ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
published: 22 October 2012
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00402
Language effects in trilinguals: an ERP study
Xavier Aparicio 1 , Katherine J. Midgley 2 , Phillip J. Holcomb 2 , He Pu 2 , Jean-Marc Lavaur 1 and
Jonathan Grainger 3 *
1
Université Montpellier Sud de France, Montpellier, France
Tufts University, Medford, USA
3
Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
2
Edited by:
Sonja A. Kotz, Max Planck Institute
Leipzig, Germany
Reviewed by:
Ingrid Christoffels, University of
Leiden, Netherlands
Yan Jing Wu, Bangor University, UK
*Correspondence:
Jonathan Grainger , Laboratoire de
Psychologie Cognitive, CNRS,
Aix-Marseille University, 3 Place Victor
Hugo, 13331 Marseille, France.
e-mail: jonathan.grainger@univ-amu.fr
Event-related potentials were recorded during the visual presentation of words in the three
languages of French-English-Spanish trilinguals. Participants monitored a mixed list of unrelated non-cognate words in the three languages while performing a semantic categorization
task.Words in L1 generated earlier N400 peak amplitudes than both L2 and L3 words, which
peaked together. On the other hand, L2 and L3 words did differ significantly in terms of
N400 amplitude, with L3 words generating greater mean amplitudes compared with L2
words. We interpret the effects of peak N400 latency as reflecting the special status of
the L1 relative to later acquired languages, rather than proficiency in that language per se.
On the other hand, the mean amplitude difference between L2 and L3 is thought to reflect
different levels of fluency in these two languages.
Keywords: language effects, trilingualism, visual word recognition, N400
INTRODUCTION
The human ability to understand and speak more than one language has become a topic of central importance in contemporary
cognitive psychology, perhaps in part due to the acknowledgment
that in today’s world, multilingualism is the norm rather than the
exception. The topic also likely attracts attention because of the
interesting questions that arise when thinking about issues related
to how information about the different languages is represented
in the multilingual brain, and how access to language-specific
information is controlled during language production and comprehension. However, while the number of studies investigating
bilingualism has indeed shown a sharp increase in recent years,
studies of those speaking more than two languages are still rather
sparse. Yet the study of trilinguals not only raises some important questions in its own right (see e.g., Van Hell and Dijkstra,
2002; Lemhöfer et al., 2004, for studies of cognate effects in
trilinguals), but also provides possible ways to tackle basic questions about bilingualism and second language acquisition in the
same manner that studying bilingualism can shed light on language processing in general. In particular, having a third language
should help disentangle issues of how age-of-acquisition, orderof-acquisition, and fluency might differentially affect non-native
language use. In order to make some further progress in this direction, the present study examines event-related potentials (ERPs)
generated by words in the different languages of trilingual persons
performing a semantic categorization task.
The starting point of the present work is Midgley et al.’s (2009)
ERP investigation of visual word recognition in bilinguals. Midgley
et al. compared the ERPs generated by L1 and L2 words in bilingual participants with different levels of proficiency in their L21 .
1 See Ardal et al. (1990) for an earlier report of
similar findings, and Proverbio et al.
(2004), and Proverbio et al. (2006) for similar research on sentence processing. A
review of this earlier research can be found in Moreno et al. (2008).
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In Experiment 1, they tested beginning English-French bilinguals
(American learners of French) in a silent reading task where
participants had to indicate whether words belonged to a given
semantic category or not. ERPs to L1 and L2 words differed in two
notable ways. L1 words generated more negative-going waveforms
than L2 words on the N400 component at posterior sites, and in
anterior sites there was a clear delay in peak N400 latency for L2
words. In Experiment 2, Midgley et al. found a similar pattern of
ERPs to L1 and L2 words with beginning French-English bilinguals (French learners of English), clearly indicating that the effect
is due to language dominance and not language per se (i.e., which
specific language is L1 or L2). However, in their third experiment
with more balanced French-English bilinguals, they no longer saw
a difference in N400 amplitude at posterior sites, but continued to,
see the latency shift in anterior sites. This suggests that the anterior
shift in N400 peak latency could be related to fundamental differences in processing L1 compared with later acquired languages
independently of proficiency.
