English Target Words Research Articles

Monitoring English Sandhi Linking – A Study of Polish Listeners’ L2 Perception

This paper presents a set of word monitoring experiments with Polish learners of English. Listeners heard short recordings of native English speech, and were instructed to respond when they recognized an English target word that had been presented on a computer screen. Owing to phonological considerations, we compared reaction times to two types of vowel-initial words, which had been produced either with glottalization, or had been joined via sandhi linking processes to the preceding word. Results showed that the effects of the glottalization as a boundary cue were less robust than expected. Implications of these findings for models of L2 speech are discussed. It is suggested that the prevalence of glottalization in L1 production makes listeners less sensitive to its effects as a boundary cue in L2.

Cross-script phonological priming with Japanese Kanji primes and English targets

Two experiments investigated whether Japanese–English bilinguals have integrated phonological stores for their two languages using a masked phonological priming task with Japanese Kanji (logographic) primes and English targets. In both experiments, lexical decisions for English target words were facilitated by phonologically similar Kanji primes. Furthermore, the size of the phonological priming effect was uninfluenced by the participants' English proficiency or target word frequency, which suggests that the priming effect arose from feedback from sublexical phonological representations to lexical orthographic representations. Because of the orthographic and phonological differences between Japanese and English, these findings provide particularly strong support for the Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA+) model's assumption that representations are integrated across languages.

The role of bilingualism and musicianship on performance in a masked speech detection task

Listening to an individual talker in the presence of multiple speakers is one of the most difficult auditory situations listeners encounter. Past research has shown that musicians and bilinguals have more robust neural responses to a target in a competing speech background compared to non-musicians and monolinguals, perhaps due to enhanced processing of fundamental frequency. In this study, a simple speech detection paradigm was used to minimize the effect of language comprehension while studying behavioral performance on a speech-masking task. Four groups of listeners detected English target words in the presence of two-talker babble, where all speakers were female. The task was conducted in spatial and non-spatial configurations to address conditions with low and high informational masking, respectively. The four groups tested were musicians, non-musician Asian tonal bilinguals, non-musician Spanish bilinguals, and non-musician English monolinguals. Results show that all subject groups experienced a significant release from masking in the spatial condition relative to the non-spatial condition. Musicians outperformed non-musicians in the non-spatial condition (high informational masking), but not in the spatial condition where energetic masking was presumed to dominate. Differences between the two bilingual groups and the monolingual group will be discussed. [Work supported by NIDCD 01625.]

A Word Sense Disambiguation Approach for English-Thai Translation

This paper proposes a novel approach for word sense disambiguation (WSD) in English to Thai. The approach generated a knowledge base which stored information of local context and then applied this information to analyze probabilities of several meanings of a target word. The meanings with the maximum probability are translated as Thai meaning of that English target word. The approach has been evaluated by analyzing the percentage of accuracy of the target word translation in each paper. It also compared the accuracy with Google translation. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach is more accuracy than Google Translation by using paired T-test statistic equals to 6.628 with sig. = 0.00 (< 0.05)

The Roles of Semantic and Phonological Information in Word Production: Evidence from Spanish–English Bilinguals

The research investigated the roles of semantic and phonological processing in word production. Spanish-English bilingual individuals produced English target words when cued with definitions that were also written in English. When the correct word was not produced, a secondary task was performed in which participants rated the ease of pronunciation of a Spanish prime word. We varied the relatedness between target and prime words. In related conditions, the target and prime words were cognates (i.e., similar in meaning and sound), false cognates (i.e., similar in sound, but different in meaning), or noncognates (i.e., similar in meaning, but different in sound). In unrelated conditions, target and primes were dissimilar in sound and meaning. The results showed that participants' performance was influenced by semantic as well as phonological information. These results provided evidence that semantic as well as phonological information can influence word production, as is predicted by memory models in which representations for semantic and phonological levels of representation are interconnected.

Semantic processing in native and second language: Evidence from hemispheric differences in fine and coarse semantic coding

Previous studies suggest that whereas the left hemisphere (LH) is involved in fine semantic processing, the right hemisphere (RH) is uniquely engaged in coarse semantic coding including the comprehension of distinct types of language such as figurative language, lexical ambiguity and verbal humor (e.g., Chiarello, 2003; Faust, 2012). The present study examined the patterns of hemispheric involvement in fine/coarse semantic processing in native and non-native languages using a split visual field priming paradigm. Thirty native Hebrew speaking students made lexical decision judgments of Hebrew and English target words preceded by strongly, weakly, or unrelated primes. Results indicated that whereas for Hebrew pairs, priming effect for the weakly-related word pairs was obtained only for RH presented target words, for English pairs, no priming effect for the weakly-related pairs emerged for either LH or RH presented targets, suggesting that coarse semantic coding is much weaker for a non-native than native language.

