Language mixing is a common feature of bilingual communication, yet its predictors and effects on children’s vocabulary development remain debated. Most research has been conducted in contexts with clear societal and heritage languages, leaving open questions about language mixing in environments with two societal languages. Montreal provides a unique opportunity to examine this question, as both French and English hold societal status, while many families also maintain heritage languages. Using archival data from 398 bilingual children (7–34 months), we looked at French-English bilinguals (representing societal bilingualism) and heritage-language bilinguals within the same sociolinguistic environment. We assessed the prevalence, predictors, and motivations of parental language mixing and its relationship with vocabulary development. Results revealed that mixing was less frequent among French-English bilinguals compared to heritage-language bilinguals in the same city. The direction of mixing differed between groups: French-English bilinguals mixed based on language dominance, while heritage-language bilinguals mixed based on societal language status. Primary motivations included uncertainty about word meanings, lack of suitable translations, and teaching new words. Mixing showed minimal associations with vocabulary size across participants. These findings suggest that parental mixing practices reflect adaptive strategies that vary by sociolinguistic context rather than detrimental influences on early language acquisition.

Older adults may have weakened connections between words and their sounds/spelling, which affects top-down, but not bottom-up language processes (Burke et al., 1991). Similarly, bilinguals may show weaker connections in the same system because the frequency of input for each language is lower than in monolinguals (Gollan et al., 2008). We studied whether younger and older French-English bilinguals experienced top-down and bottom-up orthographic facilitation during the typed naming of English pictures while ignoring a visual distractor word. Half of the targets were interlingual homographs (e.g., "coin" [French meaning: corner]) and were paired with a semantic distractor ("bill"), a translation-related distractor ("nook") that was (related to) the French meaning of the homograph, or an unrelated distractor ("dust"). The other half were nonhomographs (e.g., "chin") appearing with a semantic ("jaw"), (bottom-up) orthographic ("chip"), or unrelated distractor ("jar"). Top-down orthographic facilitation was measured as the difference in first keystroke latencies between the translation-related and unrelated condition in homographs and bottom-up orthographic facilitation as the difference between the orthographic and unrelated distractor in nonhomographs. We found no top-down orthographic facilitation in either group, whereas bottom-up orthographic facilitation was generally observed. These findings support the idea of weakened connections in bilinguals and old age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Language control has been argued to adapt dynamically to the language context bilinguals are communicating in (Green & Abutalebi, 2013). Previous research has suggested that the demands of the task and current context itself can influence a bilingual's language behaviour and potentially also their language control. Here, we examined how the preceding context, specifically the switching patterns of another bilingual in that context, can influence a bilingual's own language control during production. Across two experiments (Experiment 1: Mandarin-English bilinguals; Experiment 2: English-French bilinguals), participants completed a cued switching task preceded by exposure to another bilingual who was switching frequently or rarely. In Experiment 1, switching costs during production were reduced after exposure to a high-switching bilingual. In Experiment 2, switching costs were also reduced compared to exposure to a low-switching bilingual, but only after hearing within-sentence switches (and not after hearing between-sentence switches). This suggests language control can dynamically adapt to the immediately preceding language context, potentially by the linguistic context updating the speaker's expectations and triggering adaptations in their language control in a top-down manner. However, such adaptations do appear to depend on the nature of the preceding switching context.

A sociophonetic study of creaky voice across language, gender and age in Canadian English-French bilinguals

Abstract Bilingual adults use semantic context to manage cross-language activation while reading. An open question is how lexical, contextual and individual differences simultaneously constrain this process. We used eye-tracking to investigate how 83 French–English bilinguals read L2-English sentences containing interlingual homographs (chat) and control words (pact). Between subjects, sentences biased target language or non-target language meanings (English = conversation; French = feline). Both conditions contained unbiased control sentences. We examined the impact of word- and participant-level factors (cross-language frequency and L2 age of acquisition/AoA and reading entropy, respectively). There were three key results: (1) L2 readers showed global homograph interference in late-stage reading (total reading times) when English sentence contexts biased non-target French homograph meanings; (2) interference increased as homographs’ non-target language frequency increased and L2 AoA decreased; (3) increased reading entropy globally facilitated early-stage reading (gaze durations) in the non-target language bias condition. Thus, cross-language activation during L2 reading is constrained by multiple factors.

