Bilingual compound processing: The effects of constituent frequency and semantic transparency

Min, Wang; Lin, Candise Y.; Gao, Wei

doi:10.1093/wsr/wsq012

Cited by 15 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…When it comes to L2 compound processing, there have been much fewer studies. The line of the studies that investigated cross-language activation in L2 compound processing (Cheng, Wang & Perfetti, 2011 with Chinese–English bilingual children; Ko, Wang & Kim, 2011 with adult Korean–English bilinguals; Wang, Lin & Gao, 2010 with adult Chinese–English bilinguals) used lexical decision tasks without priming and concluded that they found evidence for compound decomposition in L2 processing. Lemhöfer, Koester, and Schreuder (2011) found that both NSs and adult German–Dutch bilinguals responded faster to Dutch compounds that contained an orthotactic cue in a lexical decision task, which provides evidence for compound decomposition in L2 processing.…”

Section: Empirical Research On L1 and L2 Processing Of Compound Wordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

L1 and L2 processing of compound words: Evidence from masked priming experiments in English

Jiang

Gor

2015

Bilingualism

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This study reports results from a series of masked priming experiments investigating early automatic processes involved in the visual recognition of English bimorphemic compounds in native and non-native processing. Results show that NSs produced robust and statistically equivalent masked priming effects with semantically transparent (e.g., toothbrush-TOOTH) and opaque (e.g., honeymoon-HONEY) compound primes, but no priming with orthographic controls (e.g., restaurant-REST), irrespective of constituent position. Similarly, advanced Chinese learners of English also produced robust and statistically equivalent priming effects with transparent and opaque compound primes in both positions. However, a clear orthographic priming effect was observed in the word-initial overlap position but no such effect in the word-final position. We argue that L2 compound priming originates from a different source from form priming. We conclude that these findings lend support to the sublexical morpho-orthographic decomposition mechanism underlying early English compound recognition not only in L1 but also in L2 processing.

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Section: Empirical Research On L1 and L2 Processing Of Compound Wordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

L1 and L2 processing of compound words: Evidence from masked priming experiments in English

Jiang

Gor

2015

Bilingualism

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“…Juhasz et al, 2003; Andrews et al, 2004; Wang et al, 2010), Spanish and Basque (Duñabeitia et al, 2007, 2008), Dutch (Kuperman et al, 2009), and Finnish (Hyönä and Pollatsek, 1998; Pollatsek et al, 2000). Effects of constituent frequency are interpreted in favor of decomposition, or for the existence of two routes to visual-word recognition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Manipulations of word frequency reveal differences in the processing of morphologically complex and simple words in German

Bronk¹,

Zwitserlood²,

Bölte³

2013

Front. Psychol.

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We tested current models of morphological processing in reading with data from four visual lexical decision experiments using German compounds and monomorphemic words. Triplets of two semantically transparent noun-noun compounds and one monomorphemic noun were used in Experiments 1a and 1b. Stimuli within a triplet were matched for full-form frequency. The frequency of the compounds' constituents was varied. The compounds of a triplet shared one constituent, while the frequency of the unshared constituent was either high or low, but always higher than full-form frequency. Reactions were faster to compounds with high-frequency constituents than to compounds with low-frequency constituents, while the latter did not differ from the monomorphemic words. This pattern was not influenced by task difficulty, induced by the type of pseudocompounds used. Pseudocompounds were either created by altering letters of an existing compound (easy pseudocompound, Experiment 1a) or by combining two free morphemes into a non-existing, but morphologically legal, compound (difficult pseudocompound, Experiment 1b). In Experiments 2a and 2b, frequency-matched pairs of semantically opaque noun-noun compounds and simple nouns were tested. In Experiment 2a, with easy pseudocompounds (of the same type as in Experiment 1a), a reaction-time advantage for compounds over monomorphemic words was again observed. This advantage disappeared in Experiment 2b, where difficult pseudocompounds were used. Although a dual-route might account for the data, the findings are best understood in terms of decomposition of low-frequency complex words prior to lexical access, followed by processing costs due to the recombination of morphemes for meaning access. These processing costs vary as a function of intrinsic factors such as semantic transparency, or external factors such as the difficulty of the experimental task.

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“…Several findings corroborate with the translation frequency effect in suggesting the presence of a verification process in L2 word recognition. The first one is the translation lexicality effect in L2 compound processing reported by Wang and colleagues (Cheng, Wang, & Perfetti, 2011;Ko, Wang, & Kim, 2011;Wang, Lin, & Gao, 2010). They tested Chinese and Korean ESL speakers on English compound words such as classroom and honeymoon in a LDT.…”

Section: Toward a Verification Model Of L2 Word Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A tale of two frequency effects: Toward a verification model of L2 word recognition

Jiang

Guo

2019

Applied Psycholinguistics

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This study examined the activation of first language (L1) translations in second language (L2) word recognition in a lexical decision task. Test materials included English words that differed in the frequency of their Chinese translations or in their surface lexical frequency while other lexical properties were controlled. Chinese speakers of English as a second language of different proficiencies and native speakers of English were tested. Native speakers produced a reliable lexical frequency effect but no translation frequency effect. English as a second language speakers of lower English proficiency showed both a translation frequency effect and a lexical frequency effect, but those of higher English proficiency showed a lexical frequency effect only. The results were discussed in a verification model of L2 word recognition. According to the model, L2 word recognition entails a checking procedure in which activated L2 words are checked against their L1 translations. The two frequency effects are seen to have two different loci. The lexical frequency effect is associated with the initial activation of L2 lemmas, and the translation frequency effect arises in the verification process. Existing evidence for verification in L2 word recognition and new issues this model raises are discussed.

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Bilingual compound processing: The effects of constituent frequency and semantic transparency

Cited by 15 publications

References 29 publications

L1 and L2 processing of compound words: Evidence from masked priming experiments in English

L1 and L2 processing of compound words: Evidence from masked priming experiments in English

Manipulations of word frequency reveal differences in the processing of morphologically complex and simple words in German

A tale of two frequency effects: Toward a verification model of L2 word recognition

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