Showing papers in "Bilingualism: Language and Cognition in 2013"

Assessing the role of current and cumulative exposure in simultaneous bilingual acquisition: The case of Dutch gender

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of amount of current and cumulative exposure in bilingual development and ultimate attainment by exploring the extent to which simultaneous bilingual children's knowledge of grammatical gender is affected by current and previous amount of exposure, including in the early years. Elicited production and grammaticality judgement data collected from 136 English–Dutch-speaking bilingual children aged between three and 17 years are used to examine the lexical and grammatical aspects of Dutch gender, viz. definite determiners and adjectival inflection. It is argued that the results are more consistent with a rule-based than a piecemeal approach to acquisition (Blom, Polisenska & Weerman, 2008a; Gathercole & Thomas, 2005, 2009), and that non-target performance on the production task can be explained by the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Haznedar & Schwartz, 1997; Prevost & White, 2000; Weerman, Duijnmeijer & Orgassa, 2011).

The Bilingual Language Interaction Network for Comprehension of Speech.

Abstract: During speech comprehension, bilinguals co-activate both of their languages, resulting in cross-linguistic interaction at various levels of processing. This interaction has important consequences for both the structure of the language system and the mechanisms by which the system processes spoken language. Using computational modeling, we can examine how cross-linguistic interaction affects language processing in a controlled, simulated environment. Here we present a connectionist model of bilingual language processing, the Bilingual Language Interaction Network for Comprehension of Speech (BLINCS), wherein interconnected levels of processing are created using dynamic, self-organizing maps. BLINCS can account for a variety of psycholinguistic phenomena, including cross-linguistic interaction at and across multiple levels of processing, cognate facilitation effects, and audio-visual integration during speech comprehension. The model also provides a way to separate two languages without requiring a global language-identification system. We conclude that BLINCS serves as a promising new model of bilingual spoken language comprehension.

Language contact outcomes as the result of bilingual optimization strategies

Abstract: This paper sketches a comprehensive framework for modeling and interpreting language contact phenomena, with speakers’ bilingual strategies in specific scenarios of language contact as its point of departure. Bilingual strategies are conditioned by social factors, processing constraints of speakers’ bilingual competence, and perceived language distance. In a number of domains of language contact studies important progress has been made, including Creole studies, code-switching, language development, linguistic borrowing, and areal convergence. Less attention has been paid to the links between these fields, so that results in one domain can be compared with those in another. These links are approached here from the perspective of speaker optimization strategies. Four strategies are proposed: maximize structural coherence of the first language (L1); maximize structural coherence of the second language (L2); match between L1 and L2 patterns where possible; and rely on universal principles of language processing. These strategies can be invoked to explain outcomes of language contact. Different outcomes correspond to different interactions of these strategies in bilingual speakers and their communities.

Parental language mixing: Its measurement and the relation of mixed input to young bilingual children's vocabulary size

Abstract: Is parental language mixing related to vocabulary acquisition in bilingual infants and children? Bilingual parents (who spoke English and another language; n = 181) completed the Language Mixing Scale questionnaire, a new self-report measure that assesses how frequently parents use words from two different languages in the same sentence, such as borrowing words from another language or code switching between two languages in the same sentence. Concurrently, English vocabulary size was measured in the bilingual children of these parents. Most parents reported regular language mixing in interactions with their child. Increased rates of parental language mixing were associated with significantly smaller comprehension vocabularies in 1.5-year-old bilingual infants, and marginally smaller production vocabularies in 2-year-old bilingual children. Exposure to language mixing might obscure cues that facilitate young bilingual children's separation of their languages and could hinder the functioning of learning mechanisms that support the early growth of their vocabularies.

Individual differences reveal stages of L2 grammatical acquisition: ERP evidence

Abstract: Here we report findings from a cross-sectional study of morphosyntactic processing in native German speakers and native English speakers enrolled in college-level German courses. Event-related brain potentials were recorded while participants read sentences that were either well-formed or violated German subject–verb agreement. Results showed that grammatical violations elicited large P600 effects in the native Germans and learners enrolled in third-year courses. Grand mean waveforms for learners enrolled in first-year courses showed a biphasic N400–P600 response. However, subsequent correlation analyses revealed that most individuals showed either an N400 or a P600, but not both, and that brain response type was associated with behavioral measures of grammatical sensitivity. These results support models of second language acquisition which implicate qualitative changes in the neural substrates of second language grammar processing associated with learning. Importantly, we show that new insights into L2 learning result when the cross-subject variability is treated as a source of evidence rather than a source of noise.