ABSTRACT This longitudinal study examined the within- and cross-language contributions of English and French morphological awareness to gains in reading comprehension between Grades 2 and 3 among English-French bilinguals. Canadian children (N = 115; 54% females, Mage in Grade 2 = 7 years, 10 months, SD = 3.6 months, 73% English-L1 children) enrolled in French immersion programs were tested on morphological awareness, word reading, and vocabulary in Grade 2, and reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3 in English and French. Bayesian structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. The within-language findings showed a direct contribution of Grade 2 morphological awareness to gains in reading comprehension in Grade 3 in both English and French. The cross-language findings indicated a language transfer effect from Grade 2 French morphological awareness to Grade 3 English reading comprehension. Grade 2 English morphological awareness did not contribute directly to gains in Grade 3 French reading comprehension. Our research elucidates the interplay between L1 and L2 word-level skills and text comprehension among English-French bilingual children. It has implications for theoretical models of bilingual reading and for instruction of children learning to read in an L2 through immersion education.

ABSTRACT Purpose The dynamic interaction between the two languages of a bilingual (L2) reader is a well-documented phenomenon in psycholinguistic literature on L2 processing . However, the effects of morphological complexity and orthographic transparency on cross-language transfer between similar-script languages remain unclear. The present study intended to address this question using a cross-language complex nonword priming paradigm in a lexical decision task. Methods In a lexical decision task, 101 late L1 French-L2 English bilinguals (42 females, age: M = 31.4, SD = 8.4, range = 18–50) responded to English stem targets (e.g. TREE) preceded by three types of L1 French stimuli: affixed nonwords (e.g. arbreur [treeness], non-affixed nonwords (e.g. arbrux [treew]), or unrelated nonwords (e.g. mondese [worldew]). Participants additionally took the English LexTale test and completed a short version of the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire. Results The results revealed significant cross-language embedded stem priming relative to an unrelated condition. A comparison of the present data with that of the speakers of Turkish, a highly morphological complex agglutinative system, showed that the morphological complexity of bilinguals’ L1 indeed modulates cross-language morphological priming, which was entirely absent in French, a less morphologically complex system. Conclusion This study confirms the presence of cross-language embedded word priming effects in similar-script bilinguals. It also provides the first evidence that cross-linguistic factors impact bilinguals’ ability to process and identify affixes in reading, using cross-language stimuli.

This mixed methods study explores the effects of cumulative exposure, age of onset of acquisition (AO), parent proficiency and richness of the language environment on the grammatical development in French and English of 49 French–English bilingual children who were acquiring the languages either simultaneously (2L1) or successively (cL2). Participants (24 girls) were in 1st grade (M = 6;4, n = 20) or 5th grade (M = 10;4, n = 29), attending a state school in France, in a French–English bilingual programme. Production data come from a narrative task in each language. Parent questionnaires were used to explore environmental factors. Results show, first, that children’s age and parent proficiency were positive predictors of grammatical accuracy in English, while in French only cumulative exposure was a positive predictor. Secondly, exposure showed a stronger relationship with grammatical accuracy in cL2 children; however, only in French, the language in which children made more errors overall. Finally, we found that both 2L1 and cL2 children made gender errors, an early-acquired structure in French. A qualitative analysis of errors with gender highlights, first, the importance of language output for grammatical development, even for children receiving substantial language input and, second, the role of home factors which play a more important role than community language use in shaping grammatical development. This study underscores the complex, interconnected nature of experiential effects on bilingual grammatical development in each language.

