Comparing the cognate effect in spoken and written second language word production

Abstract

Cognates – words that share form and meaning between languages – are processed faster than control words. However, is this facilitation effect merely lexical in nature or does it cascade to phonological/orthographic (i.e., sub-lexical) processes? This study compared cognate effects in spoken and typewritten production, which share lexical, but not sub-lexical processes. Dutch–English bilinguals produced English names for pictures representing Dutch–English cognates and control words in either the spoken or typewritten modality. Onset latencies were shorter and accuracy was higher for cognates vs. control words and this effect was similar in both modalities. Compared to controls, total latencies in the written modality were similar for cognates with much cross-linguistic overlap, but longer for ones with less overlap. Additionally, error analysis showed that cognates were more affected by L1 interference than controls. These results suggest two different cognate effects: one at the lexical and one at the sub-lexical level.

Does Spanish knowledge contribute to accurate English word spelling in adult bilinguals?

“…Cognate facilitation was only observed in response onset latencies for typed whole word responses (i.e., lexical level), while spelling accuracy of cognates was significantly lower compared to non-cognates (i.e., sublexical inhibition). Similarly, Muylle, Van Assche and Hartsuiker (2022) recently reported cognate facilitation in onset latencies for Dutch-English bilinguals' picture naming in both spoken and typewritten modalities. Total latencies in the typewritten modality, however, were longer for cognates with less cross-linguistic overlap, suggesting that sublexical inhibition in typewritten production may only be expected for orthographically non-identical cognates.…”

“…This second prediction was tested to replicate an important assumption of the BIA+ model in the context of spelling complex words (outside of direct translation demands) that rely on precise sublexical information: participants' expectations of the language(s) used in a task should not influence the likelihood of cross-linguistic facilitation. Given the difference in demands of a spelling task compared to other language production and recognition tasks (Bosman & Van Orden, 1997;Muylle et al, 2022), no specific predictions for cognate type (identical vs non-identical) or direction of OS and PS effects on spelling accuracy were proposed in the current study. Ultimately, this study aimed to provide a unique perspective in understanding how a bilingual adult's activated representations (i.e., orthographic and phonological, lexical and/or sublexical) and word reading skills in both English and Spanish may potentially facilitate accurate spelling of complex English words (i.e., whole word orthographic representations), regardless of receiving the instruction to actively consider each word's sublexical units in Spanish.…”

Do more proficient writers use fewer cognates in L2? A computational approach

“…Cognate facilitation has also been observed using eye tracking: during text reading, bilinguals read cognates faster than noncognates (Cop et al, 2017;Libben & Titone, 2009). Along similar lines, bilinguals are faster and less error prone when producing cognates, when they are reading or translating words out loud (de Groot, 1992;Schwartz et al, 2007;van Hell & de Groot, 1998), naming pictures (e.g., Costa et al, 2000;Hoshino & Kroll, 2008), or typing words (Muylle et al, 2022).…”

What makes a cognate? Implications for research on bilingualism

“…For example, SHIP/SCHIFF (English/German) has an orthographic normalized LD score of .5 and was classified as a cognate in a vocabulary learning task where participants were presented with both the written and spoken forms of words (Salomé et al, 2022); KORREL/KORN (Dutch/German) has the same score but was considered a non-cognate in a written lexical decision and spoken production task (Lemhöfer et al, 2008). Similarly, the word pair KING/KONING (English/Dutch; orthographic normalized LD = .67) was classified as a cognate (de Groot & Nas, 1991) and a non-cognate (Muylle et al, 2022;Poort et al, 2016). For auditory/spoken tasks, a similar pattern can be observed (though it should be noted that the overall contributing number of stimuli was much smaller than for visual/written tasks), with an overlap of the two categories around a phonological normalized LD of .5.…”