Is multilingualism linked to a higher tolerance of ambiguity

Abstract: The present study investigates the link between multilingualism and the personality trait Tolerance of Ambiguity (TA) among 2158 mono-, bi- and multilinguals. Monolinguals and bilinguals scored significantly lower on TA compared to multilinguals. A high level of global proficiency of various languages was linked to higher TA scores. A stay abroad of more than three months was also linked to higher TA although the effect levelled off after one year. Growing up in a multilingual family had no effect on TA. These findings show that a high level of multilingualism makes individuals more at ease in dealing with ambiguity, but we acknowledge that a higher level of TA can also strengthen an individual's inclination to become multilingual.

Processing empty categories in a second language: When naturalistic exposure fills the (intermediate) gap

Abstract: An ongoing debate on second language (L2) processing revolves around whether or not L2 learners process syntactic information similarly to monolinguals (L1), and what factors lead to a native-like processing. According to the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006a), L2 learners’ processing does not include abstract syntactic features, such as intermediate gaps of wh-movement, but relies more on lexical/semantic information. Other researchers have suggested that naturalistic L2 exposure can lead to native-like processing (Dussias, 2003). This study investigates the effect of naturalistic exposure in processing wh-dependencies. Twenty-six advanced Greek learners of L2 English with an average nine years of naturalistic exposure, 30 with classroom exposure, and 30 native speakers of English completed a self-paced reading task with sentences involving intermediate gaps. L2 learners with naturalistic exposure showed evidence of native-like processing of the intermediate gaps, suggesting that linguistic immersion can lead to native-like abstract syntactic processing in the L2.

Gender and number agreement in the oral production of Arabic Heritage speakers

Abstract: Heritage language acquisition has been characterized by various asymmetries, including the differential acquisition rates of various linguistic areas and the unbalanced acquisition of different categories within a single area. This paper examines Arabic heritage speakers’ knowledge of subject–verb agreement versus noun–adjective agreement with the aim of contrasting their distributions and exploring areas of resilience and vulnerability within Arabic heritage speech and their theoretical implications. Two oral-production experiments were carried out, one involving two picture-description tasks, and another requiring an elicited narrative. The results of the study show that subject–verb agreement morphology is more maintained than noun–adjective morphology. Moreover, the unmarked singular masculine default is more robust than the other categories in both domains and is often over-generalized to other marked categories. The results thus confirm the existence of these asymmetries. We propose that these asymmetries may not be explained by a single factor, but by a complex set of morphological, syntactic, semantic, and frequency-related factors.

Language proficiency and executive control in bilingual children

Abstract: The relation between language proficiency and executive functions has been established for monolingual children. The present study addresses this issue in bilingual children, comparing the language proficiency of sequential English–Hebrew bilingual preschool children as determined by standardized assessment instruments and generic executive control in inhibition, sorting and shifting tasks. Participants were recruited from regular and language preschools and classified according to their language proficiency as bilinguals with high language proficiency in at least one of their languages (including balanced bilinguals with high language proficiency in both languages, L2-dominant, and L1-dominant) and bilinguals showing low language proficiency in both languages. As reported for monolingual preschool children, positive relationships between language proficiency and inhibition and shifting abilities were found, with significantly lower performance among low language proficiency bilinguals. Significantly better performance was also found for shifting among children who had already mastered their L2 compared to those who were still in the process of acquiring the new language.

Cognitive advantage in children enrolled in a second-language immersion elementary school program for three years*

Abstract: Early bilingualism acquired from home or community is generally considered to positively influence cognitive development. The purpose of the present study was to determine to what extent bilingualism acquired through a second-language immersion education has a similar effect. Participants included a total of 106 French-speaking eight-year-old children drawn from two language groups: 53 children enrolled in English immersion classes since the age of five years (the immersion group) and 53 children enrolled in monolingual French-speaking classes (the monolingual group). The two groups were matched for verbal and nonverbal intelligence and socioeconomic status (SES). They were administered a battery of tasks assessing attentional and executive skills. The immersion group's reaction times were significantly faster than those of the monolingual group on tasks assessing alerting, auditory selective attention, divided attention and mental flexibility, but not interference inhibition. These results show that, after only three years, a second-language immersion school experience also produces some of the cognitive benefits associated with early bilingualism.

