Bilingual lexical selection as a dynamic process: Evidence from Arabic-French bilinguals.

Abstract

The nature of the lexical selection process in bilingual spoken word production is one of the pending questions of research on bilingualism. According to one view this competitive process is language-specific, while another holds that it is language-nonspecific (i.e., lexical competition is cross-linguistic). In recent years, research on bilingual language production has seen the rise of a third view that postulates that lexical selection is in fact dynamic and may function as language-specific or nonspecific depending on a number of factors. The aim of the present study was to investigate the lexical selection process among moderately proficient bilinguals whose two languages are typologically distant: Tunisian Arabic and French. The picture-word interference task was used in two experiments where moderately proficient Tunisian Arabic (L1)-French (L2) bilinguals were asked to name pictures in their L2 while ignoring auditory distractors (semantic, phono-translation, phonological, or unrelated) in their L2 (Experiment 1) or their L1 (Experiment 2). Thus, the language context was entirely monolingual in Experiment 1 and bilingual in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, only a phonological facilitation effect was observed. In Experiment 2, interference was found in the phono-translation, semantic, and phonological conditions. Taken together, these results indicate that cross-language competition occurs among moderately proficient Tunisian Arabic-French bilinguals only in a bilingual context (Experiment 2) as indexed by the phono-translation interference effect observed. Our findings are in line with the recent hypothesis that lexical selection is a dynamic process modulated by factors like language similarity, language proficiency, and the experimental language context.

The second language interferes with picture naming in the first language: evidence for L2 activation during L1 production

“…Boukadi et al, 2015, Experiment 1) -is that the nontarget language was indirectly activated by the language of the distractors, i.e. we measured L2 activation during L1 production using L2 distractors.…”

“…the L2) throughout the entire experiment, as opposed to Dutch in Experiment 1. 1 Boukadi et al (2015) reported evidence that additional external activation of the nontarget language (in their case, by presenting the distractors in the non-target language, L1), may increase its lexical activation throughout naming in L2. Experiment 2 was thus a test if that also holds in the opposite direction.…”

“…Following this adjustment, an interference effect from translation-related distractors only showed up at SOA 150 ms. Costa et al (2003) concluded that crosslanguage interference occurs even in highly proficient bilinguals. Boukadi et al (2015) investigated the phono-translation effect between two typologically more distant languages (i.e. French and Tunisian Arabic) in moderately proficient bilinguals.…”

“…proficiency, language dominance) and the experimental parameters used (e.g. proportion of experimental and filler trials; Boukadi, Davies, & Wilson, 2015;Costa et al, 2003;Hermans, Ormel, van Besselaar, & van Hell, 2011;Kroll, Bobb, & Wodniecka, 2006). In the present study, we focus on the question how language dominance may affect language-(non)specificity in lexical selection up to the phonological level.…”

The Second Language Interferes with Picture Naming in the First Language: Evidence for L2 Activation during L1 Production

“…dynamic process, in which language-selectivity can be achieved temporarily depending on a number of variables both specific to the speakers involved (e.g., proficiency, language dominance) and the experimental parameters used (e.g., proportion of experimental and filler trials; Boukadi, Davies, & Wilson, 2015;Costa et al, 2003;Hermans, Ormel, van Besselaar, & van Hell, 2011;Kroll, Bobb, & Wodniecka, 2006). In the present study, we focus on the question how language dominance may affect language-(non)specificity in lexical selection up to the phonological level.…”