The impact of this hypothesized special status of the L1 has been
highlighted in theoretical accounts of second language acquisition
(e.g., Hernandez and Li, 2007). The key notion here is that in multilingual persons that have first learned L1 before learning other
languages, then L1 acquisition is qualitatively different from the
acquisition of a later learned L2 and any subsequently acquired languages. This point was made indirectly by Hernandez et al. (2005)
when they drew a clear distinction between early and late bilingualism. These authors argued that late learners of an L2 use a more
“parasitic” approach to language acquisition in general, and vocabulary acquisition in particular (see Grainger et al., 2010, for similar
arguments pitched within the framework of a developmental version of the bilingual interactive-activation (BIA) model – Grainger
and Dijkstra, 1992; van Heuven et al., 1998). The term “parasitic,”
used by Hernandez et al. (2005), refers to the role of translation
equivalents in L1 in order to access meaning from L2 words during
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Aparicio et al.
Language effects in trilinguals
the initial phase of L2 word learning. This is clearly a very different mechanism for learning the meaning of new words compared
with L1 word learning, and is thought to impact on the nature of
semantic representations and their connectivity with word form
representations (see Grainger et al., 2010, for a specific proposal).
Thus, the qualitatively different nature of vocabulary learning in L2
is hypothesized to result in a different lexical organization compared with the learning of words in L1. Note that this does not
imply that late L2 learners cannot attain L1-like competence. The
hypothesis is that since the acquisition process is different, this will
have a fairly long-lasting impact on how the L2 is processed during
comprehension and production.
As a further test of this hypothesis, in the present study we
compared the processing of words in L1 with words in L2 and L3
in trilingual participants, where L2 and L3 are both later acquired
languages. Here, the hypothesis under test is that if the L1 has a
special status compared with later acquired languages, then this
should be revealed in data where L2 and L3 pattern together and
are both different from L12 . More precisely, we should observe an
earlier peak N400 latency for L1 words with respect to both L2
and L3 words, which themselves should show similar peak latencies. On the other hand, any observed differences in the processing
of L2 and L3 words could be more likely attributed to differences
in proficiency level in these two languages, at least for the specific
population of trilinguals tested in the present study.
In the present study we provide an additional test of the hypothesis that the earlier peak N400 latency to L1 words compared with
L2 words seen in the Midgley et al. (2009) study reflects a possible special status of the L1, such as described by Hernandez et al.
(2005) and Grainger et al. (2010). Furthermore, Midgley et al.
hypothesized that differences in N400 amplitude seen in posterior
sites might be more a reflection of differences in fluency between
the L1 and the L2, since these effects were found to be reduced with
higher levels of proficiency in the L2. That is, N400 amplitude was
more negative-going, and hence closer to the N400 generated by
L1 words, in the participants with a higher proficiency in L2. This
would suggest that we ought to observe more negative-going N400
amplitudes in L2 than L3 in the present study, given the different
levels of fluency in these two languages.
2 Here
we do not examine the many other factors than could drive differences
between the L1 and subsequently learned languages, such as the Age of Onset of
Acquisition (AoOA) and the manner of acquisition (naturalistic vs. formal instruction) of the later acquired language. These are considered to be factors that can
modulate an otherwise fundamental distinction between the acquisition of L1 and
later acquired languages.
Summing up, in the present study ERPs were recorded to words
in L1, L2, and L3 of French-English-Spanish trilinguals of differing
L2 and L3 proficiency during a silent reading task. Our participants were all relatively late learners of their L2 and L3. They also
started learning their L2 before the L3, and a number of measures
indicated that their proficiency was higher in L2 than in L3 (see
Tables 1 and 2). If the latency shift in anterior negativity seen in
the Midgley et al. (2009) study is due to the special status of the L1,
then we expect to, see a similar latency shift with respect to both
L2 and L3, which should have peak N400 latencies that are delayed
with respect to L1. On the other hand, if the latency shift is due
to differences in proficiency level, then one would expect to, see
graded effects across the three languages. However, differences in
N400 amplitude generated by L2 and L3 words might be expected
on the basis of differing levels of proficiency in these languages,
with L2 generating a more negative N400 than L3.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
PARTICIPANTS
Eighteen undergraduate volunteers (15 women) from the University of Provence were recruited and paid for their participation. All
were right-handed native speakers of French, and reported normal
or corrected to normal vision and no history of neurological insult
or language disability. Participants were enrolled in their third year
of foreign language studies in English and Spanish. French was
reported to be the first language learned by all participants (L1),
English the second language (L2), and Spanish the third (L3). L2
and L3 were both learned in the classroom, and in addition to classroom learning participants reported having spent several weeks in
immersion in English and Spanish speaking countries.
