Abstract
Lexical access in bilinguals has been considered either selective or non-selective and evidence exists in favor of both hypotheses. We conducted a linguistic experiment to assess whether a bilingual’s language mode influences the processing of first language information. We recorded event related potentials during a semantic priming paradigm with a covert manipulation of the second language (L2) using two types of stimulus presentations (short and long). We observed a significant facilitation of word pairs related in L2 in the short version reflected by a decrease in N400 amplitude in response to target words related to the English meaning of an inter-lingual homograph (homograph-unrelated group). This was absent in the long version, as the N400 amplitude for this group was similar to the one for the control-unrelated group. We also interviewed the participants whether they were aware of the importance of L2 in the experiment. We conclude that subjects participating in the long and short versions were in different language modes: closer to monolingual mode for the long and closer to bilingual mode for the short version; and that awareness about covert manipulation of L2 can influence the language mode, which in its turn influences the processing of the first language.
Highlights
One no longer needs to be perfect in two languages or to have acquired those languages in early childhood to be called bilingual
Statistical analysis was performed in R version 3.1.2 [46] using the Imer4 and ImerTest packages [47]. For both the long and short versions, after the main part of the experiment and before introducing the English block, we asked our subjects about their general perception of the experiment and if they noticed some linguistic manipulation that was not mentioned in the instructions
There were three subjects that did not notice the existence of word pairs associated in English; we excluded them from the analysis
Summary
One no longer needs to be perfect in two languages or to have acquired those languages in early childhood to be called bilingual. According to the currently most adopted definition, any person who uses more than one language on a daily basis can be considered bilingual [1]: neither proficiency level nor language domain (reading, listening, writing, speaking) is specified. Even if a person communicates mainly in one language (mother tongue), it is not uncommon that the main source of reading is in another language. That person still can be considered bilingual due to the daily use of two languages. When person prefers one of the languages over the other he/she is regarded as an unbalanced or dominant bilingual. The preferable language is the mother tongue. As over 50% of the world’s population can be regarded bilingual, with the great majority being unbalanced, an increased interest is PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0167194. As over 50% of the world’s population can be regarded bilingual, with the great majority being unbalanced, an increased interest is PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0167194 November 28, 2016
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