Language switching when writing: The role of phonological and orthographic overlap.

Abstract

While language switching of bilinguals has been investigated extensively in the spoken domain, there has been little research on switching while writing. The factors that impact written language switching may differ from those that impact language switching while speaking. Thus, the study's goal was to test to what extent phonological and/or orthographic overlap impacts written language switching. In four experiments (NExp.1 = 34; NExp. 2 = 57; NExp. 3 = 39; NExp. 4 = 39), German-English bilinguals completed a cued language switching task where responses had to be typed. To-be-named translation-equivalent concepts were selected to be similar phonologically, orthographically or neither. Participants switching between languages while writing was facilitated by both phonological and orthographic overlap. Maximum orthographic overlap between translation-equivalent words with dissimilar pronunciations facilitated switching to the extent that no switch costs could be observed. These results imply that overlapping orthography can strongly facilitate written language switching and that orthography's role should be considered more thoroughly in models of bilingual language production.