Lexical Access in Spanish as a First and Second Language

Abstract

Bilingualism plays an increasingly important role in contemporary society. Since the twentieth century, globalization has helped to open linguistic frontiers and increase the contact betweendifferent languages and cultures.As a result, knowing several foreign languages is often an absolute necessity. For many educational institutions it has become important to adopt appropriate language-teaching programs, and more and more parents have to make decisions concerning the linguistic education of their children (how many languages can and should be learned simultaneously in infancy, when the learning of foreign languages should start, etc.). Crucially, resolving such issues of both social and personal significance hinges on a thorough knowledge of what, linguistically and cognitively, being a bilingual involves, thus highlighting the need for sustained research into the different facets of bilingualism. The issues largely defining bilingual cognitive research revolve around the coexistence of two languages in the linguistic system of individuals. More specifically, researchers have wondered how the two languages interact with each other during language use, what the consequences of such interaction are for linguistic performance, and how bilinguals manage to control their language use so as to avoid interference from a nonintended language. Albeit to date our understanding of these issues remains relatively poor, some significant advances have beenmade in recent years. An important role in this research has been played by populations speaking Spanish as a first or second language, given the presence of large