Visual recognition of cognates and interlingual homographs in two non-native languages

Abstract

Abstract Previous studies on bilingual visual word recognition have been mainly based on European participants, while less is understood about Asian populations. In this study, the recognition of German-English cognates and interlingual homographs in lexical decision tasks was examined in the two non-native languages of Cantonese-English-German trilinguals. In the L2 English task, cognates were reacted to faster and more accurately than their matched non-cognates, while in the equivalent L3 German task, no cognate facilitation effect was found. However, cognate facilitation effects on response time and accuracy were observed in another L3 German task including cognates and interlingual homographs. The study suggests that Asian trilinguals access L2 and L3 in a language non-selective manner, despite their low proficiency in the recently acquired L3. Meanwhile, lexical processing in a non-proficient L3 is to a great extent affected by multiple contextual factors.