In this study, I report three experiments that examined whether words from one language of bilinguals can use the syntactic features form the other language, and how such syntactic co-activation might influence syntactic processing. In... more
In this study, I report three experiments that examined whether words from one language of bilinguals can use the syntactic features form the other language, and how such syntactic co-activation might influence syntactic processing. In other words, I examined whether there are any cases in which an inherent syntactic feature a lexical item is inhibited and the syntactic feature that belongs to the other language is used, instead. In the non-switch condition in Experiments 1 and 2, Persian-English bilinguals described pictures using an adjective-noun string from the same language requested. In the switch condition, they used a noun and an adjective from the other language. In the switch condition in Experiment 3, participants used only the adjective of a noun phrase from the other language. The results showed that bilinguals may inhibit the activation of a word’s syntactic feature and use the syntactic property from the other language, instead (e.g., pirāhane (shirt-N) black). As the combinatorial node (the node that specifies different kinds of syntactic structures in which a word can be used) of a used adjective retains activation at least temporarily, bilinguals are more likely to use the same combinatorial node even with an adjective from the other language. Cross-language syntactic interference increased in the switch conditions. Moreover, more inappropriate responses were observed when switching from bilinguals’ L2 to L1. The results also revealed that different experimental contexts may lead to different patterns of the control mechanism. The results will be interpreted in terms of Hartsuiker and Pickering’s (2008) model of syntactic representation.
In the current study, we investigated bilingual error detection by measuring the repair rate of language intrusions (i.e., involuntary production of nontarget language words) that arose while bilinguals produced sentences in a language... more
In the current study, we investigated bilingual error detection by measuring the repair rate of language intrusions (i.e., involuntary production of nontarget language words) that arose while bilinguals produced sentences in a language switching context. This allowed us to compare two prominent accounts of error detection in a bilingual setting. According to the conflict monitoring account, error detection is initiated by interference. Since language switching increases bilingual language interference, error detection should be better in switch relative to repetition trials. According to the perceptual loop theory, error detection is based on language comprehension. Since language switching is known to impair language comprehension, it follows that error detection should be worse in switch relative to repetition trials. The results showed that the repair rate of language intrusions was higher in switch than repetition trials, thus providing evidence that bilingual language interfere...
