Pub Date : 2023-02-22DOI: 10.1177/13670069231155333
T. Vorobyeva, Aurora Bel, M. Voeikova
The primary goal of this study was to investigate the knowledge of Russian gender in young heritage speakers through different agreement constructions. Participants were 30 Russian–Spanish–Catalan multilinguals from Spain aged 7–11 years, divided into two proficiency groups, and a baseline group of 24 age-matched Russian monolinguals residing in Russia. All participants completed four experiments using an oral elicited production task addressing different linguistic conditions. The accuracy scores were compared between the two proficiency groups and between the heritage and monolingual speakers to document any changes as a function of the type of agreement construction, gender value, noun form transparency, and crosslinguistic congruency. The results demonstrated a hierarchy of gender values; masculine being the easiest gender value, neuter the most difficult, and feminine in between the two. The crosslinguistic influence was yelled under vulnerable conditions: when (1) the proficiency in heritage language is low, (2) in opaque and (or) incongruent nouns, and (3) in agreement construction which is absent in Spanish and Catalan. The results also suggest that the heritage language from the high-proficiency group can attain monolingual-like gender agreement knowledge. We documented gender agreement production in trilingual speakers, which is an under-explored topic. The study employs a new method of analysing gender in several constructions, including adjectival and verbal agreement at Noun Phrase and sentence levels. The study provides insights into heritage language development during the early years of exposure to the two majority languages. The results may offer a greater understanding of the characteristics of heritage language/L2 development in trilingual children.
{"title":"Grammatical gender agreement in production: The case of heritage Russian","authors":"T. Vorobyeva, Aurora Bel, M. Voeikova","doi":"10.1177/13670069231155333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069231155333","url":null,"abstract":"The primary goal of this study was to investigate the knowledge of Russian gender in young heritage speakers through different agreement constructions. Participants were 30 Russian–Spanish–Catalan multilinguals from Spain aged 7–11 years, divided into two proficiency groups, and a baseline group of 24 age-matched Russian monolinguals residing in Russia. All participants completed four experiments using an oral elicited production task addressing different linguistic conditions. The accuracy scores were compared between the two proficiency groups and between the heritage and monolingual speakers to document any changes as a function of the type of agreement construction, gender value, noun form transparency, and crosslinguistic congruency. The results demonstrated a hierarchy of gender values; masculine being the easiest gender value, neuter the most difficult, and feminine in between the two. The crosslinguistic influence was yelled under vulnerable conditions: when (1) the proficiency in heritage language is low, (2) in opaque and (or) incongruent nouns, and (3) in agreement construction which is absent in Spanish and Catalan. The results also suggest that the heritage language from the high-proficiency group can attain monolingual-like gender agreement knowledge. We documented gender agreement production in trilingual speakers, which is an under-explored topic. The study employs a new method of analysing gender in several constructions, including adjectival and verbal agreement at Noun Phrase and sentence levels. The study provides insights into heritage language development during the early years of exposure to the two majority languages. The results may offer a greater understanding of the characteristics of heritage language/L2 development in trilingual children.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45423755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-11DOI: 10.1177/13670069231153720
Daniel J. Olson
Proficiency assessment is a key methodological consideration in the field of bilingualism, and previous reviews have highlighted significant variability in both the use and type of assessment methods. Yet, previous reviews of proficiency assessment methods in bilingualism have failed to consider key study characteristics (e.g., methodology and subfield) that may impact the choice of proficiency assessment method. This paper provides an updated systematic review of proficiency assessment methods in the field of bilingualism, analyzing trends within different methodological approaches and linguistic subfields. A systematic review was conducted, examining recent research articles in the field of bilingualism, broadly defined. A total of 17 journals (of 100) and 140 empirical research articles (of 478) with bilingual participants fit the relevant inclusionary criteria. Studies were coded for several characteristics, including methodology (e.g., quantitative vs qualitative), linguistic subfield (e.g., psycholinguistics), and the method of proficiency assessment (e.g., standardized testing, self-reporting). Analyses revealed a number of different methods of proficiency assessment currently used in bilingualism research. However, different trends were found by methodology type and linguistic subfield. Broadly, the results revealed greater use of proficiency assessments in quantitative research than qualitative research. Moreover, while there was significant variability in all of the subfields examined, several within-subfield trends were identified. This study provides an update to previous findings, establishing current proficiency assessment practices in bilingualism research. In addition, acknowledging the unique needs of different types of research, this study is the first to examine trends within different methodological approaches (i.e., quantitative vs qualitative) and subfields of bilingualism (e.g., psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics). The notable variability in proficiency assessment methods within different subfields suggests a greater need for subfield-specific norms to facilitate comparative analysis. Several key considerations are given for the selection of proficiency assessment methods in bilingualism research.
