Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2020

Although formal analyses of code-switching have enjoyed some success in determining which structures and interfaces are more fertile environments for switches than others, research exposing recalcitrant counter-examples to proposed constraints and axioms responsible for governing code-switching is abound. We advance the claim here that sub-optimal representations, i.e., losers, stand to reveal important information regarding the interaction of grammatical principles and processing strategies of bilingual speakers and that any comprehensive analysis of code-switching phenomena should include them. These losers are the result of gradient activation in both input and output forms. We demonstrate how the formalism Gradient Symbolic Computation (GSC; Smolensky et al., 2014) can account for both of these observed facets of bilingual grammars in a unified manner. Building upon the work of Goldrick et al. (2016a,b), we provide an analysis of mixed determiner phrases (DPs) as an example of the fundamental components of a GSC-analysis.

This study opens a window into the mapping of the lexical structure of bilinguals as they reach intermediate-level L2 proficiency. A group of 32 Persian-speaking English learners participated in a translation recognition task, where they had to decide whether the sequentially presented English-Persian word pairs were translation equivalents. The Persian words in the experimental trials were not translation equivalents, but they either shared lexical or semantic features with the correct translations or shared phonological features with the preceding English words. For example, the Persian word /bɒːzuː/ in the word pair arm – /bɒːzuː/ was manipulated to create three categories of ‘no’ trials: (a) orthographically related to the translation equivalent (arm – /bɒːziː/ ‘game’), (b) semantically related to the translation equivalent (arm – /ʃɒːne/ ‘shoulder’), (c) phonologically related to the English word (arm – /ɒːrmɒːn/ ‘goal’). A significant interference effect was observed in response to the items in the first two categories, which indicates extensive utilization of both lexical and conceptual links in backward translation. However, the observed interference effect in the third category did not reach statistical significance, which calls into question the integrated activation of L1 and L2 prior to high level L2 proficiency. These results are discussed within the context of the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) and the Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus model (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002).

This study investigates processing of passive and active constructions between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) of English using traditional on-line mechanisms such as response time in conjunction with techniques that capitalize on the parallel activation of distributed mental representations during online syntactic processing. In the current study, hand motions captured by a mouse-tracking system were used to index listeners’ cognitive processes while making commitments to different choice alternatives during the processing of English passive and active structures. During data collection, 57 NNS and 43 NS carried out an aural forced-choice picture identification task. Data analysis indicated differences and similarities between NS and NNS participants such that NS participants are faster at responding to passive and active stimuli, travel less distance, and make fewer directional changes when compared to NNS participants. However, all participants showed similar trends for passive processing, suggesting comparable difficulties in processing passive constructions.

The goal of this article is to contribute to the literature on heritage speaker bilingualism by weighing in on the current debate regarding the source(s) of heritage speaker linguistic differences. Focusing on Spanish dative experiencers -gustar-like verbs-, I report on production and comprehension data from heritage speaker children and adults, from monolingual children and adults, as well as from adult bilingual immigrants. The results show (i) comprehension differences from expected outcomes for all heritage groups but not for the adult monolingual and bilingual control groups, and (ii) significant variation in the adult bilingual immigrant group’s production of the dative marker ‘a’ in obligatory contexts. I posit that this variation is at least in part responsible for the heritage speaker outcomes observed.

Three experiments investigated the phonological preparation unit in planning English spoken words, comparing English monolinguals, native Chinese and Japanese-speakers who spoke English as their second language. All three groups named pictures in English, and the names could either share the same initial phoneme, mora, or syllable, or had no systematic commonality. A phoneme preparation effect was shown among English monolinguals but not among the two bilingual groups, suggesting that the phoneme is the phonological preparation unit for English monolinguals, but not for the two bilingual groups. All three groups showed mora and syllable preparation effects, but further analysis and a follow-up experiment suggested that Chinese-English bilinguals may treat morae as open syllables. English monolinguals showed similar phoneme and mora preparation effect sizes, possibly as a result of flexibility. Together, the selection of phonological preparation could be flexible, influenced by both the nature of the target language and speakers’ language experiences.