A questionnaire and translation task was used to evaluate participants’ fluency in L2 and L3. They were asked to estimate the
percentage of daily use of each language. They also evaluated their
language skills in L1, L2, and L3 on a seven-point Likert scale, as
well as how often they read in each language (very rarely – very
often, see Table 1). Participants rated their percentage of daily use
to be higher in L1 than in L2 [t (17) = 12.9, p < 0.001], and higher
in L2 than in L3 [t (17) = 2.1, p = 0.05], and they rated their frequency of reading to be higher in L1 than in L2 [t (17) = 4.8,
p < 0.001], and higher in L2 than in L3 [t (17) = 2.4, p < 0.05].
Participants rated their speaking skills to be higher in L1 than in
L2 [t (17) = 5.4, p < 0.001], but not significantly different in L2 and
L3 [t (17) = 0.5], and similarly rated their comprehension skills to
be higher in L1 than in L2 [t (17) = 6.2, p < 0.001], but not significantly different in L2 and L3 [t (17) = 0.5]. Participants were also
asked to report the estimated age of onset of acquisition (AoOA)
Table 1 | Summary of participants’ language skills and relative use of each language.
Percentage of daily use
Speaking skills
Comprehension skills
Reading frequency
L1
L2
L3
L1
L2
L3
L1
L2
L3
L1
L2
L3
59% (20.5)
23% (13.3)
18% (9.8)
7.0 (0.0)
5.6 (1.1)
5.4 (1.3)
7.0 (0.0)
5.6 (1.0)
5.4 (0.9)
6.4 (1.0)
5.1 (1.2)
4.4 (1.5)
Speaking and comprehension skills as well as reading frequency are evaluated on a seven-point scale (1 = poor/rarely, 7 = excellent/often).
Mean across participants, standard deviations in parentheses.
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Language effects in trilinguals
of each language. They estimated that L2 acquisition was initiated
significantly earlier than L3 [t (17) = 86.1, p < 0.001]. Finally, a
test of their translation abilities from L1 into L2 and from L1 into
L3 was administered after the ERP session (see Table 2). In this
post-test translation task participants were asked to translate a list
of 70 L1 words into L2 and L3 in order to assess their knowledge
of the critical items used in the ERP experiment and provide a
measure of L2 and L3 vocabulary size. Stimuli used in the posttest were a subset of the critical words used in the experiment.
The average frequency (occurrences per million – OPM) of these
words in L1 was 95 OPM, and the corresponding frequencies of
the translations in L2 and in L3 were respectively of 91 OPM and
93 OPM. Half of the participants generated the L2 translations
first then the L3 translations, and the remaining participants did
the translation in the opposite order. Participants could take their
time, and on average they took approximately half an hour to complete the translation test. Performance on this task ranged from 70
to 100% correct in L2 (M = 88%), and from 53 to 96% correct in
L3 (M = 72%). Performance was significantly better in L2 than L3
[t (17) = 17.9, p < 0.01].
STIMULI
The French, English, and Spanish stimuli were selected from a
trilingual database (Laxén et al., 2008) containing approximately
1500 translation equivalents (4500 words) from French, English,
and Spanish ranked according to their degree of overlap in orthography, phonology, and semantics. The selected stimuli were 282
words that were non-cognates in French, English, and Spanish,
with 94 words in each language. The words were selected to be
as language-specific as possible, thus excluding identical cognates,
close cognates (differing by a single letter substitution, deletion,
or insertion), and interlingual homographs, in order to minimize
confusion over which language was being presented. None of these
words was a translation of another word in the list. The words were
between three and eight letters in length, with a mean word frequency in French of 69 OPM (based on the Lexique 3 database), 66
OPM in English (based on the CELEX database), and a mean word
frequency in Spanish of 66 OPM (based on the Lexesp database).
