Context Effects in Bilingual Sentence Processing: Task Specificity

Assche, Eva Van; Duyck, Wouter; Hartsuiker, Robert J.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2993-1_2

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…This may have led to a greater cross-language co-activation of words tested in Romanian-English bilinguals, modulating online word processing. We therefore think that the absence of valence effects across L1 and L2 in the Romanian bilinguals may stem from the cognate facilitation effect (Van Assche et al, 2016; Van Hell & Dijkstra, 2002) that may have eased the processing of lexical items in the VDT in both languages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Cross-linguistic differences affect emotion and emotion-laden word processing: Evidence from Polish-English and Romanian-English bilinguals

Bromberek-Dyzman¹,

Jończyk

Vasileanu³

et al. 2021

International Journal of Bilingualism

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Aims: We study how emotions are represented in Polish-English and Romanian-English bilinguals, whose respective languages either mostly share emotion lexicon (Romanian-English) or not (Polish-English). We test to what extent such variance in lexical proximity between the two bilingual groups affects their decisions about emotional word content. Methodology: In a masked priming paradigm, participants viewed prime-target adjective pairs, and judged whether the target adjective was positive or negative in meaning. Primes and targets either named (emotion word) or evoked (emotion-laden word) emotions, and were either related – that is, belonged to one word type (emotion or emotion-laden) – or unrelated. Data and analysis: Behavioural data were analysed using linear mixed-effects models, with within-subject fixed effects of language, word type, valence and relatedness, and their interactions. Findings/conclusions: We found processing facilitation of emotion-laden rather than emotion words in both participant groups, irrespective of language of operation. Emotion target adjectives, particularly of negative valence, tended to slow down responses of Polish-English bilinguals in their first language. In the Romanian-English group, emotion target adjectives were recognized with lower accuracy in the second language. This pattern of results suggests that affective responsiveness is modulated by the lexical proximity between the first language and second language. Originality: Extending bilingual emotion research, this study tests how emotions are represented in languages that vary in lexical proximity with English: Polish and Romanian. We demonstrate that cross-linguistic differences between the respective languages of a bilingual impact emotional meaning processing in the first and second language. Significance/implications: We provide support for the emotion context-of-learning theory, language-specific episodic trace theory and the sense model in bilingualism, showing that cross-linguistic differences between the first and second language modulate emotion and emotion-laden word processing. Our findings also demonstrate that the distinction between the emotion and emotion-laden words is not as universal as previously assumed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Cross-linguistic differences affect emotion and emotion-laden word processing: Evidence from Polish-English and Romanian-English bilinguals

Bromberek-Dyzman¹,

Jończyk

Vasileanu³

et al. 2021

International Journal of Bilingualism

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“…For instance, words that share lexical overlap across languages (e.g., cognate words such as tren, meaning train in Spanish) relative to control words without L1–L2 lexical overlap facilitate performance on single word processing tasks. However, nonselective activation is attenuated when bilinguals process words in a sentence context (see Van Assche, Duyck, & Hartsuiker, 2016; Lauro & Schwartz, 2017, for reviews). For instance, Schwartz and Kroll (2006) considered the processing of cognate words as an index of the use of L2–L1 lexical connections.…”

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confidence: 99%

The way in which foreign words are learned determines their use in isolation and within sentences.

García-Gámez

Macizo

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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We compared 2 learning methods for the acquisition of vocabulary in a second language (L2). In addition, the use of the new L2 words was evaluated both in isolation and within sentences. In the semantic method, L2 words and pictures denoting their meanings were presented and participants learned by practicing a semantic categorization task (to indicate whether new words were exemplars of semantic categories). In the lexical methods, individuals received L1–L2 word pairs and they performed a letter-monitoring task (to indicate whether L1–L2 words contained a grapheme). After training, compared with the lexical learning group, the semantic learning group showed: (a) no cost between training sessions, (b) better performance in out-of-context tasks (e.g., picture naming), and (c) an efficient processing of L2 words in sentences. The pattern of outcomes shows the advantage of semantic learning for the acquisition and the use of L2 words in isolation and within sentences.

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“…The processing advantage (faster and more accurate recognition and production) for cognates has been termed the ‘cognate facilitation effect and has been quite consistently found across studies (Lauro and Schwartz, 2017; Otwinowska, 2015; Palma et al, 2020). Past bilingual research has shown that even though the facilitation tends to be quite consistently obtained across experiments (Van Assche et al, 2016), its size is modulated by a number of factors (for review, see Lijewska, 2020). These factors include the level of cognates’ cross-language similarity in form (Comesaña et al, 2021; Dijkstra et al, 2010; Pureza et al, 2016; Van Assche et al, 2011), the type of task at hand (Dijkstra et al, 2010; Lauro and Schwartz, 2017; Van Assche et al, 2011), stimulus list composition (Comesaña et al, 2012, 2015), participants’ levels of foreign language proficiency (Bultena et al, 2014; Nakayama et al, 2015; Rosselli et al, 2012), or the level of semantic bias in the surrounding sentence context (Lauro and Schwartz, 2017; Libben and Titone, 2009; Pivneva et al, 2014; Schwartz and Kroll, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of semantic bias on triple non-identical cognates during reading: Evidence from trilinguals’ eye movements

Lijewska

2022

Second Language Research

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The current study investigated how the processing of triple cognates (words sharing form and meaning across three languages) is modulated by the semantic bias of sentence context in a reading task. In the study, Polish–German–English trilinguals read English sentences while their eye movements were monitored. The sentences were either semantically biased (high-context) or neutral (low-context) towards target words. The targets were either Polish–German–English cognates whose cross-language form overlap was incomplete (e.g. DIAMENT–DIAMANT–DIAMOND) or English-only controls (e.g. KURCZAK–HÄHNCHEN–CHICKEN). The results revealed a significant effect of context in gaze durations and in total reading time. Importantly, no cognate facilitation effect was identified in any reading measure. The gaze duration data additionally revealed that English-only controls were read slower in low-context sentences than in high-context sentences but gaze durations for cognates were not affected by the sentence context. Thus, prior bilingual findings were only partially replicated in the current study with trilinguals. This suggests that bilingual models of language processing should be carefully adapted to trilinguals. The current data may also mean that non-identical cognates (even those shared across three languages) induce relatively small effects and large samples of participants and items may be needed to detect such effects across reading measures.

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Context Effects in Bilingual Sentence Processing: Task Specificity

Cited by 7 publications

References 54 publications

Cross-linguistic differences affect emotion and emotion-laden word processing: Evidence from Polish-English and Romanian-English bilinguals

Cross-linguistic differences affect emotion and emotion-laden word processing: Evidence from Polish-English and Romanian-English bilinguals

The way in which foreign words are learned determines their use in isolation and within sentences.

The influence of semantic bias on triple non-identical cognates during reading: Evidence from trilinguals’ eye movements

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