Interactions between the context in which a sensorimotor skill is learned and the recall of that memory have been primarily studied in limb movements, but speech production requires movement, and many aspects of speech processing are influenced by task-relevant contextual information. Here, in ecologically valid speech (read sentences), we test whether English-French bilinguals can use the language of production to acquire and recall distinct motor plans for similar speech sounds spanning the production workspace. Participants experienced real-time alterations of auditory feedback while producing interleaved English and French sentences. The alterations were equal in magnitude but opposite in direction between languages. Over three experiments (n=15 in each), we observed language-specific sensorimotor learning in speech that countered the alterations and persisted after the alterations were removed. The effects were not observed in a fourth experiment (n=15) when the feedback alterations were tied to a non-linguistic cue. In a fifth experiment (n=15), we provide further confirmation that the observed language-specific changes in speech production were confined to sentence production, the linguistic level at which they were learned. The results contrast with recent work and theories of second language learning that predict broad interference between L1 and L2 phonetic representations. When faced with contrasting sensorimotor demands between languages, bilinguals readily acquire and recall highly specific motor representations for speech.

Abstract Dual-route models of typing assume two pathways to retrieve a word’s spelling: a direct route connecting word to letter representations, and an indirect route via sound representations. The individual contribution of each route may depend on the modality of language acquisition: the first language (L1) is acquired sequentially in spoken and written modality respectively, whereas the second language (L2) is often acquired simultaneously in both modalities. We investigated whether sequential bilinguals rely more on the direct route during L2 vs. L1 typing. French-English bilinguals performed a typed picture-word interference task in their L1 and L2. We compared facilitation in naming for distractors that were phonologically (P) related, phonologically + orthographically (PO) related, or unrelated to the target. We predicted more facilitation by PO vs. P distractors in the L2 than in the L1. Participants showed significant facilitation by PO distractors, but not by P distractors, suggesting that orthographic overlap (together with phonology) helped retrieving the target spelling, whereas phonological overlap alone did not. The magnitude of this effect was similar across L1 and L2, contrary to our predictions. However, the absence of mere phonological facilitation suggests that phonology only contributes to typing when supported by orthography.

Abstract Cocktail party environments require listeners to tune in to a target voice while ignoring surrounding speakers. This presents unique challenges for bilingual listeners who have familiarity with several languages. Our study recruited English-French bilinguals to listen to a male target speaking French or English, masked by two female voices speaking French, English or Tamil, or by speech-shaped noise, in a fully factorial design. Listeners struggled most with L1 maskers and least with foreign maskers. Critically, this finding held regardless of the target language (L1 or L2) challenging theories about the linguistic component of informational masking, which contrary to our results predicts stronger interference with greater target-to-masker similarity such as L2 vs L2 compared to L2 vs L1. Our findings suggest that the listener’s familiarity with the masker language is an important source of informational masking in multilingual environments.

ABSTRACT This 5-year longitudinal case study contributes to our understanding of how family and space impact children’s bilingual identity construction and agency development. Participants are two French-English bilinguals from contrasting family profiles. Ava was born and raised in France. Her parents’ first language and her dominant home language is English. Victor was born in France. His parents’ first language and his dominant home language is French. His family moved to Australia for 3 years before returning to France when Victor was 5. Ava and Victor, who attend the same bilingual school programme in France, are followed from the beginning to the end of elementary school. Our results show that parents’ investment is critical to children’s attitudes and identity construction. While birthplace and family links to languages and cultures are highlighted, length of time spent in a place is also significant, although it impacts the children differently. Expressions of identity evolve constantly, as reinterpretations of children’s past and present experiences, together with the support of people around them, influence their plural self-concept and agency development.