We also selected 72 non-cognate animal words (24 in each language) for the purposes of the semantic categorization task, plus
270 filler words (90 in each language) that varied in cognate status.
All words were presented in lower case letters in 20 point Verdana font which resulted in a word height of 2.2 cm and a range of
word length between 4.5 and 8.0 cm, which at a viewing distance
of approximately 1.5 m resulted in word lengths ranging from 1.7˚
to 3.1˚ of visual angle. Words were centered on the screen and
presented in white on a black background. No more than three
words of the same language were presented in a row. On each trial,
participants were presented with a single word and had to decide
if the item referred to an animal in French, English, or Spanish.
If an item referred to an animal (12% of trials), the participants
were instructed to press a button on a response box as quickly as
possible. For all other items, the critical items, and filler items, no
overt response was expected. This task leaves critical items free of
artifact from overt responding while requiring silent reading for
meaning of each item.
PROCEDURE
Participants were tested in a sound attenuated room while seated
in a comfortable armchair approximately 1.5 m from a computer
monitor. Stimuli were displayed at the center of the monitor as
white lower case letters on a black background. Each trial consisted of a stimulus word presented for 400 ms, that was followed
by an 800 ms blank screen, a blink signal (- -) for 1000 ms (signaling it was permissible to blink or move one’s eyes), and a final blank
screen lasting 500 ms. The stimulus word from the next trial immediately followed the final blank screen (see Figure 1 below). Order
of presentation was pseudo-random. Participants pressed a button
on a response box resting in their lap whenever a probe item (i.e.,
an animal name) appeared in any of the three languages. Participants were asked not to move or blink except when the blink signal
“(- -)” appeared on the screen to reduce rejection of data due to
artifact. A training session of 30 items proceeded the ERP session.
None of the training items appeared in the main experiment. Altogether, the experiment lasted about 30 min including four breaks.
At the end of the recording session participants were presented
with 70 of the L1 words that they had already seen in the main
experiment, and were asked to translate these into both L2 and L3.
EEG RECORDING PROCEDURE
The electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded using 32-channel
caps (Electro-Cap International), in which tin electrodes were
Table 2 | Summary of participants’ estimated age of onset of
acquisition (AoOA) of L2 and L3 and post-test translation scores for
L1–L2 and L1–L3.
AoOA (years)
Post-test translation score
L2
L3
L1 → L2
L1 → L3
10 (1.5)
13 (1.1)
88% (0.10)
72% (0.12)
Mean across participants, standard deviations in parentheses.
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FIGURE 1 | Example of a sequence of stimuli, here an L1 word followed
by an L2 animal probe followed by an L3 word – all separated by blink
stimuli.
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Aparicio et al.
arranged following a revised standard International 10–20 system.
Twelve electrodes were arranged in mirror images on each hemisphere: FP1/2, F3/4, F7/8, FC1/2, FC5/6, C3/4, T3/4, CP1/2, CP5/6,
T5/6, P3/4, and O1/2 (see Figure 2). Five electrodes were located
at midline: FPz, Fz, Cz, Pz, Oz. An electrode was placed below the
left eye (LE) and another next to the right eye (HE) to monitor
for blinks and saccades. Two electrodes were placed behind the
ears on the mastoid process: the left mastoid site (A1) was used
as an online reference for all electrodes, and the right mastoid site
(A2) was also recorded to evaluate differential mastoid activity. All
electrodes were referenced to the left mastoid (A1). An electrolyte
gel was used in all electrodes in order to establish contact between
the skin and the electrode. Reference electrodes impedances were
kept below 2 kΩ, scalp electrodes impedances below 5 kΩ and eye
electrodes impedances below 10 kΩ. The EEG was amplified using
an SA Bioamplifier (SA Instruments, San Diego, CA, USA) operating on a bandpass of 0.01 and 40 Hz. The digitizing computer
continuously sampled the EEG at a rate of 200 Hz.
Language effects in trilinguals
and 350–500 ms, to capture differences in mean N400 amplitude
between L2 and L3 which have the same peak latency3 . Separate
repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to
analyze the data in each of these three epochs as well as the N400
peak latencies. The Geisser and Greenhouse (1959) correction was
applied to all repeated measures with more than one degree of
freedom in the numerator.
