International Journal of Bilingualism

This study aims to investigate how lexical processing (LP) is organized in early Turkish–English bilinguals and Turkish monolinguals.

We used a visual hemifield paradigm where bilingual (n = 48) and monolingual (n = 53) participants performed a lexical decision task. Bilingual participants performed the task in both their languages.

We recorded response times (RTs) and the accuracy rates (ARs) of the participants. An analysis of variance and t-test were run to analyze the bilingual and monolingual data, respectively.

The results obtained from the analysis of the RTs and ARs for the Turkish and English words showed a balanced hemispheric organization in LP in bilingual speakers. The RTs for Turkish words in the monolingual group provided supportive evidence for the predominant role of the left hemisphere in LP. However, no significant difference was found in the accuracy of their answers, suggesting that the monolingual participants’ performance was not influenced by visual field of presentation of the words. Finally, the comparison of the two groups revealed that bilingual participants’ performance was inferior to monolinguals’ in speed and accuracy of processing of words presented in both visual fields. This result gives further support for the differential representation of LP in monolinguals and bilinguals.

The psycholinguistic literature abounds with studies of LP in bilinguals and monolinguals from a variety of language backgrounds; however, there is much less data regarding the brain correlates of LP in Turkish–English bilinguals and Turkish monolinguals.

Since Turkish–English bilinguals and Turkish monolinguals are underrepresented in the literature as compared to the population who speak other languages with alphabetic writing, this study provides preliminary data for future studies.

We did not control for gender or lexical factors such as orthographic neighbors when designing the word sets used as stimuli.

Numerical indices developed by Guzman et al. that helped characterize code-switching (CS) patterns in Spanish–English bilingual corpora, were tested on a Hindi–English bilingual corpus. Two main research questions were addressed: first, how does Hindi–English compare with Spanish–English, and second, are there measurable differences in broad CS patterns between older and younger speakers?

Television interviews of Hindi movie (Bollywood) personalities were transcribed and coded for Hindi and English lexemes. Bespoke software in Python was used to calculate the required indices, which provided information on variables such as the level of language mixing, switching probability, and the distributions of single-language spans. Further indices, such as mean span length and an approximate ratio of insertions to alternations were also calculated.

The indices calculated for the Hindi–English corpus broadly match those calculated for Spanish–English. Statistically significant differences between the older and younger group were detected for some key indices, with older speakers generally using less English. High levels of intra-group variability may be responsible for some indices not showing statistically significant diachronic change.

The Guzman et al. indices suggest that Hindi–English and Spanish–English CS resemble each other in certain ways. There have been broad changes in Hindi–English CS patterns over the last few decades, but there are indications that the CS behaviour of individual speakers might change in different ways.

This is the first study to systematically and quantitatively investigate age-related differences in Hindi–English CS, using naturalistic speech in semi-controlled conditions.

The quantitative indices investigated in this study can be used to compare CS behaviour in different language pairs, and can also help detect diachronic changes in CS patterns.

The current study explores first language (L1) transfer in child second language (L2) acquisition, testing whether L1-Chinese children learning L2 Korean show an advantage over L1-Russian children in the acquisition of Korean reflexives.

L1-Chinese and L1-Russian children with L2 Korean completed truth-value judgment tasks designed to explore their interpretation of the Korean reflexives caki and caki-casin in bi-clausal sentences. Chinese, like Korean, has a monomorphemic reflexive that takes a long-distance (LD) antecedent, and a polymorphemic reflexive that prefers a local antecedent; Russian, in contrast, has only a monomorphemic reflexive, which requires a local interpretation in finite clauses.

The proportion of preferences for each condition in the tasks was statistically compared using a logistic mixed-effects regression.

The study resulted in two main findings. First, L1-Chinese children, regardless of L2 proficiency, preferred the LD antecedent (i.e., the matrix clause subject) for caki and the local antecedent (i.e., the embedded clause subject) for caki-casin, which is target-like for Korean and consistent with the interpretation of the Chinese reflexives ziji and taziji. Second, high-proficiency (but not low-proficiency) L1-Russian children showed target-like behavior in rejecting an LD interpretation for caki-casin, but a non-target-like acceptance of the local interpretation for caki, which may be due to L1 transfer based on Russian’s locally bound reflexive.

