Previous research suggests that multilinguals’ languages are constantly co-activated and that experience managing this co-activation changes inhibitory control function. The present study examined language interaction and inhibitory control using a colour-word Stroop task. Multilingual participants were tested in their three most proficient languages. The classic Stroop effect was detected in all three languages, with participants performing more accurately on congruent than on incongruent trials. Multilinguals were faster and more accurate in the within-language-competition condition than in the between-language-competition condition, indicating that additional processing costs are required when stimulus and response languages differ. Language proficiency influenced speed, accuracy and error patterns in multilingual Stroop task performance. These findings augment our understanding of language processing and inhibitory control in multilingual populations and suggest that experience using multiple languages changes demands on cognitive function.

Now mostly known as “COVID-19” (or simply “Covid”), early discourse around the pandemic was characterized by a particularly large variation in naming choices (ranging from “new coronavirus” and “new respiratory disease” to “killer bug” and the racist term “Chinese virus”). The current study is situated within corpus-assisted discourse studies and analyses these naming choices in UK newspaper coverage (January–March 2020), focusing on terminology deemed “inappropriate” as per WHO guidelines on naming infectious diseases. The results show that 9% of all terms referring to COVID-19 or the virus causing it are “inappropriate” overall, with “inappropriate” naming being more prevalent (1) in tabloids than broadsheets and (2) in the period before compared to the period after the virus was officially named on 11th February, 2020. Selected examples within each of the categories of “inappropriate” names are explored in more detail [terms (1) inciting undue fear, (2) containing geographic locations, and (3) containing species of animals], and the findings are discussed with regard to the contribution of lexical choices to the reproduction of (racist and otherwise problematic) ideologies in mainstream media.

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Usage-based, constructivist approaches to first language acquisition assume that children's linguistic abilities emerge in a piecemeal fashion through interaction with mature language users (Tomasello 2003). In spite of the fact that both formal and functional characteristics of the linguistic constructions involved are thought to be of importance in this process, most previous studies have focused exclusively on form.The current study aims at exploring the contribution of functional factors in the learning of a subset of yes-no questions: providing an in-depth analysis of the emergence of Can -person-process?-constructions in a high-density Childescorpus of a boy learning English (Lieven et al. 2009), it is shown that functional factors need to be considered in order to be able to account for the developmental path. It is suggested that we need to re-evaluate the relationship between (formal as well as functional) frequency, salience, and entrenchment and the ways in which these aspects interact during the language learning process. This has important implications for future research on language development as well as for claims about the mental organization of linguistic knowledge within CxG and Cognitive Linguistics more generally.1 This paper is based on my talk ''Can I ask you something'? A corpus-based study on the L1-acquisition of English question constructions', delivered at the 2010 DGKL-conference in Bremen and contains preliminary results from my PhD project on The L1-acquisition of (non)canonical yes-no questions in English.

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