RESULTS
BEHAVIORAL DATA
We analyzed accuracy in detecting the animal probe words used
for the purposes of the semantic categorization task (24 animal
probes per language for a total of 72 animal words). Participants
detected more animal probe words in L1 (M = 22.4, SD = 1.34)
compared with both L2 (M = 16.0, SD = 4.70) and L3 (M = 15.7,
SD = 4.75). The difference between L1 and L2 was significant
[t (17) = 6.59, p < 0.001], as was the difference between L1 and
L3 [t (17) = 6.81, p < 0.001], but the difference between L2 and L3
was not significant [t (17) < 1].
DATA ANALYSIS
Averaged ERPs were formed off-line from trials free of ocular and
muscular artifact (9% of trials were rejected for artifact) and were
lowpass filtered at 15 Hz. Data analysis involved a representative
subset of the 29 scalp sites (see Figure 2). Average waveforms
were calculated off-line for three levels of language (L1 vs. L2
vs. L3), three levels of posterior-anterior (posterior, central,
anterior), and three levels of laterality (right, center, left). As
shown in Figure 2, a single electrode provided data for each of
the nine conditions formed by the combination of the two distributional factors (posterior-anterior × laterality). Mean
peak latency of the N400 component was calculated between 300
and 600 ms. Additionally, mean amplitudes were calculated in
two epochs: 150–250 ms, to capture differences in P2 amplitude,
VISUAL INSPECTION OF ERPs
The ERPs time locked to stimulus onset are plotted in Figure 3A.
As can be seen in Figure 3A, early in the waveforms there is a
small negativity peaking around 100 ms (N1), followed by a considerable positivity peaking around 200 ms post-stimulus onset in
frontal sites (P2). Up until about 200–250 ms, ERPs generated by
the three languages are quite similar. At all sites there are differences on the negative-going waveform that start at about 250 ms
and continue past 500 ms (N400). These negativities peak before
400 ms or after 400 ms depending on language. L2 and L3 tend
to pattern together in the 300–500 ms epoch and are noticeably
less negative-going than L1 at the beginning of this epoch. Here
a clear distinction appears between L1 on the one hand and L2
and L3 on the other hand due to the early peaking of the L1 N400
component. This translates into a greater early negativity for the
L1 words compared to words in L2 and L3, and a reversal of this
pattern after 400 ms. Also notable is that in the later N400 window,
L3 words elicit a larger negativity than L2 words.
ANALYSIS OF MEAN AMPLITUDES
For each epoch we first examined the main effect of language
and its interaction with two electrode configuration factors:
posterior-anterior and laterality, followed by planned pairwise comparisons between the three possible combinations of
language: L1 vs. L2, L1 vs. L3, L2 vs. L3. We also compared
the effects of language on ERP amplitudes with the effects of
word frequency in all three languages. The statistical analyses of
frequency effects are reported after the analyses of language
effects.
150–250 MS EPOCH
There was no effect of language [F (2,34) < 0.1],and none of
the interactions with language approached significance in this
FIGURE 2 | Electrode montage and electrode sites used in the
statistical analyses (connected by lines).
Frontiers in Psychology | Language Sciences
3 Visual inspection of the waveforms in Figure 3A reveals a clearly earlier peaking
N400 for L1 compared with both L2 and L3. This implies that any comparison of
L1 amplitude with either L2 or L3 amplitude in the N400 time window would be
contaminated by the latency shift.
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FIGURE 3 | Grand average waveforms. (A) ERPs to words in L1 (French), L2 (English), and L3 (Spanish) at nine electrode sites. (B) ERPs to high frequency
words and low frequency words. The X -axis indicates time from stimulus onset in milliseconds.
epoch. None of the pairwise comparisons between languages
approached significance [L1 vs. L2: F (1,17) < 1; L1 vs. L3:
F (1,17) < 1; L2 vs. L3: F (1,17) < 1].
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350–500 MS EPOCH
Although there was no main effect of language in this
epoch [F (2,34) = 1.7], there was a significant interaction
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Aparicio et al.
between language and laterality [F (4,68) = 4.7, p < 0.009].
In pairwise comparisons this interaction was evident in the
L2 vs. L3 comparison where L3 waveforms were significantly more negative-going than L2 waveforms at right hemisphere sites [language × laterality: F (2,34) = 4.4, p < 0.02].
The pairwise comparisons between L1 and L2, and L1 and
L3 were not significant and did not interact with any of
the distributional variables [all F s < 1 except for L1 vs. L3:
F (1,17) = 3.1].
N400 PEAK LATENCY ANALYSIS
We calculated the peak latency in milliseconds of the N400 component at our nine electrode sites for each language. Over all
nine electrodes mean peak latency for the N400 to L1 items was
393 ms while mean peak latency for L2 and L3 items was 430 and
432 ms respectively. The analysis showed a main effect of language [F (2,34) = 12.5, p < 0.001]. Pairwise comparisons between
L1 and L2 showed that the L1 N400 peaked significantly earlier
than the L2 N400 [F (1,17) = 13.6, p < 0.002]. The same pattern
was found comparing L1 and L3 peak latency, with L1 peaking
significantly earlier than L3 [F (1,17) = 19.6, p < 0.001]. However,
there was no significant difference between L2 and L3 peak latency
(F < 1).
WORD FREQUENCY ANALYSIS
Effects of word frequency were analyzed by dividing the critical
words into two equal groups corresponding to the highest and the
lowest frequency words within each language. Visual inspection
of the waveforms revealed that word frequency modulated mean
amplitude of the N400 component (see Figure 3B). An ANOVA of
mean amplitude in the 350–500 ms epoch, with frequency and
language as main factors, revealed a main effect of frequency
[F(1,17) = 8.4, p < 0.01] and no interaction between frequency
and language (F < 1). The main effect of word frequency is
shown in Figure 3B. The pattern of word frequency effects follows the typical pattern reported in the literature, whereby high
frequency words generate smaller N400 amplitudes than low
frequency words (e.g., Van Petten and Kutas, 1990).
A comparison of the effects of word frequency and the difference between L2 and L3 words on N400 amplitude is shown
in Figure 4. This shows that the L2–L3 language effect is quite
similar to the word frequency effect, both in terms of amplitude
differences and topography. The only notable difference is that the
language effect has a more right-posterior distribution.
DISCUSSION
Event-related potentials were recorded as French-English-Spanish
trilinguals read mixed lists of words in their three languages and
pressed a button whenever the stimulus was an animal name,
independently of the language in which it was written. The ERPs
generated by non-animal words that were non-cognates in all three
languages were analyzed in order to examine processing differences across languages. The waveforms generated by words in
all three languages patterned together until about 250 ms poststimulus onset. Following this, L2 and L3 words were found to
have similar peak N400 latencies that were delayed compared with
the N400 peak latency to L1 words. Furthermore, L3 words generated larger negativities in the N400 window than L2 words,
Frontiers in Psychology | Language Sciences
Language effects in trilinguals
as revealed in the mean amplitude analysis between 350 and
500 ms. Differences in N400 amplitude between L1 on the one
hand, and L2 and L3 on the other, were not examined given
the difference in peak latency that was observed between these
conditions.
The first important result of the present study is that the delay
in peak latency of the N400 component, found by Midgley et al.
(2009) in bilingual participants for L2 (see also Ardal et al., 1990),
was observed for both L2 and L3 in our trilingual participants.
The N400 component generated by L2 and L3 words peaked
together and did so later than the N400 generated by L1 words.
The fact that a delay in the peak of the N400 was seen to the
same extent for L2 and L3 words lends support to the hypothesis that it is the special status of the L1 that is driving this data
pattern, and not differences in proficiency per se. Here, the key distinction is between the first language and those that are acquired
later in life. Compared with first language acquisition, learning a
new language later in life is generally characterized as being more
laborious, effortful, and explicit, suggesting that different learning mechanisms are at play, even for pre-adolescent learners. Here
we hypothesize that the simple fact that one language has already
been learned should change the way that an L2 is learned, even
perhaps for relatively young learners outside of the classroom. It
is this qualitatively different type of learning process that would
be the basis of different types of lexical and semantic connectivity thought to distinguish simultaneous (early) bilinguals from
later learners of an L2 (Hernandez et al., 2005; Grainger et al.,
2010).
