Cross‐Linguistic Influence on Word Search in Tip‐of‐the‐Tongue States

Abstract

This study examined the effects of English as a second language (L2) vocabulary on native Spanish speakers’ word searches in Spanish (first language or L1). It analyzed word-finding problems, known as tip-of-thetongue states, in three groups of Spanish native speakers with different proficiency levels in English L2 and explored whether and to what extent English L2 words interact with and influence the retrieval of Spanish L1 words reported to be on the tip of the tongue. A tip-of-the-tongue state (TOT) is a temporary (and often frustrating) word-finding problem in which the speaker is certain that he or she knows the momentarily inaccessible word (the target), feels close to recalling it, and frequently has access to partial attributes of the target (e.g., letters or sounds within it) and/or words that are related in sound or in meaning to it (associates). A speaker in a TOT usually has semantic information about the target and its syntactic specification (word class, etc.); but has not accessed or has only partially accessed the target’s phonology and/or orthography (its form). Psycholinguists have studied this kind of delayed word search in the hope that it will reveal insights into the operating mechanisms of word production. Along with studies on speech errors, TOT studies have helped researchers develop models of speech production that sketch out the main processing levels involved in word production (conceptual/ semantic, syntactic, and phonological levels), their principles of organi-