{"title":"A systematic review of proficiency assessment methods in bilingualism research","authors":"Daniel J. Olson","doi":"10.1177/13670069231153720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069231153720","url":null,"abstract":"Proficiency assessment is a key methodological consideration in the field of bilingualism, and previous reviews have highlighted significant variability in both the use and type of assessment methods. Yet, previous reviews of proficiency assessment methods in bilingualism have failed to consider key study characteristics (e.g., methodology and subfield) that may impact the choice of proficiency assessment method. This paper provides an updated systematic review of proficiency assessment methods in the field of bilingualism, analyzing trends within different methodological approaches and linguistic subfields. A systematic review was conducted, examining recent research articles in the field of bilingualism, broadly defined. A total of 17 journals (of 100) and 140 empirical research articles (of 478) with bilingual participants fit the relevant inclusionary criteria. Studies were coded for several characteristics, including methodology (e.g., quantitative vs qualitative), linguistic subfield (e.g., psycholinguistics), and the method of proficiency assessment (e.g., standardized testing, self-reporting). Analyses revealed a number of different methods of proficiency assessment currently used in bilingualism research. However, different trends were found by methodology type and linguistic subfield. Broadly, the results revealed greater use of proficiency assessments in quantitative research than qualitative research. Moreover, while there was significant variability in all of the subfields examined, several within-subfield trends were identified. This study provides an update to previous findings, establishing current proficiency assessment practices in bilingualism research. In addition, acknowledging the unique needs of different types of research, this study is the first to examine trends within different methodological approaches (i.e., quantitative vs qualitative) and subfields of bilingualism (e.g., psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics). The notable variability in proficiency assessment methods within different subfields suggests a greater need for subfield-specific norms to facilitate comparative analysis. Several key considerations are given for the selection of proficiency assessment methods in bilingualism research.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44409719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-11DOI: 10.1177/13670069231152829
Lillie Padilla
Spanish subject pronoun expression (SPE) among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea has hardly been examined. Thus, the paper aims to (a) examine the SPE rate (b) and the linguistic and social predictors of SPE in this variety. The data for the present study were collected using sociolinguistic interviews. These interviews lasted between 45 minutes and an hour. The audio recordings of 18 bilinguals of Bube and Spanish in Equatorial Guinea were transcribed and analyzed using the Rbrul mixed-effects statistical software. The overt SPE rate of these bilingual speakers is 17.9%. This pronoun rate is one of the lowest ever found among bilinguals. The significant factors are grammatical person and number, ambiguity, the lexical content, and gender. The insignificant predictors were reference, reflexivity, and education. This is the first variationist study on Spanish SPE among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea. In this study, switch reference, a usually robust predictor, is insignificant among bilingual speakers. This study expands on the scarce research conducted on Equatoguinean Spanish and opens new avenues for exploration.
{"title":"Spanish subject pronoun expression among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea","authors":"Lillie Padilla","doi":"10.1177/13670069231152829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069231152829","url":null,"abstract":"Spanish subject pronoun expression (SPE) among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea has hardly been examined. Thus, the paper aims to (a) examine the SPE rate (b) and the linguistic and social predictors of SPE in this variety. The data for the present study were collected using sociolinguistic interviews. These interviews lasted between 45 minutes and an hour. The audio recordings of 18 bilinguals of Bube and Spanish in Equatorial Guinea were transcribed and analyzed using the Rbrul mixed-effects statistical software. The overt SPE rate of these bilingual speakers is 17.9%. This pronoun rate is one of the lowest ever found among bilinguals. The significant factors are grammatical person and number, ambiguity, the lexical content, and gender. The insignificant predictors were reference, reflexivity, and education. This is the first variationist study on Spanish SPE among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea. In this study, switch reference, a usually robust predictor, is insignificant among bilingual speakers. This study expands on the scarce research conducted on Equatoguinean Spanish and opens new avenues for exploration.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47054169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-10DOI: 10.1177/13670069221149671
Kebir Colmenero, D. Lasagabaster
The purpose of this article is to explore students’, parents’, and teachers’ attitudes and opinions towards native and non-native teachers of Basque, to examine whether the widespread ideology native speakerism is present in this minority language. Data were gathered from 473 secondary and high-school students, parents, and teachers using questionnaires and focus groups, where education stakeholders were enquired about their teacher preferences in four categories: assessment and support, attitudes and motivation, culture, and perceived linguistic abilities. The quantitative data were statistically analysed using independent-samples t-tests and analyses of variance (ANOVAs). The qualitative data were examined using thematic analysis, an instrument that allows a systematic study of patterns of meaning within qualitative data sets. Results suggest that although students, parents, and teachers support team-teaching approaches, there is an overall preference for native-speaking teachers, specially at advanced levels. Furthermore, participants reflect clear-cut trends in specific items and categories. The binary classification of speakers established by the assignment of the ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’ labels has been thoroughly studied in the English language, analysing the positive and negative characteristics linked to each type of speaker, but the nativeness topic has only been researched in language survival terms in minority language contexts. To our knowledge, no previous study has examined attitudes towards native and non-native teachers in minority language teaching contexts. Education stakeholders’ preferences for Basque native-speaking teachers may entail negative effects on the legitimacy of non-native speakers and teachers, a group whose Basque use is paramount for the maintenance and survival of the minority language.
{"title":"Native and non-native teachers in a minority language: An analysis of stakeholders’ opinions","authors":"Kebir Colmenero, D. Lasagabaster","doi":"10.1177/13670069221149671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221149671","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this article is to explore students’, parents’, and teachers’ attitudes and opinions towards native and non-native teachers of Basque, to examine whether the widespread ideology native speakerism is present in this minority language. Data were gathered from 473 secondary and high-school students, parents, and teachers using questionnaires and focus groups, where education stakeholders were enquired about their teacher preferences in four categories: assessment and support, attitudes and motivation, culture, and perceived linguistic abilities. The quantitative data were statistically analysed using independent-samples t-tests and analyses of variance (ANOVAs). The qualitative data were examined using thematic analysis, an instrument that allows a systematic study of patterns of meaning within qualitative data sets. Results suggest that although students, parents, and teachers support team-teaching approaches, there is an overall preference for native-speaking teachers, specially at advanced levels. Furthermore, participants reflect clear-cut trends in specific items and categories. The binary classification of speakers established by the assignment of the ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’ labels has been thoroughly studied in the English language, analysing the positive and negative characteristics linked to each type of speaker, but the nativeness topic has only been researched in language survival terms in minority language contexts. To our knowledge, no previous study has examined attitudes towards native and non-native teachers in minority language teaching contexts. Education stakeholders’ preferences for Basque native-speaking teachers may entail negative effects on the legitimacy of non-native speakers and teachers, a group whose Basque use is paramount for the maintenance and survival of the minority language.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44096305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-13DOI: 10.1177/13670069221146641
Adel Chaouch-Orozco, Jorge González Alonso, J. Duñabeitia, J. Rothman
Translation equivalents intuitively seem to overlap in meaning. Moreover, the models of the bilingual lexicon often represent the meaning shared between two translations as a holistic node in the semantic network. However, research on semantic representation and processing questions this holistic approach. For instance, abstract words are assumed to be more language-dependent, while concrete words’ meanings are seen as more consistent cross-linguistically. The non-cognate translation priming paradigm offers an ideal methodological setting to study semantic overlap (proxied by concreteness) between translations. Priming effects between non-cognate translation equivalents are assumed to emerge due to spreading activation at the semantic level. Hence, a larger semantic overlap between translation prime-target pairs should lead to larger priming effects. Nevertheless, the evidence from previous translation priming studies investigating concreteness displays a blurry picture, potentially reflecting a shared limitation: their relatively small sample sizes. We overcame this problem by analysing the largest translation priming dataset to date. Two hundred Spanish–English highly proficient bilinguals were tested in a bidirectional translation priming experiment employing 314 non-cognate translation equivalents differing in concreteness. We analysed response times and error rates employing conservative (generalized) linear mixed-effects models. The results showed that concrete translation pairs elicited larger priming effects than abstract ones, evidencing differences in semantic representation between concrete and abstract words. Importantly, the influence of concreteness appeared only in the forward translation direction, suggesting language experience-related differences in meaning representation. The present study analysed the largest dataset in the translation priming literature to date, employing a conservative statistical approach to shed light on the effects of concreteness on translation priming. Our study spotlights the complexity and non-holistic nature of the bilingual semantic representation of concrete and abstract words. The present findings call for more research to help the current models of the bilingual lexicon implement more nuanced semantic representations.
{"title":"Are translation equivalents really equivalent? Evidence from concreteness effects in translation priming","authors":"Adel Chaouch-Orozco, Jorge González Alonso, J. Duñabeitia, J. Rothman","doi":"10.1177/13670069221146641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221146641","url":null,"abstract":"Translation equivalents intuitively seem to overlap in meaning. Moreover, the models of the bilingual lexicon often represent the meaning shared between two translations as a holistic node in the semantic network. However, research on semantic representation and processing questions this holistic approach. For instance, abstract words are assumed to be more language-dependent, while concrete words’ meanings are seen as more consistent cross-linguistically. The non-cognate translation priming paradigm offers an ideal methodological setting to study semantic overlap (proxied by concreteness) between translations. Priming effects between non-cognate translation equivalents are assumed to emerge due to spreading activation at the semantic level. Hence, a larger semantic overlap between translation prime-target pairs should lead to larger priming effects. Nevertheless, the evidence from previous translation priming studies investigating concreteness displays a blurry picture, potentially reflecting a shared limitation: their relatively small sample sizes. We overcame this problem by analysing the largest translation priming dataset to date. Two hundred Spanish–English highly proficient bilinguals were tested in a bidirectional translation priming experiment employing 314 non-cognate translation equivalents differing in concreteness. We analysed response times and error rates employing conservative (generalized) linear mixed-effects models. The results showed that concrete translation pairs elicited larger priming effects than abstract ones, evidencing differences in semantic representation between concrete and abstract words. Importantly, the influence of concreteness appeared only in the forward translation direction, suggesting language experience-related differences in meaning representation. The present study analysed the largest dataset in the translation priming literature to date, employing a conservative statistical approach to shed light on the effects of concreteness on translation priming. Our study spotlights the complexity and non-holistic nature of the bilingual semantic representation of concrete and abstract words. The present findings call for more research to help the current models of the bilingual lexicon implement more nuanced semantic representations.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42448213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-11DOI: 10.1177/13670069221126272
Ahyea A Jo, Stephanie Richardson, E. D. de Jong
Aims and objectives: The purpose of this exploratory case study is to contribute to the set of studies that center children’s perspectives on their bilingual development, with a specific focus on their emotional connection within their linguistic family landscape. Methodology: This was a case study of a Korean transnational family in the United States and included both parents and their daughter. Data and analysis: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, semi-structured in-depth interviews and a language-mapping activity were conducted via ZOOM, recorded, and transcribed. DeDoose, a qualitative collaborative research tool, was used to conduct a thematic analysis. Findings and conclusion: Findings suggest that parents positioning bilingualism as a resource for communication and expression impacts a bilingual child’s positive linguistic and socioemotional well-being. A strong sense of belonging was shaped through strong relationships with parents and family, engagement in diverse and inclusive spaces that valued multilingualism and multiculturalism, and by being given agency in one’s own language choices. Originality: This study focuses on a Korean immigrant family and centers on the child’s experiences. It provides a counter-narrative to the negative emotions parents and their children often express in extant family language policy (FLP) research. The study calls for FLP research to include a “multilingualism as a resource” orientation. Significance/implications: This case study provides the lens of multilingualism as a resource through FLP that has a different impact on the emotional dimensions of heritage language learning and maintenance.
{"title":"“I feel really special and proud that I am bilingual”: Exploring a second-generation Korean American bilingual adolescent’s emotions and sense of belonging through family language policy","authors":"Ahyea A Jo, Stephanie Richardson, E. D. de Jong","doi":"10.1177/13670069221126272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221126272","url":null,"abstract":"Aims and objectives: The purpose of this exploratory case study is to contribute to the set of studies that center children’s perspectives on their bilingual development, with a specific focus on their emotional connection within their linguistic family landscape. Methodology: This was a case study of a Korean transnational family in the United States and included both parents and their daughter. Data and analysis: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, semi-structured in-depth interviews and a language-mapping activity were conducted via ZOOM, recorded, and transcribed. DeDoose, a qualitative collaborative research tool, was used to conduct a thematic analysis. Findings and conclusion: Findings suggest that parents positioning bilingualism as a resource for communication and expression impacts a bilingual child’s positive linguistic and socioemotional well-being. A strong sense of belonging was shaped through strong relationships with parents and family, engagement in diverse and inclusive spaces that valued multilingualism and multiculturalism, and by being given agency in one’s own language choices. Originality: This study focuses on a Korean immigrant family and centers on the child’s experiences. It provides a counter-narrative to the negative emotions parents and their children often express in extant family language policy (FLP) research. The study calls for FLP research to include a “multilingualism as a resource” orientation. Significance/implications: This case study provides the lens of multilingualism as a resource through FLP that has a different impact on the emotional dimensions of heritage language learning and maintenance.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":"27 1","pages":"199 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42752128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1177/13670069221142405
J. Lim, K. Christianson
Aims: Despite a history of research in translation-equivalent priming (either cognate or noncognate and phonological priming with cross-script languages), research with Korean–English bilinguals is very scarce. In this study, we report two masked-priming lexical decision tasks in both directions with Korean–English unbalanced bilinguals, investigating whether cross-language activation occurs depending on different types of cognate, noncognate, and homophone prime–target pairs, the degree of phonological similarity between prime and target, and how L2 proficiency influences each type of priming. Methodology: Two experiments were conducted using a masked translation priming paradigm with unbalanced Korean–English bilinguals: Experiment 1 in the L2–L1 direction and Experiment 2 in the L1–L2 direction. Each experiment used a total of 96 prime–target pairs of cognates, noncognates, and homophones, and 60 subjects for each experiment were asked to judge whether the items were real words or not in a lexical decision task. Data and analysis: Linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate the effects of priming in each condition, the effect of phonological similarity on cognate translation priming, and L2 proficiency. Findings/conclusions: Our results showed that both cognate translation priming and noncognate translation priming arose in the L1–L2 direction, but the phonological priming was not found. In the L2–L1 direction, on the contrary, cognate translation priming and phonological priming effects were observed, but not the noncognate translation priming. Also, the degree of phonological similarity influenced the magnitude of cognate translation priming effects in both directions with a different pattern, supporting for the phonological overlap account between different-script languages. The current study is compatible with the language nonselective activation view and suggests the shared phonological representations even between different-script languages. The results are discussed within several current bilingual lexical processing models.
{"title":"Cross-script L1–L2 and L2–L1 masked translation priming and phonological priming: Evidence from unbalanced Korean–English bilinguals","authors":"J. Lim, K. Christianson","doi":"10.1177/13670069221142405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221142405","url":null,"abstract":"Aims: Despite a history of research in translation-equivalent priming (either cognate or noncognate and phonological priming with cross-script languages), research with Korean–English bilinguals is very scarce. In this study, we report two masked-priming lexical decision tasks in both directions with Korean–English unbalanced bilinguals, investigating whether cross-language activation occurs depending on different types of cognate, noncognate, and homophone prime–target pairs, the degree of phonological similarity between prime and target, and how L2 proficiency influences each type of priming. Methodology: Two experiments were conducted using a masked translation priming paradigm with unbalanced Korean–English bilinguals: Experiment 1 in the L2–L1 direction and Experiment 2 in the L1–L2 direction. Each experiment used a total of 96 prime–target pairs of cognates, noncognates, and homophones, and 60 subjects for each experiment were asked to judge whether the items were real words or not in a lexical decision task. Data and analysis: Linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate the effects of priming in each condition, the effect of phonological similarity on cognate translation priming, and L2 proficiency. Findings/conclusions: Our results showed that both cognate translation priming and noncognate translation priming arose in the L1–L2 direction, but the phonological priming was not found. In the L2–L1 direction, on the contrary, cognate translation priming and phonological priming effects were observed, but not the noncognate translation priming. Also, the degree of phonological similarity influenced the magnitude of cognate translation priming effects in both directions with a different pattern, supporting for the phonological overlap account between different-script languages. The current study is compatible with the language nonselective activation view and suggests the shared phonological representations even between different-script languages. The results are discussed within several current bilingual lexical processing models.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":"27 1","pages":"862 - 881"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48057530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-21DOI: 10.1177/13670069221139155
M. Vega-Mendoza, Daniel Eriksson Sörman, M. Josefsson, J. Ljungberg
This study investigates the effects of degree of multilingualism on cognitive functions in adulthood, with focus on episodic memory recall and including measures of verbal fluency as well as global cognition. We studied a large population-based cohort cross-sectionally, and we also assessed changes over time through longitudinal measurements on four time-points over a 15 year period. Participants were drawn from the Betula prospective cohort study in Umeå, Sweden. The participants included in this study at baseline ( n = 894, mean age = 51.44, 59.4% females) were divided according to number of languages into bilinguals ( n = 395), trilinguals ( n = 284), quadrilinguals ( n = 169), and pentalinguals ( n = 46). We analysed performance on tasks of episodic memory recall, verbal fluency (letter and category) and global cognition (Minimental State Examination, MMSE) both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The control background variables were baseline age, gender, years of education, general fluid ability Gf (Wechsler Block Design Test), and socioeconomic status. We employed a linear mixed modelling approach with entropy balancing weights to assess effects of degree of multilingualism on cognitive functions. Using bilinguals as the reference group, our results indicated that all the other multilingual groups exhibited superior performance on episodic memory recall than bilinguals at baseline. The rate of change over time did not differ for trilinguals and pentalinguals compared to bilinguals. While quadrilinguals declined more over time than bilinguals, they still scored significantly higher than bilinguals at the last test wave. For letter fluency, similarly, all language groups scored higher than bilinguals at baseline, and none of the groups differed from bilinguals in rate of change over time. With regard to category fluency, quadrilinguals scored higher than bilinguals at baseline, but trilinguals and pentalinguals did not differ from bilinguals and none of the groups differed in change over time compared to bilinguals. Finally, for global cognition (MMSE), trilinguals and quadrilinguals scored significantly higher than bilinguals at baseline with no differences in change over time for any of the groups relative to bilinguals. Our study contributes to the understanding of multilingual cognition and sheds light into an under-researched cognitive domain known to decline in normal ageing, namely episodic memory recall. Our study emphasizes the importance of researching less explored aspects of multilingualism on cognition, in particular on episodic memory recall, to aid our understanding of factors that could potentially aid cognitive decline in later adulthood.