It is important to distinguish this hypothesis from the hypothesized existence of a critical period for second language acquisition,
according to which native-like acquisition can only be achieved
up to a certain critical point of brain maturation, after which loss
of plasticity is thought to be the major handicap for language
acquisition (Lenneberg, 1976). Without debating the evidence
for (e.g., Johnson and Newport, 1989) and against (e.g., Birdsong and Molis, 2001; Hakuta et al., 2003) such a position, we
would simply point out that the period of consolidation of L1
acquisition would already impose a non-maturational “critical
period” after which language acquisition will be affected by the
prior acquisition of a different language (Hernandez et al., 2005).
This does not exclude the possibility that maturational constraints
FIGURE 4 | Voltage difference maps. (A) L3 words minus L2 words, (B)
low frequency words minus high frequency words.
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might also play a role, and indeed both factors might be responsible for observed effects of the AoOA on processing a second
language.
One other factor that might well influence L2 processing is the
manner in which the later learned language is acquired. Differences are likely to emerge as a function of whether L2 is learned
principally in a classroom setting compared with a more naturalistic learning environment. Even within the domain of more
naturalistic language learning, we expect that one key distinction is whether or not the L2 is learned in reference to the L1
or in a more autonomous manner. Thus, a situation of prolonged immersion in L2 with little or no contact with the L1,
as in the case of certain adopted children (e.g., Pallier et al., 2003),
will likely create a context where L2 acquisition can proceed in
a manner most similar to L1 acquisition. Obviously, the results
of the present study do not allow us to evaluate the contribution of these different factors in driving the N400 peak latency
difference between L1 and later acquired languages. Future work
could address these important issues by examining language effects
in trilinguals that have acquired their L2 in a more naturalistic immersive setting, and their L3 via more formal instruction.
This could be usefully combined with a systematic study of language effects in bilinguals having acquired their L2 in different
settings.
Finally, in the present study, L2 and L3 words were found to
differ significantly in terms of mean N400 amplitude between
350 and 500 ms post-stimulus onset, with L3 words generating
more negative-going waveforms than L2 words. This pattern is
the opposite to what was predicted on the basis of the results of
Midgley et al. (2009), where an increase in proficiency in L2 was
found to result in more negative-going, and therefore more L1like waveforms. Nevertheless, there was still a difference in N400
peak latency for L1 and L2 in the more proficient L2 group of
participants in the Midgley et al. (2009) study, which complicates
any interpretation of differences in N400 amplitude. Furthermore,
becoming more proficient in an L2 for a bilingual person might
well involve mechanisms that are distinct from those that underlie
proficiency differences in L2 and L3 in trilingual persons. Concerning mechanisms that might be driving the difference in N400
amplitude to L2 and L3 words in the present study, it is important
to note that the pattern of N400 amplitude differences between
L2 and L3 was quite similar to the pattern revealed in an analysis
of word frequency effects (high frequency vs. low frequency) collapsed across all languages (Figure 4). This fits with the idea that it
is differences in the amount of exposure to L2 and L3 words that is
the key factor driving the differences in N400 amplitude generated
by these words. Further research manipulating the level of proficiency in L2 and L3 in trilingual participants should help elucidate
this and other complex issues related to the acquisition and use
of more than one language. One obvious next step with respect
to the present study would be to test trilingual participants for
which L2 proficiency is closer to L1 proficiency and more clearly
distinct from L3 proficiency. This would provide a stronger test of
the hypothesized special status of a language that is acquired first
compared with later acquired languages. Furthermore, in future
work it will be important to test for language effects in trilinguals using lists of words blocked by language, since this will help
determine the extent to which differences across languages might
be due to differences in the ability to control for cross-language
interference.
In conclusion, we found a pattern of differences in the ERP
waveforms that separated L1 words from both L2 and L3 words
in terms of peak N400 latency. This was taken to reflect differences in the way a first language is acquired compared with later
acquired languages, which have a long-lasting influence on the
processing of words in these languages. Differences in the ERP
waveforms thought to be related to differences in processing fluency in the L2 and L3 were found in the mean amplitudes of
the N400. We would argue that ERPs provide a sensitive diagnostic tool for investigating word comprehension in multilinguals,
and that the specific case of trilingualism provides important
additional leverage with respect to understanding fundamental differences between the processing of L1 and later acquired
languages.
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The
authors declare that the research was
Frontiers in Psychology | Language Sciences
conducted in the absence of any
commercial or financial relationships
that could be construed as a potential
conflict of interest.