L1 transfer in the interpretation of L2 reflexive pronouns has been reported with adults, but not with children. The current study fills this research gap.

This study provides evidence that supports L1 transfer in the context of child L2 reflexive interpretation, countering arguments claiming for a limited role of L1 transfer in child L2 acquisition.

Previous research suggests that the grain size of primary phonological units (PUs) in spoken word production is language-specific (e.g., phonemic segments in Germanic languages, and atonal syllables in Chinese). When the two languages of bilingual speakers have different primary PUs in their native speakers, will first language (L1) phonological processing be influenced by second language (L2) experience?

In a picture–word interference task, native Chinese speakers who spoke English as L2 were required to say aloud the predesignated L1 name of a picture while ignoring a written L1 character superimposed on the picture. The picture name shared a certain phonological component (i.e., rhyme or atonal syllable) with the distractor in the related condition but not in the unrelated condition.

Data of 186 participants from eight originally independent experiments were pooled. Multiple regression analyses were conducted on subject means to investigate whether the effects of rhyme relatedness and syllable relatedness on L1 naming latency were influenced by L2 self-rated proficiency, age of acquisition (AoA), and/or years of use. Trial-by-trial data were then analyzed with linear mixed-effects modeling.

Both the rhyme effect and the syllable effect increased with years of L2 use, indicating that the salience of PUs in L1 spoken word production can be influenced by L2 experience.

The current study adopted a chronometric approach to investigate the influence of L2 experience on phonological processing during L1 spoken word production. Importantly, multiple aspects of L2 experience (i.e., self-rated proficiency, AoA, and years of use) were examined at the same time in a relatively large sample.

The current findings provide evidence for backward transfer of primary PUs in spoken word production, which demonstrates the plasticity of the phonological encoding process in bilingual speakers. These findings are discussed and compared with cross-language transfer of phonological awareness in the discussion.

Bilingualism is a complex construct, and it can be difficult to define and model. This paper proposes that the field of bilingualism can draw from other fields of psychology, by integrating advanced psychometric models that incorporate both categorical and continuous properties. These models can unify the widespread use of bilingual and monolingual groups that exist in the literature with recent proposals that bilingualism should be viewed as a continuous variable.

In the paper, we highlight two models of potential interest: the factor mixture model and the grade-of-membership model. These models simultaneously allow for the formation of different categories of speakers and for continuous variation to exist within these categories. We discuss how these models could be implemented in bilingualism research, including how to develop these models. When using either of the two models, researchers can conduct their analyses on either the categorical or continuous information, or a combination of the two, depending on which is most appropriate to address their research question.

The field of bilingualism research could benefit from incorporating more complex models into definitions of bilingualism. To help various subfields of bilingualism research converge on appropriate models, we encourage researchers to pre-register their model selection and planned analyses, as well as to share their data and analysis scripts.

The paper uniquely proposes the incorporation of advanced statistical psychometric methods for defining and modeling bilingualism.

Conceptualizing bilingualism within the context of these more flexible models will allow a wide variety of research questions to be addressed. Ultimately, this will help to advance theory and lead to a fuller and deeper understanding of bilingualism.

This study examines multiple associations between language domains in bilingual children with a focus on phonology. Previous studies indicate within- but not cross-language associations between vocabulary and grammar in bilingual children. We investigate whether the relation between phonology and other language domains differs from the one reported between vocabulary and grammar.

Canadian French-English bilingual children (n = 31), aged 31 months, participated in 2 free-play sessions, from which lexical, grammatical and phonological information was extracted. The children’s parents completed the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories and its Canadian French adaptation providing additional information on vocabulary and grammar in each of the children’s languages. They also completed a questionnaire on their children’s exposure to French and English.