L1 and L2 picture naming in Mandarin-English bilinguals: A test of Bilingual Dual Coding Theory ∗

Abstract: This study examined the nature of bilinguals’ conceptual representations and the links from these representations to words in L1 and L2. Specifically, we tested an assumption of the Bilingual Dual Coding Theory that conceptual representations include image representations, and that learning two languages in separate contexts can result in differences in referential images for L1 and L2. Mandarin–English participants named aloud culturally-biased images and culturally-unbiased filler images presented on a computer screen in both Mandarin (L1) and English (L2). Culturally-biased images were named significantly faster in the culturally-congruent language than in the incongruent language. These findings indicate that some image representations are more strongly connected to one language than the other, providing support for the Bilingual Dual Coding Theory.

The effects of bilingualism on efficiency and lateralization of attentional networks

Abstract: The present study investigated the impact of bilingualism on efficiency of alerting, orienting and executive attention by means of the Lateralized Attention Network Test (LANT). Young adult bilinguals who had been exposed to their second language before the age of four years showed a reduced conflict cost and a larger alerting effect in terms of response time (RT), while no difference between bilinguals and monolinguals was observed in overall RT. Bilinguals also outperformed monolinguals on accuracy in both conflict and non-conflict trials, though the effect in the latter condition was very small. Moreover, while a left visual field advantage for accuracy of conflict resolution was present in the monolingual group, bilinguals did not show the asymmetry. The findings suggest that bilingualism enhances the efficiency of executive network while reducing its lateralization. The larger alerting effect in bilinguals is hypothesized to be related to bilinguals’ more efficient executive control, which may support processes of response anticipation or temporal orienting.

Inflection and derivation in native and non-native language processing: Masked priming experiments on Turkish

Abstract: Much previous experimental research on morphological processing has focused on surface and meaning-level properties of morphologically complex words, without paying much attention to the morphological differences between inflectional and derivational processes. Realization-based theories of morphology, for example, assume specific morpholexical representations for derived words that distinguish them from the products of inflectional or paradigmatic processes. The present study reports results from a series of masked priming experiments investigating the processing of inflectional and derivational phenomena in native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers in a non-Indo-European language, Turkish. We specifically compared regular (Aorist) verb inflection with deadjectival nominalization, both of which are highly frequent, productive and transparent in Turkish. The experiments demonstrated different priming patterns for inflection and derivation, specifically within the L2 group. Implications of these findings are discussed both for accounts of L2 morphological processing and for the controversial linguistic distinction between inflection and derivation.

The role of dynamic contrasts in the L2 acquisition of Spanish past tense morphology

Abstract: This study examines the second language acquisition of Spanish past tense morphology by three groups of English speakers (beginners, intermediates and advanced). We adopt a novel methodological approach – combining oral corpus data with controlled experimental data – in order to provide new evidence on the validity of the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) in L2 Spanish. Data elicited through one comprehension and three oral tasks with varying degrees of experimental control show that the emergence of temporal markings is determined mainly by the dynamic/non-dynamic contrast (whether a verb is a state or an event) as beginner and intermediate speakers use Preterit with event verbs but Imperfect mainly with state verbs. One crucial finding is that although advanced learners use typical Preterit–telic associations in the least controlled oral tasks, as predicted by the LAH, this pattern is often reversed in tasks designed to include non-prototypical (and infrequent) form–meaning contexts. The results of the comprehension task also show that the Preterit-event and Imperfect-state associations observed in the production data determine the interpretation that learners assign to the Preterit and the Imperfect as well. These results show that beginner and intermediate learners treat event verbs (achievements, accomplishments and activities) in Spanish as a single class that they associate with Preterit morphology. We argue that dynamicity contrasts, and not telicity, affect learners’ use of past tense forms during early stages of acquisition.

The development of associative word learning in monolingual and bilingual infants.

Abstract: Children growing up bilingual face a unique linguistic environment. The current study investigated whether early bilingual experience influences the developmental trajectory of associative word learning, a foundational mechanism for lexical acquisition. Monolingual and bilingual infants (N = 98) were tested on their ability to learn dissimilar-sounding words (lif and neem) in the Switch task. Twelve-month-olds from both language backgrounds failed to detect a violation of a previously taught word–object pairing. However, both monolinguals and bilinguals succeeded at 14 months, and their performance did not differ. The results indicate that early bilingual experience does not interfere with the development of the fundamental ability to form word–object associations, suggesting that this mechanism is robust across different early language environments.

