A Database of Dutch-English Cognates, Interlingual Homographs and Translation Equivalents.

Eva D Poort,Jennifer M Rodd

doi:10.5334/joc.67

Abstract

To investigate the structure of the bilingual mental lexicon, researchers in the field of bilingualism often use words that exist in multiple languages: cognates (which have the same meaning) and interlingual homographs (which have a different meaning). A high proportion of these studies have investigated language processing in Dutch–English bilinguals. Despite the abundance of research using such materials, few studies exist that have validated such materials. We conducted two rating experiments in which Dutch–English bilinguals rated the meaning, spelling and pronunciation similarity of pairs of Dutch and English words. On the basis of these results, we present a new database of Dutch–English identical cognates (e.g. “wolf”–“wolf”; n = 58), non-identical cognates (e.g. “kat”–“cat”; n = 74), interlingual homographs (e.g. “angel”–“angel”; n = 72) and translation equivalents (e.g. “wortel”–“carrot”; n = 78). The database can be accessed at http://osf.io/tcdxb/.

Highlights

The study of the structure of the bilingual mental lexicon is a core area in the field of bilingualism
Of the 87 interlingual homographs that had been rated in total across both experiments, most had received high ratings as expected for the three aspects
A total of 15 identical interlingual homographs was discarded from the database

Summary

Introduction

The study of the structure of the bilingual mental lexicon is a core area in the field of bilingualism. De Bruijn, Dijkstra, Chwilla, & Schriefers, 2001; De Groot, Delmaar, & Lupker, 2000; Dijkstra, De Bruijn, Schriefers, & Ten Brinke, 2000; Dijkstra et al, 1999; Dijkstra, Van Jaarsveld, & Ten Brinke, 1998; Dijkstra, Timmermans, & Schriefers, 2000; Jared & Szucs, 2002; Kerkhofs, Dijkstra, Chwilla, & De Bruijn, 2006; Lemhöfer & Dijkstra, 2004; Libben & Titone, 2009; Macizo, Bajo, & Cruz Martín, 2010; Poort et al, 2016; Smits, Martensen, Dijkstra, & Sandra, 2006; Titone et al, 2011; Van Heuven, Schriefers, Dijkstra, & Hagoort, 2008; Von Studnitz & Green, 2002), which in counterpoint to cognates do not share their meaning across languages: the word “angel” in English refers to a heavenly being, while in Dutch it refers to the sting of a bee or wasp These items are often compared to control words, or translation equivalents. Translation equivalents share their meaning but not their form: the Dutch word “wortel” is the translation equivalent of the English word “carrot”

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion