@article{jbp:/content/journals/10.1075/eurosla.12.10bri, author = "Brien, Christie and Sabourin, Laura L.", title = "Second language effects on ambiguity resolution in the first language", journal= "EUROSLA Yearbook", year = "2012", volume = "12", number = "1", pages = "191-217", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1075/eurosla.12.10bri", url = "https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/eurosla.12.10bri", publisher = "John Benjamins", issn = "1568-1491", type = "Journal Article", abstract = "The processing of homonyms is complex considering homonyms have many lexical properties. For instance, train contains semantic (a locomotive/to instruct) and syntactic (noun/verb) properties, each affecting interpretation. Previous studies find homonym processing influenced by lexical frequency (Duffy et al. 1988) as well as syntactic and semantic context (Folk & Morris 2003; Swinney 1979; Tanenhaus et al. 1979). This cross-modal lexical-decision study investigates second language (L2) effects on homonym processing in the first language (L1). Participants were monolingual English speakers and Canadian English/French bilinguals who acquired L2 French at distinct periods. The early bilinguals revealed no significant differences compared to monolinguals (p = .219) supporting the Reordered Access Model (Duffy et al. 1988). However, the late bilinguals revealed longer reaction times, syntactic priming effects (p < .001), and lexical frequency effects (p < .001), suggesting a heightened sensitivity to surface cues influencing homonym processing in the L1 due to a newly-acquired L2 (Cook 2003).", }