Within and cross-language relations between phonology, vocabulary and grammar were investigated using correlational analyses and mixed logistic regression.

Correlational analyses did not reveal significant cross-language relations between phonology, vocabulary and grammar. However, mixed logistic regression, which controlled for language exposure effects, indicated that phonology was influenced by vocabulary and grammar both within and across languages.

This study is one of the first to study cross-domain relations involving phonology in young bilingual children.

Overall, the findings suggest that phonology displays a pattern of relations that is different from other language domains engendering between-language effects due to a language-general component.

Within the current multilingual paradigm shift, transfer is increasingly conceptualised not only as an unintentional mechanism of “interference”, but also as an intentional mechanism used as a learner strategy. However, very little is known from an empirical perspective about (un)intentionality in transfer. This article builds on an exploratory study which suggested that background language words that fit well within the morphological constraints of the target language are highly activated during target language use and, consequently, likely to transfer unintentionally. The present study tests whether the correlation between morphological similarity and unintentionality in lexical transfer is statistically significant

A quasi-Poisson regression analysis was employed to test the significance of morphological similarity on the amount of unintentional transfer in the written production of Spanish by 78 highly multilingual school students, when tested together with additional variables (number of languages known, proficiency in the target and source languages, frequency of use, first language/second language status and psychotypology) that have also been proposed to affect lexical activation and transfer.

A picture-story description task was used to elicit written transfer. When a learner reported – introspectively or retrospectively – a word to have been transferred from a background language, this word was coded as an instance of intentional transfer. Reversely, non-target-like words traced back to a background language by the authors that were not commented on by the learner were coded as instances of unintentional transfer.

A strongly significant (p < 0.001), positive correlation was found between the amount of unintentional transfer and morphological similarity. A negative trend (p < 0.1) was also found between amount of unintentional transfer and number of languages known by learners. Theoretical implications are discussed.

This is one of few studies shedding light on (un)intentionality in transfer. It is also one of few studies to employ regression analysis to investigate the effect of several variables on transfer.

The study provides empirical evidence to substantiate theoretical accounts of lexical activation. First, the results show that morphological similarity indeed seems to be the primary variable leading to high levels of cross-lexical activation and, second, the results show how highly activated words are more likely to be transferred unintentionally, further supporting these theoretical accounts.

The age of acquisition of second language (AoA-L2) affects the neural representation of the first language (L1) and L2. Although previous task-fMRI studies showed different activation patterns of language networks in early and late bilinguals, little is known about the effect of AoA-L2 on L1 and L2 resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) networks in bilinguals. In this study, we attempted to reveal the differences in resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and topological properties of L1 and L2 networks related to AoA-L2 in bilinguals.

We pooled 10 early bilinguals and 11 late bilinguals with high proficiency level in L2 (PL-L2) and acquired their brain rs-fMRI data. By taking the brain regions obtained from a previous meta-analysis study as the seeds, we constructed L1 and L2 networks, and then estimated the RSFC and topological properties of L1 and L2 networks.

Significantly higher RSFC between the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and lateral occipital gyrus (LOG) in the L1 network, and significantly higher RSFC between the IFG and angular gyrus (ANG) in the L2 network were observed in early bilinguals than in late bilinguals. Early bilinguals showed significantly higher clustering coefficient, global and local efficiency, but lower characteristic path length, than late bilinguals in the L2 network.

Through analyzing the RSFC and topological properties of L1 and L2 networks, we observed the influence of AoA-L2 on the brain neuroplasticity in bilinguals. The findings may provide a new perspective for understanding the neuroplasticity in bilinguals with different L2 experience.

The AoA-L2 affects the RSFC and topological properties of the L2 network more obviously relative to the L1 network in bilinguals. The effect of the L2 experience on the L1 network is hardly detected in bilinguals with high PL-L2.

The connection between language contact and the bilingual speaker goes back to foundational authors in the field of contact linguistics. Yet there is very little work that combines these two levels in a single study. In this paper, we propose a unified approach to language contact by testing the role of cross-language priming (CLP) on contact-induced change at the level of complex noun phrases (NPs).

