Differences in word learning: bilingualism or linguistic experience?

Abstract

20Bilinguals may be better than monolinguals at word learning due to their increased 21 experience with language learning. In addition, bilinguals that have languages that are 22 orthotactically different could be more used to dissimilar orthotactic patterns. The current 23 study examines how bilinguals with languages that are orthotactically similar and dissimilar 24 and monolinguals learn novel words that violate or respect the orthotactic legality of the 25 languages they know and how this learning may be affected by the similarity between the 26 bilinguals' two languages. In Experiment 1, three groups of children were tested: monolinguals, 27Spanish-Basque bilinguals (dissimilar orthotactic languages), and Spanish-Catalan bilinguals 28(similar orthotactic languages). After an initial word learning phase, they were tested in a recall 29 task and a recognition task. Results showed that Spanish-Basque bilingual children performed 30 differently than the other two groups. While Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-Catalan 31 bilinguals recognized illegal words worse than legal words, Spanish-Basque bilinguals showed 32 equal performance in learning illegal and legal patterns. A replication study conducted with 33 two new groups of Spanish-Basque children (one group with high Basque proficiency and one 34 group with a lower proficiency) indicated that the effects were not driven by the proficiency in 35 the second language since a similar performance on legal and illegal patterns was observed in 36 both groups. In Experiment 2, two groups of adults, monolinguals and Spanish-Basque 37 bilinguals, were tested with the same task used in Experiment 1. The effect seen in children 38 seems to be absent in adults. Spanish-Basque bilingual adults showed better overall learning 39 performance than monolinguals, irrespective of the illegality of the items. Differences between 40 groups could be due to the effect of having acquired literacy and linguistic competence. 41 2 | P a g e 42

Incidental vocabulary learning with subtitles in a new language: Orthographic markedness and number of exposures

“…Besides, this is the first study exploring the interactions between the number of repetitions of a given element and its orthotactic characteristics, and how these factors drive incidental learning. In line with other studies like those by Ellis and Beaton [ 39 ] and Borragán de Bruin, Havas, de Diego-Balaguer, Vulchanova, Vulchanov, et al [ 40 ], words that are orthotactically similar to the participants’ L1 are better recalled, while those that are orthotactically different present recall difficulties. Results from Experiments 1 and 2 consistently show that the recall of items containing letter combinations that match the orthotactic pattern of the native language increase as a function of repeated exposures much more than the recall of orthographically marked novel words.…”