Abstract
Subjective experience suggests that using one’s second language (L2) becomes easier after an initial period of adjustment. We report the results of an experiment suggesting that even a brief period of L2 use can facilitate subsequent retrieval. Native Hebrew speakers completed letter and category verbal fluency tasks in English. In a subsequent experimental session, participants performed a short comprehension or production task, either in Hebrew (L1) or in English (L2), and then completed an additional round of the English fluency tasks. English use resulted in a reliable improvement in letter fluency, associated with executive functioning. However, there was no reliable improvement in category fluency, associated with lexical knowledge. No reliable improvement in the fluency tasks was observed following Hebrew use. Results suggest that even a brief period of L2 use can facilitate retrieval, by increasing the relative activation of L2. Furthermore, improvement did not result from priming specific lexical items, suggesting increased relative activation affects the L2 lexicon as a whole.
Highlights
Individuals who need to use their second language (L2) often report feeling that L2 use becomes less effortful and more fluent after an initial period of adjustment
An increase in the relative activation of L2 may stem from inhibitory mechanisms operating to reduce the activation level of Warming Up the Language Engines the dominant first language (L1)
Overall results suggest that even short-term L2 use significantly increased letter verbal fluency
Summary
Individuals who need to use their second language (L2) often report feeling that L2 use becomes less effortful and more fluent after an initial period of adjustment. Control processes may operate globally, pertaining to the lexicon as a whole (cf Meuter, 2005 for a discussion) In this case, inhibition may be evident even in a context that does not require constant language switching (see Guo et al, 2011; Misra et al, 2012). The present study was aimed at investigating whether there is a benefit to L2 fluency, in particular L2 lexical retrieval, from a relatively brief period of L2 use For this purpose, we examined the effect of a short-term use of English by native Hebrew speakers on subsequent English verbal fluency. An increase in the relative activation of English may reduce the load on executive processes on a subsequent letter fluency task, resulting in better lexical retrieval. Given that the fluency tasks require word production, it may be that actual L2 production, that involves practicing retrieval of the word’s phonological form, is essential for increased fluency
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