We conducted three studies with different types of data. In Study 1, we analyse the Romani Morpho-Syntax database to identify word order preferences in Romani dialects from different countries. In Study 2, we examine a corpus of interviews in Romani from Romania. In Study 3, we conduct an experiment to test short-term priming in adjective (ADJ)/noun (N) order from Romanian to Romani and within Romani.

In Study 1, we examine the word order in approximately 3000 NPs from 119 Romani speakers. In Study 2, we analyse a speech corpus of 9400 words from four elderly Romani–Romanian bilinguals. In Study 3, 90 Romani–Romanian bilinguals participated in a priming experiment. We used multinomial mixed-effects logistic regression, Bayesian models and Random Forests to analyse the experimental results.

Study 1 shows that Romani speakers from Romania stand out for their frequent use of postnominal ADJs. Study 2 confirms these uses in free speech. Study 3 reveals significant CLP effects, whereby speakers favour the use of determiner (DET)–N–ADJ order in Romani immediately following a noun with a suffixed determiner (N_DET)–ADJ sentence read in Romanian.

Our study is the first to demonstrate CLP effects in ADJ/N order.

We illustrate a unified approach to language contact by introducing theoretical and methodological advances from the field of bilingualism into the study of contact-induced change.

The study investigates human sentence processing and argues that information from multiple sources is considered equally in native and non-native languages. Non-syntactic information does not overrule the parsing decisions prompted by syntactic cues.

The experiment used ambiguous relative clauses (RC) in a self-paced reading task with 20 native and 45 non-native adult speakers of English and Russian. The software Linger recorded participants’ answers to comprehension questions and the time they spent reading each word.

Mixed linear analysis performed in R checked for the effect of a matrix verb, RC length, social conventions, the native language and the language of testing on RC processing and interpretation.

Both native and non-native speakers followed social conventions in deciding on the interpretation of the RC. However, this information never overruled the attachment decision prompted by the matrix predicate or by the length of the RC which entails certain sentence prosody.

The study is innovative in investigating the extent to which each factor affected RC processing. It shows that social conventions enhance processing when they conspire with the structural parse prompted by linguistic cues. When they do not, syntactic information governs sentence parsing in both L1 and L2.

The study provides evidence that sentence processing uses linguistic structure as a first parsing hypothesis, which can then be adjusted to incorporate the incoming information from multiple sources.

The findings need further support from testing L2 learners of Russian in various socio-cultural contexts.

The purpose of this study is to document evidence of phonological transfer in bilingual preschoolers. Specifically, we focus on the phonological development of bilingual children acquiring French and Arabic.

Nine children who spoke Arabic and French, aged three years old, participated in a picture-naming task in both languages. Three types of measurement were used to examine the interaction between the two systems: consonants accuracy; inventory of acquired consonants; and types of errors.

The accuracy of shared and unshared consonants between Arabic and French were compared with a repeated measures analysis of variance, and error patterns were analyzed.

Two main results suggest that these bilingual children have two phonological systems that interacted. First, the children had an inventory of acquired consonants that differed according to language. Second, they produced shared consonants more accurately than unshared consonants, indicating positive interactions and low accuracy for unshared consonants, indicating negative interactions.

This study contributes much-needed research relating to the development of bilingual children, particularly children who are acquiring Arabic and French.

These findings enrich the understanding of bilingual phonological development and contribute to understanding how two phonological systems interact. This study also has clinical implications for evaluation and intervention with bilingual children.

The aim of the article is to describe what language contact phenomena are present. The research questions are as follows: (a) what types of code-switching (CS) are at work; (b) is there any preference for any particular type of CS; and (c) what Jewish (seemingly) monolingual songs in Slavic languages can tell us about contact varieties of Slavic used by Jews.

Collecting texts of Yiddish–Slavic and Jewish folk songs in Slavic languages; and qualitative analysis of CS and structural change.

Sixty-two Slavic–Yiddish texts were chosen from Jewish songs’ collections and CS instances analysed.