Abstract This study extends the line of linguistic relativity research by assessing the effect of the French grammatical gender system on French speakers' and learners' perception of objects. Four groups of 140 adults (English monolinguals, French monolinguals, English–French bilinguals and French–English bilinguals; N = 35 each) rated 32 selected objects' gender by assigning them a masculine/feminine voice on a slider. We also assessed the participants' second-language (L2) proficiency. Multilevel modelling results revealed that French monolinguals and English–French bilinguals rated objects' gender in line with the French grammatical gender system. The effect of French on perception was not reduced by acquiring English, as French–English bilinguals performed on par with French monolinguals. Moreover, the effect was independent of L2 proficiency. These findings suggest that learning a gendered L2 affects the perception of objects – thus supporting the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

Humans are remarkably good at understanding spoken language, despite the huge variability of the signal as a function of the talker, the situation, and the environment. This success relies on having access to stable representations based on years of speech input, coupled with the ability to adapt to short-term deviations from these norms, e.g. accented speech or speech altered by ambient noise. In the last two decades, there has been a robust research effort focused on a possible mechanism for adjusting to accented speech. In these studies, listeners typically hear 15 - 20 words in which a speech sound has been altered, creating a short-term deviation from its longer-term representation. After exposure to these items, listeners demonstrate "lexically driven phonetic recalibration"-they alter their categorization of speech sounds, expanding a speech category to take into account the recently heard deviations from their long-term representations. In the current study, we investigate such adjustments by bilingual listeners. French-English bilinguals were first exposed to nonstandard pronunciations of a sound (/s/ or /f/) in one language and tested for recalibration in both languages. Then, the exposure continued with both the original type of mispronunciation in the same language, plus mispronunciations in the other language, in the opposite direction. In a final test, we found simultaneous recalibration in opposite directions for the two languages-listeners shifted their French perception in one direction and their English in the other: Bilinguals can maintain separate adjustments, for the same sounds, when a talker's speech differs across two languages.

British Received Pronunciation is the English accent officially recommended for educational practices in Cameroon although research has shown that it is far-fetched even to English language practitioners (Ngefac 2011). While most Anglophone teachers of English now promote the Cameroon English accent in the classroom, Francophone EFL teachers continue to reject it in favour of native varieties. Interestingly, their efforts to sound native instead lead them to hypercorrection. This phenomenon hinders learners’ fluency in English and the English-French bilingualism policy promoted in the country. The study was carried out from Kachru’s (1985) World Englishes framework and Levis’ (2005) Intelligibility Principle. Drawing from an analysis of the curriculum content designed for the training of EFL and ESL professionals and from a careful observation of classroom practices by Anglophone and Francophone teachers, this paper argues that a decolonization of Francophone EFL teachers’ minds and the replacement of Standard British English by mainstream Cameroon English can significantly enhance the EFL teaching/learning process. Key words: Cameroon, Cameroon English, Received Pronunciation, EFL teaching/learning

Previous research has shown that languages from nearby families are easier to learn as second languages (L2) than languages from more distant families, attributing this difference to the presence of shared elements between the native language (L1) and L2. Building on this idea, we hypothesised that suffixes present in L1 might facilitate complex word acquisition in L2. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 76 late French-English bilinguals and tasked them with learning a set of 80 English-derived words containing suffixes that also exist in French (e.g., -able) or are unique to English (e.g., -ness). Consolidation of the learned words was assessed 1 week after the last learning session. The results showed a significant learning effect across the learning trials and consolidation, suggesting that the bilingual participants were able to acquire the derived words. However, contrary to our hypothesis, suffixes also existing in French did not give a significant advantage over English-unique suffixes. Further analysis revealed that this was due to variations in the consistency of familiar suffixes from L1. While some translation pairs shared the same suffix (e.g., amazement-étonnement), others had different suffixes (e.g., slippage-glissement). The type of translation pair with inconsistent suffix overlap (slippage-glissement) carried learning costs, preventing the bilingual participants from benefitting from the presence of familiar suffixes in L2 words. These findings suggest that shared information can be used effectively for L2 learning only if the mapping between L1 and L2 is consistent.

