Investigating Bilingual Processing: The Neglected Role of Language Processing Contexts

Abstract

How do the two languages of bilingual individuals interact in everyday communication? Numerous behavioral- and event-related brain potential studies have suggested that information from the non-target language is spontaneously accessed when bilinguals read, listen, or speak in a given language. While this finding is consistent with predictions of current models of bilingual processing, most paradigms used so far have mixed the two languages by using language ambiguous stimuli (e.g., cognates or interlingual homographs) or explicitly engaging the two languages because of experimental task requirements (e.g., word translation or language selection). These paradigms will have yielded different language processing contexts, the effect of which has seldom been taken into consideration. We propose that future studies should test the effect of language context on cross-language interactions in a systematic way, by controlling and manipulating the extent to which the experiment implicitly or explicitly prompts activation of the two languages.

Do Spanish–English bilinguals have their fingers in two pies – or is it their toes? An electrophysiological investigation of semantic access in bilinguals

“…In future research, it will be critical to investigate the role of L2 proficiency, the nature of the target language (e.g., L1 rather than L2), and the linguistic and non-linguistic contextual parameters in the modulation of cross-languages activation at lexical and post-lexical processing stages (cf., Wu and Thierry, 2010). If the target language were the L1, the activation of the non-target language might not be present because of the relatively weaker representations in L2.…”

Inhibitory control processes and lexical access in trilingual speech production

“…Other methodologies including natural speech situations (Grosjean, 1988(Grosjean, , 1997Grosjean & Miller, 1994;Li, 1996Li, , 1998; but see Wu & Thierry, 2010, for more a recent discussion), neurolinguistic studies of brain activity (Abutalebi & Green, 2008;Guo, Liu, Misra, & Kroll, 2011;Hernandez, et al, 2001;Price, Green, & von Studnitz, 1999), the Simon Task (Linck, Schwieter, & Sunderman, forthcoming), and Stroop translation tasks (Schwieter & Sunderman, 2009) have also shown support for IC.…”

Using Explicit Instruction About L1 to Reduce Crosslinguistic Effects in L2 Grammar Learning: Evidence From Oral Production in L2 French

“…A MAJOR FOCUS OF SECOND LANGUAGE acquisition (SLA) research to date has sought to understand the competition and relationships between a learner's different languages (Calabria et al., ). This research has repeatedly shown that the use of a single language activates a speaker's other known languages (Marian & Spivey, ; Wu & Thierry, ), that prior first language (L1) knowledge and experience can influence second language (L2) use (e.g., selective attention to linguistic cues; Ellis & Sagarra, ; MacWhinney, ), and that L1–L2 differences can influence the route and rate of L2 morphosyntactic development and processing (Avery & Marsden, 2019; Isabelli, ; McManus, , ; Murakami, ; Roberts & Liszka, ). However, despite major advances in what we know about the cognitive effects and mechanisms of learning a second language, little research has systematically examined the next step in this program: How can this understanding about the competition and relationships among a learner's different languages be used to facilitate L2 learning and teaching?…”