Language in Use

Abstract

In this paper, a radically innovative view is taken on L1 and L2 lexical knowledge. Instead of considering lexical knowledge and the mechanisms necessary to retrieve lexical knowledge as essentially static and linear, this paper explores the view of considering language use as dynamic and non-linear. This paper aims to complement what we can learn about language processing using the traditional linear statistical methods with using non-linear statistical methods. Variability in L1 and L2 language production is looked at on multiple time scales: seconds, hours, days, weeks, months and years. A longitudinal single subject study is presented that took place over a two-year time span. The experiment discussed concerns a repeated word naming experiment in L1 Dutch and L2 English. The response time latencies obtained from this task are analysed using spectral analysis. This technique focuses on dynamic frequency patterns of variability that have thus far been regarded as irrelevant ‘noise’. Looking at the patterns found within the noise shows they fall within the spectrum of ‘pink noise’, a variability pattern that is associated with the degree of automaticity and control in behaviour. Automatic behaviour shows a significantly different pattern of variability – falling within the spectrum of random or white noise – than more controlled behaviour, falling within the spectrum of pink noise. These techniques have in the past already been applied to language processing in monolingual speakers, but are now for the first time applied to the language processing patterns of an advanced bilingual speaker. The results found here indicate that in the multilingual mind, there is a strong interaction between languages. Spectral analysis shows that the variability of lexical productions in L1 and L2 changes as a function of the recent context of episodic use of the other language. The variability patterns after a 7-day period of exclusively using the L1 were reliably different from the patterns found after a 7-day period of exclusively using the L2. The language used most recently showed a much clearer fractal pattern (‘pink noise’) after being used exclusively for 7 days, while at the same time, the language that had not been used had changed toward the more random pattern, reflecting perturbations from the most recently used language. Recent episodic use of either language was thus found to directly influence performance of the other language. In conclusion, not factoring out time when looking at language performance is expected to lead to many new insights to in the field of L1 and L2 language development.