The timing and magnitude of Stroop interference and facilitation in monolinguals and bilinguals

Abstract: Executive control abilities and lexical access speed in Stroop performance were investigated in English monolinguals and two groups of bilinguals (English–Chinese and Chinese–English) in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Predictions were based on a bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, implicating cognitive control ability as the critical factor determining Stroop interference; and two bilingual lexical disadvantage hypotheses, focusing on lexical access speed. Importantly, each hypothesis predicts different response patterns in a Stroop task manipulating stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). There was evidence for a bilingual cognitive advantage, although this effect was sensitive to a number of variables including proficiency, language immersion, and script. In lexical access speed, no differences occurred between monolinguals and bilinguals in their native languages, but there was evidence for a delay in L2 processing speed relative to the L1. Overall, the data highlight the multitude of factors affecting executive control and lexical access speed in bilinguals.

Comparison of Spanish Morphology in Monolingual and Spanish-English Bilingual Children with and without Language Impairment.

Abstract: This study compares Spanish morphosyntax error types and magnitude in monolingual Spanish and Spanish–English bilingual children with typical language development (TD) and language impairment (LI). Performance across groups was compared using cloze tasks that targeted articles, clitics, subjunctives, and derivational morphemes in 57 children. Significant differences were observed between bilingual TD and LI groups on all tasks; however, no differences were observed between bilinguals with TD and monolinguals with LI except on a sum-score across all tasks. There were no observed differences between bilinguals and monolinguals with TD; however, 60% of bilinguals with TD were misclassified as LI when using a cut score derived from monolingual-only data. Results support evidence that Spanish morphosyntax is vulnerable to error in monolingual and bilingual Spanish–English children with LI. However, the grammatical deficit seems clinically relevant only when children are compared to the same language peer group (i.e., bilinguals compared to bilinguals).

Orthographic Influences on Division of Labor in Learning to Read Chinese and English: Insights from Computational Modeling.

Abstract: Learning to read in any language requires learning to map among print, sound and meaning. Writing systems differ in a number of factors that influence both the ease and the rate with which reading skill can be acquired, as well as the eventual division of labor between phonological and semantic processes. Further, developmental reading disability manifests differently across writing systems, and may be related to different deficits in constitutive processes. Here we simulate some aspects of reading acquisition in Chinese and English using the same model for both writing systems. The contribution of semantic and phonological processing to literacy acquisition in the two languages is simulated, including specific effects of phonological and semantic deficits. Further, we demonstrate that similar patterns of performance are observed when the same model is trained on both Chinese and English as an “early bilingual”. The results are consistent with the view that reading skill is acquired by the application of statistical learning rules to mappings among print, sound and meaning, and that differences in the typical and disordered acquisition of reading skill between writing systems are driven by differences in the statistical patterns of the writing systems themselves, rather than differences in cognitive architecture of the learner.

L1–L2 convergence in clausal packaging in Japanese and English

Abstract: This study investigates L1–L2 convergence among bilinguals at an intermediate (CEFR-B2) level of L2 proficiency, focusing on the clausal packaging of Manner and Path of motion. Previous research has shown cross-linguistic differences between English and Japanese in this domain (Allen et al., 2003; Kita & Ozyurek, 2003, though note Brown & Gullberg, 2012). We compared descriptions of motion from monolingual English and Japanese speakers to L1 and L2 descriptions from Japanese users of English as a second (ESL) and foreign (EFL) language. Results showed no significant difference between the monolinguals, who predominately used single-clause constructions packaging Manner and Path. However, bilinguals, both ESL and EFL speakers, used significantly more multi-clause constructions in both their L1 and L2. Following Pavlenko (2011a), findings are interpreted as evidence for L1–L2 convergence. We discuss potential bi-directional cross-linguistic influences underpinning the L1–L2 convergence and implications for the restructuring of bilingual systems.

On the Nature of Cross-Linguistic Transfer: A Case Study of Andean Spanish.

Abstract: This paper presents the results of a study on cross-linguistic transfer in Andean Spanish word order. In Andean Spanish the object appears in preverbal position more frequently than in non-Andean Spanish, which has been attributed to an influence from Quechua (a Subject–Object–Verb language). The high frequency of preverbal objects could be explained by focus fronting. The main syntactic properties of focus fronting in Spanish are weak crossover and long distance movement. Two elicitation studies designed to test for these properties in non-Andean Spanish, Andean Spanish and Quechua show no evidence of syntactic transfer from Quechua into Andean Spanish. Rather, the analysis of naturalistic data and an elicitation study on question–answer pairs show that there is pragmatic transfer from Quechua into Andean Spanish. The study has implications for theories of syntax and language contact, and especially for the debate on the nature of cross-linguistic transfer.