Tonal adaptation of English loanwords in Mandarin: The role of perception and factors of characters

The present study investigates the role of orthography and perceptual similarity between the English stress and the Mandarin tone during the borrowing process of English words among Taiwanese Mandarin speakers. We had 7 Mandarin speakers transliterate 40 unfamiliar disyllabic US city names using Chinese characters. Based on the results, we created 28 stimuli consisting of possible Chinese borrowings and the target English word for AXB identification tasks. Then, we had the subjects choose the more similar Chinese form to an English target word after the auditory presentation of the stimuli, first without and second with written representations of the stimuli on different days. The transliteration results indicate that a stressed syllable is usually adapted with tones with a high pitch. The AXB task results show a character frequency and a semantics override perceptual similarity; when the adapted forms include characters used infrequently or with negative meanings, another form is chosen despite the fact that it is not the most perceptually similar form. The findings suggest that perceptual similarity mapping takes place first and other factors, such as semantics or the character frequency, come into play when the output contains an infrequently-used or semantically-negative character in tonal adaptation.

The effects of repetition and L1 lexicalization on incidental vocabulary acquisition by Iranian EFL Learners

Based on a prior study by Chen and Truscott, the present study investigated the possible effects of repetition (repeated exposure) and L1 lexicalization on the incidental acquisition and retention of 10 English target words by 90 Persian-speaking EFL learners at an Iranian university. Seven aspects of vocabulary knowledge were measured, including receptive and productive knowledge of orthography, parts of speech, association and meaning. Results showed that, in general, increasing the number of exposures to target words (from one to three or seven) had a positive effect on incidental acquisition. However, there were significant differences in the gains observed for different aspects of vocabulary knowledge both immediately and after two weeks. Non-lexicalized words also appeared to cause learning difficulty mainly in semantic aspects of vocabulary knowledge. The findings of this study are discussed and pedagogical implications are highlighted for language teachers and learners.

Fast Automatic Translation and Morphological Decomposition in Chinese-English Bilinguals

In this study, we investigated automatic translation from English to Chinese and subsequent morphological decomposition of translated Chinese compounds. In two lexical decision tasks, Chinese-English bilinguals responded to English target words that were preceded by masked unrelated primes presented for 59 ms. Unbeknownst to participants, the Chinese translations of the words in each critical pair consisted of a fully opaque compound word (i.e., a compound with two constituent morphemes that were semantically unrelated to the compound) and a monomorphemic word that was either the first or the second morpheme of the compound. The data revealed that bilinguals responded faster to English word pairs whose Chinese translations repeated the first morpheme than to English word pairs whose Chinese translations did not repeat the first morpheme, but no effect of hidden second-morpheme repetition was found. This effect of hidden first-morpheme repetition suggests that participants translated English words to Chinese and decomposed the translated compounds into their constituent morphemes. Because the primes were presented for only 59 ms, translation and morphological decomposition must be fast and automatic.

Cognate effects in bilingual language comprehension tasks

We examined cognate effects when late fluent Spanish/English bilingual speakers undergoing event-related potential recordings performed two tasks on word pairs. In an association decision task, participants decided whether or not pairs of Spanish words were related in meaning. In a translation decision task, they reported whether English target words were correct translations of Spanish primes. In both the tasks, word primes were either cognates or noncognates. In the translation decision task, faster and more accurate responses were associated with reduced N400 amplitudes in word pairs featuring a cognate. However, cognates did not modulate performance or event-related potentials in the association decision task. The results suggest that language coactivation in bilingual speakers is modulated by cognitive context.

Looking for phoneme-level inhibition in spoken word recognition using auditory lexical decision.

The TRACE model of spoken word recognition [McClelland & Elman (1986)] contains phoneme-level inhibition while the MERGE model [Norris et al. (2000)] does not include active competition between phonemes. Previous work found evidence for facilitation at the phoneme level and competition at the lexical level, but little research has been conducted looking for the existence of inhibition between phonemes. Using an auditory lexical decision task, the current study looks for phoneme-level inhibition by giving participants English target words preceded by isolated English sounds as primes. There are three conditions depending on how related the prime sound is to the final phoneme of the target word: identical (e.g., [s] before “gas”), similar (e.g., [s] before “cash”), and unrelated (e.g., [m] before gas). Facilitation, or faster average reaction times (RTs), is expected in the identical condition relative to the baseline unrelated condition. If facilitation is also found in the similar condition, the results will provide evidence against phoneme-level inhibition, supporting an approach with gradient activation of phonemes. However, if the average RT for the similar condition is greater than or equal to that of the unrelated condition, the results will support models of spoken word recognition containing phoneme-level inhibition.

