Language dominance predicts cognate effects and inhibitory control in young adult bilinguals

Abstract

Determining bilingual status has been complicated by varying interpretations of what it means to be bilingual and how to quantify bilingual experience. We examined multiple indices of language dominance (self-reported proficiency, self-reported exposure, expressive language knowledge, receptive language knowledge, and a hybrid), and whether these profiles related to performance on linguistic and cognitive tasks. Participants were administered receptive and expressive vocabulary tasks in English and Spanish, and a nonlinguistic spatial Stroop task. Analyses revealed a relation between dominance profiles and cognate and nonlinguistic Stroop effects, with somewhat different patterns emerging across measures of language dominance and variable type (continuous, categorical). Only a hybrid definition of language dominance accounted for cognate effects in the dominant language, as well as nonlinguistic spatial Stroop effects. Findings suggest that nuanced effects, such as cross-linguistic cognate effects in a dominant language and cognitive control abilities, may be particularly sensitive to operational definitions of language status.

An Examination of Social, Phonetic, and Lexical Variables on the Lenition of Intervocalic Voiced Stops by Spanish Heritage Speakers

“…For instance, in Amengual (2012) there was more English-like VOT of /ptk/ in cognates than in non-cognates. However, the results of the current study still fit into the framework provided by Robinson Anthony and Blumenfeld (2019), because the phonetic system of the more frequently activated language, in this case English, saturated the pronunciation of cognates and non-cognates equally. It is evident that the likelihood of producing English-like sounds in Spanish contexts is not solely dependent on the 'sameness' of the lexical item.…”

“…Based on previously documented higher rates of phonetic transfer from English in cognates than in non-cognates (Amengual 2012;Flege et al 1998;Anthony and Blumenfeld 2019), we hypothesized that we would find more occlusive productions in the cognates than in non-cognates. For example, words such as video would be more likely to have higher occlusive production rates than words such as abogado.…”

“…Similar to Amengual (2012) and Flege and Munro (1994), these researchers concluded that the more dominant language saturated the pronunciation of the cognate. This conclusion was based on a word-level analysis rather than a segmental analysis, which led Robinson Anthony and Blumenfeld (2019) to argue that the word entirely reflected the dominant language of the speakers. The lack of segmental analysis calls into question which specific segmental and/or suprasegmental aspects of the lexical item contribute most to the saturation.…”

Neural Evidence of Language Membership Control in Bilingual Word Recognition: An fMRI Study of Cognate Processing in Chinese–Japanese Bilinguals

“…For this reason, the cognate facilitation effect is greater in the L2 than in the L1 ( Brenders et al, 2011 ), particularly among unbalanced bilinguals ( Pérez et al, 2010 ; Bultena et al, 2013 ; cf. Rosselli et al, 2014 ; Robinson Anthony and Blumendeld, 2019 for how the results were influenced by different language dominance and proficiency indexes). Although the studies reported that the recognition of cognates could be modulated by the stimulus list composition, participants in those studies were balanced bilinguals or had a high L2 proficiency - for instance, Dutch native speakers who were proficient in English (e.g., Poort and Rodd, 2017 ; Peeters et al, 2019 ; Vanlangendonck et al, 2020 ).…”

The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q): Ten years later

“…We designed the LEAP-Q because, at the time, there was little uniformity in how information about bilingual participants was presented in publications, and little agreement about which information was necessary to collect and present to enable replication (e.g., Li, Zhang, Tsai & Puls., 2006). Although to this day there is debate about the aspects of bilingual experience that are necessary in defining bilingual populations (e.g., Bedore, Peña, Summers, Boerger, Resendiz, Greene, Bohman & Gillam, 2012; Dunn & Tree, 2009; Gollan, Weissberger, Runnqvist, Montoya & Cera, 2012; Luk & Bialystok, 2013; Robinson Anthony & Blumenfeld, 2018; Sheng, Lu & Gollan, 2014), there is also considerable consensus across researchers on the fundamentals. At minimum, any work in bilingualism published today strives to include the following information: the ages at which the bilinguals’ two languages were acquired; the extent of exposure to the two languages currently and over a lifetime; and estimates of dominance and/or proficiency (subjective, objective, or both).…”