Do elevators compete with lifts?: Selecting dialect alternatives

Abstract

Recently, Melinger (2018) demonstrated that translation equivalent dialectal words compete for selection in a way that translation equivalent words from a non-target language do not. She argued that dialectal words are stored as within-language representations. However, Dylman and Barry (2018) showed that within-language synonyms behave like between-language translation equivalents, calling Melinger's interpretation into question. The aim of the present study is to compare dialectal and non-dialectal synonyms distractor effects with the same experimental design to elaborate our understanding of how dialectal lexical items are stored and retrieved during production. In two experiments, American translation equivalents slow British picture naming times, replicating the findings from Melinger (2018). In a third experiment, synonymous distractor words did not slow picture naming times, replicating the findings from Dylman and Barry (2018). A proposal couched within the Swinging Lexical Network approach is proposed to explain the discrepant findings.

Good-Enough Production: Selecting Easier Words Instead of More Accurate Ones

“…There are reasons to believe that message alignment, for example, between a stimulus picture and a word describing it, could vary across producers and contexts. Dialects and other variations in experience affect word use (Melinger, 2021), but they may also affect producers’ messages. Similarly, studies of word usage in different discourse contexts, for example, saying tummy or stomach to different audiences (Stoll et al, 2009), could have either an accessibility or a message-alignment interpretation.…”

What Is a Language? Who Is Bilingual? Perceptions Underlying Self-Assessment in Studies of Bilingualism

“…There are no consistent or objective standards that determine the point at which someone transitions into a category called “bilingual.” More concerning, before one can determine whether their mastery of a language is adequate to be described as “bilingual,” there needs to be agreement on what counts as a “language.” Again, the criteria are less transparent than one might believe. Although the linguistic distinction between language and dialect is an ongoing topic of inquiry for researchers (Melinger, 2018 , 2021 ), participants in research studies are unlikely to be aware of those discussions.…”

“…To what extent do relatedness to another language and geographic specificity determine whether a system is an independent language? Although some researchers have investigated the cognitive effects of bidialectalism (e.g., Lundquist and Vangsnes, 2018 ; Poarch et al, 2019 ; Vorwerg et al, 2019 ; Melinger, 2021 ), there is no objective standard for determining when a dialect becomes a language.…”

Is it easier to use one language variety at a time, or mix them? An investigation of voluntary language switching with bidialectals

“…There have also been attempts to objectively distinguish languages from dialects (and thus bilinguals from bidialectals) on a cognitive level using the picture word interference paradigm, which initially suggested dialect items were processed as within-language competitors, akin to synonyms [ 38 ]. However, more recent evidence has challenged some of these findings [ 39 , 40 ]. Thus, the extent to which bidialectals are similar to bilinguals is still unclear and can have theoretical and methodological implications for research comparing bilinguals and monolinguals.…”