Both insertions and alternations are present but alternations are preferred. There is an asymmetry between Yiddish insertions into Slavic (nouns) and Slavic insertions into Yiddish (all parts of speech). Alternations may be just renditions of the same meaning in another language but most often they play the same role as in naturalistic speech described in the literature on multilingual communication (change of topic, addressee, etc.).

Previous research on multilingual Jewish songs concentrated on the choice of languages and interpretation of the symbolic role that each language plays but not structural analysis of multilingual texts.

Now that some tendencies are identified, it remains to be seen whether naturalistic Yiddish–Slavic speech exhibits the same patterns of CS.

This study examined the relationship between verbal short-term and working memory, language experience, and English tense-marking skill in Spanish L1-English L2 dual language learners (DLLs).

Ten Spanish-English DLLs, in kindergarten and first grade, participated in the study. Children completed the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment, a narrative retell task in English, and verbal memory tasks. Parents provided information regarding language input and output in the home and school environment.

Correlational analyses were conducted to examine relationships between English and Spanish input/output, forward and backward digit span, assessed in English and Spanish, and the accurate and productive use of English tense morphemes in various linguistic contexts.

Study outcomes indicated varied use of English tense morphemes among DLLs. Additionally, a strong, positive association was found between the use of a variety of distinct tense forms and verbal working memory performance.

This study is the first investigation to examine verbal short-term and working memory and home language experience to advance our understanding of the specific child internal and external factors that may account for the variability in tense marking during English second language acquisition.

This research provides further insight to the effects of individual differences on the acquisition of second language grammatical skill during childhood.

To explore Vietnamese–Australian children’s proficiency and use of Vietnamese and English and identify associated factors that are related to demographics, language practices, language ideologies, and language management.

Vietnamese–Australian parents (n = 151) completed a questionnaire (in English or Vietnamese) regarding their child’s language proficiency and use, demographic details and a range of factors as conceptualized by Spolsky’s language policy theory: language practices; language ideologies; and language management.

Bivariate analyses (Pearson’s correlation and analysis of variance) and multiple regression models were conducted to explore associations between language proficiency and use and associated factors and identify the most significant factors.

Factors associated with children’s Vietnamese language proficiency (oral/written) included: demographic factors; language practices; language ideologies; and language management. In contrast, children’s English language proficiency (oral/written) was linked to demographic factors and language practices. Children’s Vietnamese language use was not significantly correlated with demographics but rather with language practices, language ideologies, and language management. Children’s home language use and proficiency did not have a negative impact upon their English proficiency.

This study is the first to consider factors associated with Vietnamese–Australian children’s language proficiency and use.

Demographic factors, language practices, language ideologies, and language management were associated with children’s language proficiency and use. The results can be used by parents, educators, policy-makers, speech–language pathologists and other professionals to support Vietnamese–Australian and multilingual children around the world to develop and maintain their home and majority languages.

The aim of this study is to examine whether the complete (re-)activation of interface domains in the heritage language (HL) is possible or whether interfaces are likely to preserve features typical for the HL even after many years of residing in the country of origin.

We present the group analysis of direct object marking in Turkish, which is a morphology-syntax-pragmatics interface, of Turkish-German returnees, who returned to Turkey after puberty and have been residing in the country for a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 34 years, and compare them with the control group consisting of Turkish speakers who have been living in Turkey all their lives.

The data were collected using a narrative task, a completion task and a grammaticality judgement task, and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively.

The analysis of the narrative task revealed that the returnee participants used case-marking on direct objects productively depending on the discourse and syntactic position of the direct object in their heritage Turkish. However, their performance on the completion and grammaticality judgement tasks diverged from those of the control group. These findings can be considered as a piece of evidence that interface domains stay obstinate to complete (re-)activation and may preserve features typical for the HL many years after the return to the country of origin.

The study suggests relevance of the Interface Hypothesis to the process of HL (re-)activation.

The study contributes to the research on the HL development of returnees after their return to the country of origin.