{"title":"A longitudinal study of episodic memory recall in multilinguals","authors":"M. Vega-Mendoza, Daniel Eriksson Sörman, M. Josefsson, J. Ljungberg","doi":"10.1177/13670069221139155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221139155","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the effects of degree of multilingualism on cognitive functions in adulthood, with focus on episodic memory recall and including measures of verbal fluency as well as global cognition. We studied a large population-based cohort cross-sectionally, and we also assessed changes over time through longitudinal measurements on four time-points over a 15 year period. Participants were drawn from the Betula prospective cohort study in Umeå, Sweden. The participants included in this study at baseline ( n = 894, mean age = 51.44, 59.4% females) were divided according to number of languages into bilinguals ( n = 395), trilinguals ( n = 284), quadrilinguals ( n = 169), and pentalinguals ( n = 46). We analysed performance on tasks of episodic memory recall, verbal fluency (letter and category) and global cognition (Minimental State Examination, MMSE) both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The control background variables were baseline age, gender, years of education, general fluid ability Gf (Wechsler Block Design Test), and socioeconomic status. We employed a linear mixed modelling approach with entropy balancing weights to assess effects of degree of multilingualism on cognitive functions. Using bilinguals as the reference group, our results indicated that all the other multilingual groups exhibited superior performance on episodic memory recall than bilinguals at baseline. The rate of change over time did not differ for trilinguals and pentalinguals compared to bilinguals. While quadrilinguals declined more over time than bilinguals, they still scored significantly higher than bilinguals at the last test wave. For letter fluency, similarly, all language groups scored higher than bilinguals at baseline, and none of the groups differed from bilinguals in rate of change over time. With regard to category fluency, quadrilinguals scored higher than bilinguals at baseline, but trilinguals and pentalinguals did not differ from bilinguals and none of the groups differed in change over time compared to bilinguals. Finally, for global cognition (MMSE), trilinguals and quadrilinguals scored significantly higher than bilinguals at baseline with no differences in change over time for any of the groups relative to bilinguals. Our study contributes to the understanding of multilingual cognition and sheds light into an under-researched cognitive domain known to decline in normal ageing, namely episodic memory recall. Our study emphasizes the importance of researching less explored aspects of multilingualism on cognition, in particular on episodic memory recall, to aid our understanding of factors that could potentially aid cognitive decline in later adulthood.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42320404","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-13DOI: 10.1177/13670069221137827
Stefano Rastelli
The study reports adult L2 Italian learners’ and native speakers’ (NS) choices between null and overt subject pronouns in a written illustrated story. The aim of the study is to ascertain whether learners have different perceptions of the aboutness topic compared with NS. A total of 338 adult L2 Italian learners having different L1s filled in the blanks of a written story by choosing between the null pronoun and the third-person pronoun lui “he.” The outcome variable was learners’ and NS’ choices between null and overt pronominal subject. Independent variables were: “anaphora” (“null” or “pronominal”) and “position” (“intrasentential,” when the antecedent and the gap were in the same sentence, and “intersentential,” when the antecedent and the gap were in two separate sentences). When the antecedent and the gap occurred in adjacent scenes of the story separated by punctuation, L2 learners—unlike NS—tended to reactivate the overt subject pronoun. Learners’ proficiency, L1, length of instruction, and knowledge of verb morphology significantly modulated the results. Punctuation in written texts strongly affects the likelihood that L2 learners use anaphoric means to reactivate the topic. L2 learners’ perception of aboutness in discourse is less robust and more affected by topic shifts and interruptions. Null subjects in texts should be dealt with upfront in second language instruction. Syllabi should deal with the difference between the use of overt and null pronouns in discourse.