Second Language Sentence Processing in Reading for Comprehension and Translation.

Abstract: A self-paced reading and translation task was used with learners of English as a second language (L2) to explore what sorts of information L2 learners use during online comprehension compared to native speakers, and how task (reading for comprehension vs. translation) and proficiency affect L2 comprehension. Thirty-six Korean native speakers of English and 32 native English speakers read plausible and implausible subject relative clauses and object relative clauses. Reading times, comprehension accuracy, and translations were analyzed. Results showed that L2 learners were able to use syntactic information similarly to native speakers during comprehension, and that online L2 processing and offline comprehension were modulated by reading goals and proficiency. Results are interpreted as showing that L2 processing is quantitatively rather than qualitatively different from first language processing, i.e. strategically “good enough”.

Syntactic transfer in English-speaking Spanish learners*

Abstract: Competition Model studies of second language learners have demonstrated that there is a gradual replacement of first language cues for thematic role assignment by second language cues. The current study introduced two methodological innovations in the investigation of this process. The first was the use of mouse-tracking methodology (Spivey, 2007) to assess the online process of thematic role assignment. The second was the inclusion of both a task with language-specific cues and a task with language-common cues. The results of the language-common cue task indicated that, as English-dominant learners become more balanced between English and Spanish, they rely increasingly on a coalition between the animacy cue and the subject–verb agreement cue. However, the results of the language-specific cue task reveal that learners also rely on the cue of prepositional case marking in Spanish and nominal case marking in English. These results provide evidence of forward transfer, backward transfer, and rapid acquisition of cue-based sentence interpretation strategies in second language learning.

Simulating cross-language priming with a dynamic computational model of the lexicon

Abstract: Cross-language priming is a widely used experimental paradigm in psycholinguistics to study how bilinguals’ two languages are represented and organized. Researchers have observed a number of interesting patterns from the priming effects of both translation equivalents and semantically related word pairs across languages. In this study, we implement a self-organizing neural network model, DevLex–II, to simulate these two types of priming effects across Chinese and English. Specifically, our model incorporates a computational mechanism for simulating spreading activation based on the distance between bilingual words in the semantic space. The model also considers additional factors that modulate priming effects, such as the initial activation level of the prime words and the degree to which the target word can be recognized. Our model reveals differences with respect to the priming effects as a function of bilingual type (early versus late L2 learners), directions of priming (L1 to L2 versus L2 to L1), and types of priming (translation versus semantic priming). These simulated differences are compared with empirical findings from previous studies and discussed in the light of interactive and developmental theories of bilingual lexical representation.

Proficiency modulates early orthographic and phonological processing in L2 spoken word recognition

Abstract: The present study investigated orthographic and phonological processing in L2 French spoken word recognition by Finnish learners of French, using the masked cross-modal priming paradigm Experiment 1 showed a repetition effect in L2 within-language priming that was most pronounced for high proficiency learners and a significant effect for French pseudohomophones In the between-language Experiment 2, high proficiency learners showed significant facilitation from L1 Finnish to L2 French shared orthography in the absence of phonological and semantic overlap This effect was not observed in the lower intermediate group, which showed a significant benefit of L1 pseudohomophones instead The orthographic effect in the high proficiency group was modulated by subjective familiarity showing facilitation for less familiar but not for highly familiar words The results suggest that with L2 learners, the extent to which orthographic information affects L2 spoken word recognition depends on their L2 proficiency

The influence of sentence context and accented speech on lexical access in second-language auditory word recognition

Abstract: Until now, research on bilingual auditory word recognition has been scarce, and although most studies agree that lexical access is language-nonselective, there is less consensus with respect to the influence of potentially constraining factors. The present study investigated the influence of three possible constraints. We tested whether language nonselectivity is restricted by (a) a sentence context in a second language (L2), (b) the semantic constraint of the sentence, and (c) the native language of the speaker. Dutch–English bilinguals completed an English auditory lexical decision task on the last word of low- and high-constraining sentences. Sentences were pronounced by a native Dutch speaker with English as the L2, or by a native English speaker with Dutch as the L2. Interlingual homophones (e.g., lief “sweet” – leaf /liːf/) were always recognized more slowly than control words. The semantic constraint of the sentence and the native accent of the speaker modulated, but did not eliminate interlingual homophone effects. These results are discussed within language-nonselective models of lexical access in bilingual auditory word recognition.

