The Influence of L2 on L1 Lexical Competence and Grammatical Properties in Written Expressions

Abstract

This article reports a study on the impact of L2 Korean on L1 Chinese lexical diversity and grammar in written expressions by Chinese bilinguals proficient in Korean. The statistical analysis showed that the cross-linguistic effects of L2 on L1 were significant although such impact was bidirectional. There were significantly more grammar errors and longer retrieval time committed by the bilingual group which implied negative L2 transfer to L1. Meanwhile, L2 also showed a positive influence on lexical diversity as there was no decline in lexical richness but an increase in lexical variations, and this indicated that L2-induced patterns did not replace or deteriorate L1 but instead added additional options to L1 expressions. This phenomenon can be characterized as the addition of new concepts and linguistic options to the already-existing L1 and conceptual repertoire. Specifically, meta-linguistic competence was enhanced. This research supports the theory of interference on L1 by the use of L2 (negative transfer), but it could also be enhanced by L2 (positive transfer).

Changes in Native Sentence Processing Related to Bilingualism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Also, predictions from this approach are that reading and producing sentences will show either an impairment (for example, an increasing number of pauses, reduced processing speed) or compensation (for example, using simpler structures, using a limited number of cues, repetition of more accessible structures). As discussed earlier, bilinguals in some of the studies reviewed here present more pauses and longer time to produce written or verbally sentences in their L1 (Ribes and Llanes, 2015;Chunpeng and Hee-Don, 2017). Additionally, it is expected that bilinguals (and monolinguals) will have to overcome coactivation and inhibition, and that succeeding in doing so must be more difficult in constructions that demand resources allocation, such as complex grammatical forms (e.g., evidentiality marking in Turkish, Arslan et al, 2015) or pronominal referential relations in sentence comprehension (Li and Clariana, 2019).…”

“…Retrieval interference appears because working memory is a capacity-limited entity ( Baddeley, 2013 ), and co-activation of languages increases the demands when bilinguals have to select one representation from those retrieved from long-term memory and integrate it with the incoming information. In agreement with this idea, Chunpeng and Hee-Don (2017) tested Chinese/Korean bilinguals reporting the use of both languages daily, and therefore more prone to co-activation. Their sample presented difficulties retrieving words in written composition and spent a longer time completing the task compared to Chinese monolinguals.…”

“…Research dealing with sentence production, on the other hand, employed spontaneous speech/writing sampling (speech, Schmid, 2014 ; Schmitz et al, 2016 ; writing, Chunpeng and Hee-Don, 2017 ), storytelling ( Ribes and Llanes, 2015 ), and a headlines task, which provides a verb, a noun phrase and an adverbial expression that participants have to use to produce a sentence describing a picture ( Tsimpli et al, 2004 ). When present, differences in these studies showed that bilinguals tended to be slower and employed syntactical structures that were permitted in their L1 but preferred in their L2, suggesting that variation, rather than attrition or loss is a term better suited for L1 changes in individuals that speak more than one language ( Schmid, 2014 ; Schmitz et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Another factor that may alter L1 processing is the crosslinguistic transfer (Costa and Sebastián-Gallés, 2015). In this regard, we have seen that bilinguals show in their L1 a bias to structures and interpretations that appear frequently in their L2 (examples in production are Ribes and Llanes, 2015;Chunpeng and Hee-Don, 2017;in comprehension, Dussias and Sagarra, 2007). Changes in the L1 sentence processing can appear as a lack of preference for both L1 and L2 biases too, similar to what Kaltsa et al (2015) and Castro et al (2017) observed.…”