An electrophysiological investigation of cross-language effects of orthographic neighborhood

In Experiment 1 ERPs were recorded while French–English bilinguals read pure language lists of French and English words that differed in terms of the number of orthographic neighbors (many or few) they had in the other language. That is the number of French neighbors for English target words was varied and the number of English neighbors for French target words was varied. These participants showed effects of cross-language neighborhood size in the N400 ERP component that arose earlier and were more widely distributed for English (L2) target words than French (L1) targets. In a control experiment that served to demonstrate that these effects were not due to any other uncontrolled for item effects, monolingual L1 English participants read only the list of English targets that varied in the number of French (an unknown L) neighbors. These participants showed a very different pattern of effects of cross-language neighbors. These results provide further crucial evidence showing cross-language permeability in bilingual word recognition, a phenomena that was predicted and correctly simulated by the bilingual interactive-activation model (BIA+).

Cross-language mediated priming: Effects of context and lexical relationship

We examined how linguistic context influences the nature of bilingual lexical activation. We hypothesized that in single-word context, form-related words would receive the strongest activation while, in sentence context, semantically related words would receive the strongest activation. Spanish–English bilinguals performed a semantic verification task on English target words preceded by a prime. On critical trials, the prime and target words were paired based either on a form-mediated relationship through the native language (L1), [e.g., bark (barco): BOAT] (Experiment 1) or on a semantically-mediated relationship [e.g., boat (barco): BARK] (Experiment 2). The prime word was presented either in isolation or after a sentence context. In Experiment 1 interference was observed in the single word condition only. In Experiment 2 interference was observed in both single-word and sentence contexts. The findings demonstrate that the context in which words are embedded has an impact on the type of lexical competitors that become active.

Eye movements and the activation of native words in non-native spoken-word recognition

Using the eye-tracking paradigm, this study explored the recognition of non-native spoken words. In particular, it focused on whether listeners activate native candidate words during the recognition of non-native words. Dutch participants followed spoken instructions in English to click on pictures using a computer mouse, while their eye movements were monitored. A target picture (e.g., the picture of a desk) was presented along with distractor pictures. The Dutch name of a distractor picture was either phonologically related to the English name of the target picture (e.g., English target desk /dEsk/ and Dutch competitor deksel, ‘‘lid,’’ /dEks@l/) or it was phonologically unrelated (e.g., bloem, ‘‘flower’’ or schommel, ‘‘swing’’). Eye movements to a picture were interpreted as evidence for activation of the lexical representation associated with this picture. As the English target word unfolded over time, participants fixated distractor pictures with phonologically related Dutch names more than distractor pictures with phonologically unrelated names. The results demonstrate that listeners consider candidate words of the native language for recognition of a non-native word. Listeners are not able to deactivate the native mental lexicon even when they are in a monolingual non-native situation where the native language is irrelevant and possibly even misleading. [Work supported by MPI for Psycholinguistics.]

Do Bilinguals Activate Phonological Representations in One or Both of Their Languages When Naming Words?

Four experiments investigated whether bilinguals activate spelling-to-sound correspondences in a nontarget language during word naming by examining whether the existence of word-body neighbors in the nontarget language impairs naming of the target language. Both English–French and French–English bilinguals were tested. In each experiment participants named a block of English experimental words, a block of French filler words, and then a second block of English experimental words. Results indicated that spelling–sound correspondences from both languages could be activated simultaneously, but whether they were depended on whether bilinguals were naming words in their dominant or less dominant language, whether English target words were named before or after the French filler words, and participants' fluency and experience with French.

Orthographic Neighborhood Effects in Bilingual Word Recognition

A series of progressive demasking and lexical decision experiments investigated how the recognition of target words exclusively belonging to one language is affected by the existence of orthographic neighbors from the same or the other language of bilingual participants. Increasing the number of orthographic neighbors in Dutch systematically slowed response times to English target words in Dutch/English bilinguals, while an increase in target language neighbors consistently produced inhibitory effects for Dutch and facilitatory effects for English target words. Monolingual English speakers also showed facilitation due to English neighbors, but no effect of Dutch neighbors. The experiments provide evidence for parallel activation of words in an integrated Dutch/English lexicon. An implemented version of such a model making these assumptions, the Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA) model, is shown to account for the overall pattern of results.