Purpose: New Brunswick, Canada, established its English-French Official Languages Act (OLA) in 1969 to promote linguistic equality for historically minoritized Francophones, premised on a language-as-right ideology. The OLA has been presented to Anglophones, however, as creating access to English-French bilingualism for various kinds of capital through a neoliberal language-as-resource ideology. In this context of conflicting ideologies, we wondered about the perspective of French immersion (FI) educators – the interface between policy and practice – regarding the purposes of bilingualism. We frame our question within Bakhtin’s notion of ideological becoming, asking: As potential mediators of their students’ ideological becoming, what are the perspectives of FI teachers and principals regarding the purposes of bilingualism? Design/data: We examine nine principals’ and 17 FI teachers’ discourse in semi-structured interviews conducted in New Brunswick. Data were analysed using constructivist grounded theory procedures, and further categorized according to Bourdieu’s constructs of capital. Findings: Our analysis indicates the dialogic nature of ideological becoming. On the one hand, authoritative neoliberal ideologies dominate the educators’ discourse regarding the purposes of bilingualism for their students. There was little attention to a socially-situated view of bilingualism enacted in a variety of communities of practice. On the other hand, we also note evidence of resistance against and distancing from this dominant ideology in educators’ own ideological becoming regarding bilingualism’s purposes for themselves. Originality: Bakhtin’s theory of ideological becoming provides a way to consider the entangled workings of ideology within language education for both educators and students. Implications: We thus propose professional development for educators to understand their own ideological becoming and develop students’ ideological becoming and their identities as bi/multilingual speakers.

Canada’s social and educational policies have always involved immigrant settlement and English-French bilingualism. Research on writing in second languages emerged in the 1980s from graduate programs of education and applied linguistics at major universities in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver, particularly scholars investigating cognitive and learning processes and rhetorical characteristics of writing in English as a mother tongue. In the 1990s several Canadian scholars established systematic programs of research focused on L2 composing processes, writing for academic purposes, assessment, and innovative educational programs— spawning, in turn, in the 2000s a third generation of L2 writing researchers who have now established themselves across Canada and around the world.

Abstract Bilinguals often have a harder time accessing words for production than monolinguals, perhaps because they have less exposure to words from each language (the weaker-links hypothesis). This research on lexical access mostly comes from studies of words in isolation. The purpose of the present study was to test whether bilinguals also show greater lexical access difficulties than monolinguals when telling a story. In the context of a narrative, we predicted that bilinguals would produce fewer different words and words of higher frequency than monolinguals, in order to make lexical access easier. For the same reason, we also predicted that bilinguals would use more cognates than monolinguals. English monolinguals, French monolinguals, and highly proficient French-English bilinguals watched a cartoon and told the story back. We coded the words they used for frequency and cognate status. In English, the results showed little difference between bilinguals and monolinguals on word frequency and cognate status. In French, first-language-English bilinguals used higher frequency words than first-language-French bilinguals. These results support predictions from the weaker-links hypothesis in lexical access for storytelling, albeit only for French.

Bilinguals need to learn two words for most concepts. These words are called translation equivalents, and those that also sound similar (e.g., banana-banane) are called cognates. Research has consistently shown that children and adults process and name cognates more easily than non-cognates. The present study explored if there is such an advantage for cognate production in bilinguals' early vocabulary development. Longitudinal expressive vocabulary data were collected from 47 English-French bilinguals starting at 16-20 months up to 27 months (a total of 219 monthly administrations in both English and French). Children produced a greater proportion of cognates than non-cognates, and the interval between producing a word and its translation equivalent was about 10-15 days shorter for cognates than for non-cognates. The findings suggest that cognate learning is facilitated in early bilingual vocabulary development, such that phonological overlap supports bilinguals in learning phonologically similar words across their two languages.