a developmental model of the bilingual memory known as the Revised
Hierarchical Model or RHM (Kroll & Stewart; see Figure 3). Critically, according to the RHM, the link
between the conceptual store and lexical items is sensitive to the relative proficiency level of the
languages. For example, at low L2 proficiency levels, L2 words do not have a strong enough
association with their conceptual representations without consulting the L1 (as shown by the dashed
line linking L2 words to the conceptual store). Moreover, translating from the L1 to L2 is slower than
the reverse (as shown by the dashed and solid lines between L1 and L2 words, respectively).
On a practical note, the RHM appears to
account for why beginning L2 learners often
report the need to translate word-for-word from
their L1 to generate L2 output, and why
advanced learners may no longer require
reliance on L1 translations to generate fluid
and automatic output. In its current form, the
RHM shown in Figure 3A is most predictive of
individuals with low L2 proficiency. However,
given its developmental nature, the model
posits that with gains in L2 proficiency, the L2’s
access to the conceptual store strengthens
and becomes more direct. Figure 3B illustrates
this notion, in which L2 lexical links (as shown
by the solid lines) to the conceptual store are
strong enough to function without consulting
their L1 translations, and translating is equally
strong in both directions.
Other researchers who argue that the
conceptual system may not always contain
completely overlapping concepts between the two languages have offered some extensions to the
RHM. For instance, Pavlenko (2009) points out that there are instances of conceptual non-
equivalence between languages (i.e., where a given linguistic category does not have an equivalent
in another language). This can be clearly seen in cases in which a word in one language does not
have an exact translation in another language. For example, the Russian word fortochka, a small
windowpane located above another window that can be open to facilitate air flow, does not have a
word equivalent in English, but rather needs to be explained through a multi-word description as we
have just exemplified. In cases of conceptual non-equivalence, which is only relevant when we
assume that languages should all have the same concepts and that they should be packed in similar
language units, Pavlenko argues that “the ability to define the word explicitly is not paramount to
having a conceptual representation that allows [bilinguals] to map the new word onto its real-world
referents” (p. 140). This said, there is some evidence, however, of pre-linguistic categories in the
mind of children acquiring languages, suggesting that concepts may not have a direct
correspondence to language units.
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Figure 4. The Trilingual
Modified Hierarchical Model.
From Benati & Schwieter
(2017: 268). © John
Benjamins, reprinted with
permission.
Figure 5. The Inhibitory Control
Model, from Green (1998: 69).
© Cambridge University Press,
reprinted with permission.
The RHM does not account for instances of conceptual non-equivalence. In the context of speakers
of three languages, a more elaborate depiction of the conceptual store can be seen in the MTHM
(Figure 4; Benati & Schwieter 2017). According to the MTHM, concepts can fully overlap (e.g.,
English cat and its Italian equivalent gatto), partially overlap (e.g., English blue and Greek ghalazio
‘light blue’ and ble ‘dark blue), or not overlap at all (e.g., Russian fortochka and its multi-word
description in English described above). The MTHM demonstrates the architecture of the trilingual
memory, which builds on the RHM, but expands it to account for the extent of conceptual overlap
that multilinguals encounter when learning new words that have equivalent, partially equivalent, and
non-equivalent concepts.
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Cognitive control of
languages
How do bilinguals mentally control their
languages? This question is important not
only for “ordinary” bilinguals, but also for
highly-trained bilinguals such as translators
and interpreters given their simultaneous
work with multiple languages in which input
is provided in one language and output is
generated in another. Among the most
prominent accounts of the mental control of
multiple languages is Green’s (1998) I
Inhibitory Control Model or ICM (see Figure
5). The model posits that competing
linguistics features and words are inhibited
in line with the communicative goals of the bilingual. Underlying this task are reactive top-down
processes that are responsible for lexical selection in the appropriate language and lexical inhibition
of those that are deemed irrelevant (i.e., those that do not align with the speaker’s intent). The
following offers a more specific description of the ICM:
[The ICM] argues that the language production system has multiple levels of control and
that lexical nodes are marked with language tags which designate them to a specific
language. When words in both languages are active and competing to control output,
successful selection requires the suppression of competing non-target words. The
primary assumption of the ICM is that language production is a product of inhibition,
control schemas, and a supervisory attentional system. Although the model further
argues multiple levels of control in the bilingual mind with each level corresponding to a
specific schema, inhibitory control operates exclusively at the lemma level. [The model]
assumes that when bilinguals speak, the language selection and control procedures
entail a conceptualizer which builds conceptual representations that are driven by the
communicative goal. These both are mediated by the SAS together with components of
the language system (i.e., language task schemas). The bilingual mind will turn to
language tags to help determine which non-target words (i.e., those competing for
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How interpreters juggle two languages at once.
selection) will need to be inhibited and subsequently apply inhibitory control to those
competitors. (Schwieter & Ferreira 2013: 246).