Received: 15 June 2012; accepted: 26 September 2012; published online: 22 October 2012.
Citation: Aparicio X, Midgley KJ, Holcomb PJ, Pu H, Lavaur J-M and Grainger
J (2012) Language effects in trilinguals:
an ERP study. Front. Psychology 3:402.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00402
This article was submitted to Frontiers in
Language Sciences, a specialty of Frontiers
in Psychology.
Copyright © 2012 Aparicio, Midgley,
Holcomb, Pu, Lavaur and Grainger. This
is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums,
provided the original authors and source
are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party
graphics etc.
October 2012 | Volume 3 | Article 402 | 8
Aparicio et al.
Language effects in trilinguals
APPENDIX
LIST OF THE WORDS USED IN THE ERP ANALYSES.
L1 French items
Achat
Ailleurs
Amer
Assez
Aussi
Avoine
Bain
Batteur
Berceuse
Beurre
Bienvenu
Bijou
Bouclier
Caillou
Cannelle
Casque
Chaleur
Chemise
Chou
Cierge
Citron
Collant
Colle
Comble
Conduite
Coude
Coussin
Crainte
Croix
Cru
Cuir
Demain
Dessous
Devoir
Dimanche
Doigt
Douceur
Endormi
Enfer
Ensuite
Eescalier
Espoir
Façon
Falaise
Farine
Faubourg
Fer
Fier
Fleur
Foi
Fou
Frayeur
Fromage
Froment
Goudron
Goutte
Gueule
Haleine
Honte
Jambe
Jaune
Jeune
Jumeau
Jupe
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L2 English items
Lessive
Levure
Lisse
Moine
Mou
Muet
Œil
Œuf
Orage
Ordure
Plaisir
Pneu
Poivron
Pomme
Presque
Prochain
Puits
Rayure
Rhume
Sapin
Serment
Sœur
Soie
Soin
Sommet
Tablier
Temps
Tonneau
Trou
Volet
Always
Ashtray
Back
Bean
Bedroom
Better
Blind
Broom
Burden
Carriage
Ceiling
Cherry
Chest
Claw
Clog
Cloth
Clothes
Copper
Crowd
Dawn
Dish
Drink
Drop
Evening
Eyebrow
Fall
Felt
Fight
Flake
Frame
Gallows
Garlic
Gift
Glass
Ground
Handrail
Happy
Hazelnut
House
Hunger
Joiner
Joke
Keyboard
Kiss
Knee
Lawn
Lawyer
Leek
Link
Lock
Loud
Luck
Mean
Mind
Mourning
Navel
Needle
Noise
Parsley
Pencil
Pillow
Pound
Powerful
Pretty
L Spanish items
Puddle
Pumpkin
Rain
Right
Sailboat
Sailor
Scream
Seated
Sheet
Short
Sieve
Sight
Slight
Stain
Staple
Stick
Straight
Swarm
Sweet
Target
Thief
Thing
Thunder
Track
Waiter
Wardrobe
Warm
Weight
Witch
Woman
Actitud
Ala
Alegria
Alma
Amargo
Amenaza
Amigo
Ancla
Arbol
Astilla
Azucar
Azul
Bailarin
Borracho
Burbuja
Calor
Camino
Campana
Carne
Cena
Cepillo
Cimbra
Ciudad
Clavo
Consejo
Creencia
Cuerno
Derrota
Detalle
Diente
Edad
Enfoque
Espejo
Esposa
Esquina
Estrecho
Fecha
Gasto
Gente
Golpe
Granja
Gusto
Hierba
Higo
Iglesia
Invitado
Jefe
Lagrima
Lavada
Medida
Mejilla
Mentira
Miedo
Moreno
Muelle
Musgo
Ocupado
Olor
Oreja
Orgullo
Partido
Pecado
Perdido
Piedra
Piel
Playa
Potro
Puerta
Punto
Rama
Reino
Reloj
Rencor
Revista
Rojo
Rueda
Salvaje
Sangre
Seguro
Sensatez
Silla
Suero
Tanteo
Tarjeta
Tejido
Traje
Vara
Verde
Vestido
Viaje
Vida
Viento
Viuda
Vuelo
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