{"title":"Aboutness in a second language text: A large-scale study on topic reactivation by L2 Italian learners","authors":"Stefano Rastelli","doi":"10.1177/13670069221137827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221137827","url":null,"abstract":"The study reports adult L2 Italian learners’ and native speakers’ (NS) choices between null and overt subject pronouns in a written illustrated story. The aim of the study is to ascertain whether learners have different perceptions of the aboutness topic compared with NS. A total of 338 adult L2 Italian learners having different L1s filled in the blanks of a written story by choosing between the null pronoun and the third-person pronoun lui “he.” The outcome variable was learners’ and NS’ choices between null and overt pronominal subject. Independent variables were: “anaphora” (“null” or “pronominal”) and “position” (“intrasentential,” when the antecedent and the gap were in the same sentence, and “intersentential,” when the antecedent and the gap were in two separate sentences). When the antecedent and the gap occurred in adjacent scenes of the story separated by punctuation, L2 learners—unlike NS—tended to reactivate the overt subject pronoun. Learners’ proficiency, L1, length of instruction, and knowledge of verb morphology significantly modulated the results. Punctuation in written texts strongly affects the likelihood that L2 learners use anaphoric means to reactivate the topic. L2 learners’ perception of aboutness in discourse is less robust and more affected by topic shifts and interruptions. Null subjects in texts should be dealt with upfront in second language instruction. Syllabi should deal with the difference between the use of overt and null pronouns in discourse.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46487249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-12DOI: 10.1177/13670069221132382
Aldona Sopata, E. Rinke, Cristina Flores
This study investigates the acquisition of referential expressions for direct objects by child heritage speakers of Polish living in Germany. Our main research questions are how object expression develops in bilingual children and whether their path or pace of acquisition differs from monolingual children. We investigate the use of referential expressions in an elicited production task. In all, 39 Polish-German bilingual children participated in the test. We compare the data of four age groups of bilingual children – 3- to 4-year-olds, 5- to 6-year-olds, 7- to 8-year-olds, and 9- to 10-year-olds – to each other and to monolingual children at the respective ages. For the analysis of participants’ responses, we ran a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with a multinominal dependent variable. The results show that child heritage language (HL) speakers of Polish display knowledge of semantic and pragmatic constraints of object realization from early stages on. However, from age 5 and up to age 9 to 10, they still produce high rates of inappropriate null objects and show a deceleration in the development of this knowledge, compared to monolingual children. This protracted development is attributed to reduced input in the HL, mainly due to the enrolment in the majority language school. This study is the first to investigate the development of referential expressions for direct objects in child heritage speakers of Polish in the age span 3 to 10 years. The study relates the higher rates of null objects in the bilingual production to the varying degrees of exposure to the HL during language development. Deceleration in the pace of object acquisition by the HL speakers at the age of 5 to 6 years is attributed to a prolonged stage of acquisition of integrating rules of syntactic and pragmatic knowledge.
{"title":"Null objects in Polish heritage language acquisition in contact with German","authors":"Aldona Sopata, E. Rinke, Cristina Flores","doi":"10.1177/13670069221132382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221132382","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the acquisition of referential expressions for direct objects by child heritage speakers of Polish living in Germany. Our main research questions are how object expression develops in bilingual children and whether their path or pace of acquisition differs from monolingual children. We investigate the use of referential expressions in an elicited production task. In all, 39 Polish-German bilingual children participated in the test. We compare the data of four age groups of bilingual children – 3- to 4-year-olds, 5- to 6-year-olds, 7- to 8-year-olds, and 9- to 10-year-olds – to each other and to monolingual children at the respective ages. For the analysis of participants’ responses, we ran a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with a multinominal dependent variable. The results show that child heritage language (HL) speakers of Polish display knowledge of semantic and pragmatic constraints of object realization from early stages on. However, from age 5 and up to age 9 to 10, they still produce high rates of inappropriate null objects and show a deceleration in the development of this knowledge, compared to monolingual children. This protracted development is attributed to reduced input in the HL, mainly due to the enrolment in the majority language school. This study is the first to investigate the development of referential expressions for direct objects in child heritage speakers of Polish in the age span 3 to 10 years. The study relates the higher rates of null objects in the bilingual production to the varying degrees of exposure to the HL during language development. Deceleration in the pace of object acquisition by the HL speakers at the age of 5 to 6 years is attributed to a prolonged stage of acquisition of integrating rules of syntactic and pragmatic knowledge.","PeriodicalId":47574,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Bilingualism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47489398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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