This article aims to explore the link between linguistic subordination and linguistic inferiority complexes in the context of English as a second language (ESL) migrants in Australia. We address the following research questions: (a) To what extent and how do ESL migrants in Australia suffer from linguistic subordination? (b) To what extent and how is this linguistic subordination linked to linguistic inferiority complexes for ESL-migrants in Australia? (c) What are the main social implications of the link between linguistic subordination and linguistic inferiority complexes for ESL migrants?

The study involved the participation of 150 participants who were observed using linguistic ethnography. The participants engaged in interviews and focus group discussions so that we could explore the psychological consequences of linguistic subordination that they encountered.

The interviews and focus group discussions were transcribed and analysed with consideration to the context, as well as the participants’ utterances and paralanguage. The study followed alternative quality criteria.

Many ESL migrants in Australia face linguistic subordination for the way they speak English. Consequently, these migrants suffer from linguistic inferiority complexes – psychological and emotional damages, which result in self-marginalisation, self-vindication, loss of sense of belonging, social withdrawal, fear, anxiety and the erosion of self-confidence. We find that there is a direct link between linguistic subordination and linguistic inferiority complexes.

This article addresses a gap that exists regarding the link between linguistic subordination and the development of linguistic inferiority complexes, discusses how this has real-life consequences for ESL migrants, and explores how this may be overcome.

ESL migrants need support so that they can cope with their experiences of linguistic subordination, thus helping them better deal with issues related to linguistic inferiority complexes. In addition, the broader society needs greater education on how their comments and actions can affect the wellbeing of others.

The aim of the present study is to address the reciprocal relationship between L2 attitudes and L2 use in a bilingual setting among teenaged L2 learners.

Whereas several scholars suggested that L2 attitudes and L2 use mutually facilitate each other, empirical studies have traditionally assessed the relationship between L2 attitudes and L2 use from one direction. Design/Methodology: We propose a complex model that integrates concepts tied to the larger social context surrounding formal L2 teaching, such as attitudes towards L2 speakers and L2 use outside the school, with concepts that are more closely associated with formal L2 teaching, such as L2 motivation and L2 competence. In addition, acknowledging that peers’ opinion is a salient issue for teenagers, we also included L2 related peer norms into the model we propose. Based on earlier research we developed six hypotheses regarding the relationships between the theoretical concepts. Self-report questionnaire data were collected among students in Italian language secondary schools in South Tyrol (N = 315). The questionnaire included items from well-established and validated measurement instruments. We tested the proposed model with non-recursive path modelling.

All the hypotheses were substantiated by the data. We found that both L2 attitudes and L2 related peer norms predicted L2 motivation. In addition, a significant interaction emerged between L2 attitudes and peer norms. L2 motivation predicted L2 competence which in turn predicted L2 use. Finally, the results have provided evidence of a reinforcement process, namely, that L2 use can contribute to positive intergroup attitudes.

To the best of our knowledge, the present paper is the first that utilized non-recursive path modelling in exploring patterns of bilingualism. Significance/Implications: In bilingual settings, L2 use can promote better L2 attitudes. Positive peer norms regarding L2 can counterbalance the effect of negative attitudes on second language acquisition.

While evidence for proactive language control processes has been found during single word production, very little and conflicting evidence has been observed for such control processes during sentence production. So, the main goal of this study was to investigate whether proactive language control can occur during sentence production.

To investigate proactive language control during sentence production, we relied on a description task in single and mixed language blocks.

Mixing costs and the reversed language dominance effect of language intrusions and filled pauses were used to examine proactive language control.

Evidence for proactive language control during sentence production came from the mixing cost effect observed with both language intrusions and filled pauses. Whereas no reversed language dominance effect was observed in mixed language blocks, a significant difference in language pattern was observed between single and mixed language blocks, indicating that proactive language control of the first language might be implemented in mixed language blocks during sentence production.

Unlike the vast majority of studies investigating language control, this study relied on sentence production instead of single word production. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine filled pauses to gain insight into language control.

These data indicate that proactive language control can be implemented during bilingual sentence production.