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Cognitive and neurological effects of translating and interpreting
Do certain bilingual activities such as translation and interpreting, and their professional training
programs affect cognitive functions and their respective brain areas? This is a recent question that
has been examined in studies aiming to synergize research on bilingualism with Cognitive
Translation and Interpreting Studies (Schwieter, Festman & Ferreira 2020). For instance, Hervais-
Adelman, Moser-Mecer, Michel et al. (2015) identified several cognitive and neurological effects
observed in trainees enrolled in professional interpreting programs in which parallel processing of
input and output occurred.
Their studies have shown that these trainees
exhibited: an increase in the volume of gray matter in
regions involved in semantic processing, learning,
motor control, and domain-general executive
functions; increased cortical thickness in temporal,
parietal, and dorsal premotor regions that are
important to phonetic, lexico-semantic, and executive
functions (Hervais-Adelman et al. 2017); and
increased activity in frontobasal and perisylvian
regions, with maximal recruitment of linguistic and
cognitive control hubs (e.g., superior temporal and
prefrontal cortices: Hervais-Adelman, Moser-Mecer,
Michel et al. (2014)—for a review, see García 2019).
Van de Putte, Baene, Penton et al. (2018) has also
reported that trainees in both interpreting and
translation programs had an increase of structural
connectivity in the frontal-basal ganglia subnetwork, which is typically associated with domain-
general and language-specific cognitive control, and in the cerebellum and supplementary motor
area, an important proposed language control network.
Not surprisingly, these neural effects also appear in bilinguals with sustained interpreting experience.
For instance, Elmer, Hänggi & Jancke (2014) found changes in gray matter density in the bilateral
middle anterior cingulate gyrus, the middle anterior insula, the superior middle gyrus, the pars
triangularis, and the caudate nucleus. These neural areas are essential in verbal and non-verbal
functions such as working memory and phonetic processing, as well as sensory-to-motor coupling.
In a study by Becker, Schubert, Strobach et al. (2016), professional interpreters displayed greater
gray matter density and volumetric increase in the left frontal lobes, which is a critical area for
cognitive control. The researchers also reported higher global functional efficiency in the left frontal
pole and more functional connectivity to the left inferior and middle temporal gyri during language-
and dual-switching tasks.In addition to the neurological implications of training and experience with
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The benefits of a bilingual brain.
translation and interpreting, there are several studies that have reported positive effects on cognitive
functions that are not observed in “ordinary” bilinguals (see Schwieter & Ferreira 2018 for a review).
A case in point is that simultaneous interpreters have been found to have increased working memory
(Bajo, Padilla & Padilla 2000; Christoffels, Groot & Kroll 2006; Hiltunen, Pääkkönen, Vik et al. 2016;
Babcock & Vallesi 2017). But, could it be possible that these individuals may have an inherent,
heightened ability for these cognitive skills? In a longitudinal study, Babcock, Capizzi, Arbula et al.
(2017) found that prior to participating in a simultaneous interpreting program, individuals did not
possess advantages in memory and executive functioning relative to the control group, but that
these advantages subsequently emerged after training and later experience. Similar findings have
also been reported for consecutive interpreters who demonstrated significant improvement in
updating skills (i.e., the ability to supervise actions while carrying out a task; Yudes, Macizo &
Bajo 2011; Dong, Liu & Cai 2018). Other cognitive implications arising from translation and
interpreting include superior orientation of the attentional network (Morales, Padilla, Gómez et al.
2015), coordination of multiple tasks in a dual-task paradigm (Strobach, Becker, Schubert et al.
2015; Becker , Schubert, Strobach et al. 2016), and sustainment inhibitory control during task-
switching tasks (Becker, Schubert, Strobach et al. 2016; Babcock & Vallesi 2017).
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Research potential
The research potential for psycholinguistic studies
of bilingualism, translation, and interpreting is vast
and gaining traction, as evidenced by several
recent and forthcoming handbook-length
publications (Schwieter & Ferreira 2017; Alves &
Jakobsen 2021; Ferreira & Schwieter 2023;
Mellinger, forthcoming). The synergy between these
somewhat disconnected, yet highly-related fields is
not only beneficial in understanding the nature of
the bilingual mind and how it represents and
processes multiple languages, but can be bolstered
and further elucidated by employing a diverse set of
methodologies. These methods include behaviour
measures that examine reaction times and accuracy, eyetracking methods that record eye
movements and fixations, electrophysiological measures that investigate brain activity with high
temporal sensitivity, and neural imaging that offers high spatial resolution of language processing in
the brain (see Schwieter & Klassen, forthcoming, for an overview).
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Credits
John W. Schwieter
A professor of Spanish and linguistics, and cross-appointed in psychology at Wilfrid Laurier
University in Waterloo, Canada, and an adjunct professor of linguistics at McMaster University, John
W. Schwieter holds a BA, MSEd, MBA, and PhD. He is the director of the Language Acquisition,
Multilingualism, and Cognition lab and Bilingualism Matter at Laurier. His research interests include
psycholinguistic approaches to bilingualism and Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies.
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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0
Iberian Association of Translation & Interpreting Studies (AIETI)
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Article
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Defining and assessing multilingualism" @ Schwieter
  • De Bot
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de Bot, Kees. 2019. "Defining and assessing multilingualism" @ Schwieter, John W. (ed.) 2019. The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Multilingualism, 3-18. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. [+info]