Lexical access in spoken word production by bilinguals: evidence from the semantic competitor priming paradigm

Abstract

The competitive nature of the lexical selection process during spoken word production is well established in monolinguals. In this paper we explore the implication of this process for spoken word production in bilinguals. A cross-language semantic competitor priming effect was demonstrated, which shows that cross-language lexical competition is a feature of the word production system of the unbalanced English–French bilinguals who participated in the experiment. Experimental evidence was also found which suggests that a selected language bias effected through inhibition of the unwanted language plays an important role in resolving the cross-language lexical competition during bilingual word production in a selected language. The data further suggest that the dominance of the unwanted language relative to the selected language determines the presence/absence or “strength” of inhibition through which the selected language bias is effected. These findings are also interpreted in terms of a recent language-specific lexical selection account of bilingual lexical access.

The representation of asymmetric grammatical gender systems in the bilingual mental lexicon

“…Most models assume that the bilingual's languages interact and therefore L2 processing is affected by the L1 (Kroll and Stewart 1994;Hermans et al 1998;Dijkstra 2005;Colomé and Miozzo 2010; among many others). There is extensive empirical evidence of interactions between the L1 and the L2 both at the conceptual and at the lexical levels (Potter et al 1984;Schwanenflugel and Rey 1986;Kroll and Stewart 1994;Hermans et al 1998;Lee and Williams 2001;La Heij et al 1996;Dijkstra et al 2002, etc.). Conceptual interactions have been repeatedly shown through the picture-word interference paradigm in the socalled semantic interference effect in which bilinguals are slower to produce words when the distractor word in one language is semantically related to the word they must produce in the other language (Costa et al 1999a;Costa and Caramazza 1999;Vigliocco et al 2002;Costa et al 2005).…”

Bilingualism affects picture naming but not picture classification

“…Several recent studies support the notion of crosslanguage interference and, in particular, strongly suggest that the activation of L1 can interfere with processing in L2. For example, Lee and Williams (2001) showed that naming a picture in L1 (e.g., camel ) slowed subsequent naming of a related picture in L2 (e.g., horse in French; see Wheeldon & Monsell, 1994, for similar competitor priming effects in monolinguals). In another study, f luent Dutch-English bilinguals were slower to name a picture in English (their L2) when distractor words (in either language) were phonologically related to the target's translation equivalent (Hermans, Bongaerts, de Bot, & Schreuder, 1998).…”

Morphological priming survives a language switch

“…Employing the Semantic Competitor Priming paradigm (SCP), Lee and Williams (2001) also explored bilingual language control. In this paradigm (adapted from Wheeldon & Monsell, 1994) a trial comprised five events.…”

“…''nose''), then prolonged RTs were observed compared to unrelated ones. Lee and Williams (2001) manipulated the language of the preceding filler picture and found that when the language changed to L2, semantic competitor priming disappeared for the target picture in L1 (but not when the filler picture was also in L1), to which they held inhibition of the language not in use (L1) responsible (two control experiments showed that this could not be attributed to a simple within-language effect in disguise). More recently, Hong and MacWhinney (2011), also using the SCP-paradigm, supported this conclusion but additionally found that language proficiency, classroom experience and immersion also played an important role.…”