Memory for emotional words in the first and the second language: Effects of the encoding task*

Abstract: Emotional words are better remembered than neutral words in the first language. Ferre, Garcia, Fraga, Sanchez-Casas and Molero (2010) found this emotional effect also for second language words by using an encoding task focused on emotionality. The aim of the present study was to test whether the same effect can also be observed with encoding tasks not related to emotionality, as has been reported in monolinguals. We tested highly proficient bilinguals of Catalan and Spanish that were dominant in one of these two languages. At the encoding phase, we directed their attention to words’ features other than emotionality (participants had to either rate words’ concreteness or count the number of vowels they had). In both cases, we obtained an advantage for emotional words independently of the language in which they appeared. These results suggest that the emotional effect on memory has the same characteristics in the two languages of a bilingual.

Gender in Italian-German Bilinguals: A Comparison with German L2 Learners of Italian.

Abstract: This study compares mastery of gender assignment and agreement in Italian by adult Italian–German bilinguals who have acquired two languages simultaneously (2L1), and by adult German highly proficient second language learners (L2ers) of Italian. Our data show that incompleteness in bilingual acquisition and in second language (L2) acquisition primarily affects gender assignment: the categorization of nouns and the interpretable gender feature are subject to vulnerability in the two modalities of acquisition. Overall, mastery of morpho-syntax (i.e., gender agreement) was nearly native-like for both groups of speakers, suggesting that uninterpretable features are unlikely to be subject to vulnerability in the heritage language of adult bilingual speakers and can be acquired in adult L2 acquisition. Deviances from the target in gender assignment and, to a lesser extent, in gender agreement are attributed to both language-internal (i.e., language) and language-external factors (i.e., amount of input).

Are non-native structural preferences affected by native language preferences?

Abstract: A structural priming experiment investigated whether bilingual speakers’ processing of their non-native language (L2) depends entirely on their experience of L2, or whether it is also affected by their experience of the native language (L1). German-L1 and Spanish-L1 proficient speakers of English (and English-L1 controls) described pictures of dative events after reading unrelated sentences that had a Prepositional Object (PO) or Double Object (DO) structure. Participants in all three groups were more likely to produce DO descriptions after reading DO sentences than PO sentences. Crucially, Spanish-L1 speakers, whose L1 allows PO but not DO structures, showed the same pattern of priming as German-L1 speakers, whose L1 allows both structures. Additionally, the groups showed no difference in their baseline preference for DO structures. We suggest that in proficient bilinguals, processing in L2 is not affected by L1 experience and L1 preferences, and propose a model to account for our findings.

Effect of Multiple Translations and Cognate Status on Translation Recognition Performance of Balanced Bilinguals.

Abstract: When participants are asked to translate an ambiguous word, they are slower and less accurate than in the case of single-translation words (e.g., Laxen & Lavour, 2010; Tokowicz & Kroll, 2007). We report an experiment to further examine this multiple-translation effect by investigating the influence of variables shown to be relevant in bilingual processing. The experiment included cognates and non-cognates with one translation or with multiple translations. The latter were presented with their dominant or subordinate translations. Highly-proficient balanced bilinguals responded to a translation recognition task in the two language directions (Catalan–Spanish and Spanish–Catalan). The results showed a significant multiple-translation effect in both cognates and non-cognates. Moreover, this effect was obtained regardless of language dominance and translation direction. Participants were faster and more accurate when performing translation recognition for the dominant than for the subordinate translations. The findings are interpreted adopting the Distributed Representation Model (de Groot, 1992b).

Verbal memory resources predict iconic gesture use among monolinguals and bilinguals

Abstract: Researchers have speculated that gesture use may be linked to working memory capacity. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the architectures of working memory differ among monolinguals and bilinguals, and to investigate whether individual differences in working memory predict gesture use. Participants relayed a narrative and their gesture production was assessed. Working memory capacity was tested using the Automated Working Memory Assessment (Alloway, 2007). The results provide evidence for different working memory architectures among monolinguals and bilinguals. Additionally, verbal memory significantly predicted iconic gesture use in both language groups, although in slightly different ways. These results are discussed with respect to the functional roles that working memory and gestures serve among monolingual and bilingual populations.