Interlingual Homophones Research Articles

Bidialectal acoustic realization of tones is influenced by dialect experience and homophone status

While evidence shows that interlingual cognates can enhance cross-language phonetic assimilation in production, it is reasonable to assume that interlingual homophones can enhance cross-language phonological interference. Distinct from cognates, interlingual homophones do not share semantic content, which may affect the degree of co-activation observed across languages. The present study examines this hypothesis in a group of bidialectal speakers, whose lexicon consists of a large number of inter-dialectal homophones. Productions of Chengdu Mandarin tones by Chengdu Mandarin and Standard Mandarin speakers were examined in a word naming task. The results showed that bidialectal speakers’ native tone productions were influenced by their experience in speaking Standard Mandarin as well as the inter-dialectal homophone status of the lexical item. Additionally, both of these influences were modulated by the structure of the inter-dialect tone categories. The findings support the similarity between bidialectal and bilingual speech processing and provide novel evidence for bilingual speech models from the level of suprasegmental processing.

Auditory processing of interlingual homophones: an fNIRS investigation

ABSTRACT To examine the neural dynamics of interlingual homophone (ILHP) word processing, we created a word list consisting of Turkish control and Turkish/English ILHP words and asked native Turkish speakers to perform one of the following tasks while their prefrontal activity was recorded with fNIRS: passive listening; word recognition; word memorisation. We found that left DLPFC was active during all tasks. The right DLPFC activity was increased during ILHP word recognition task possibly due to domain-general control networks for conflict monitoring, while the left DLPFC activity was increased for ILHP word memorisation task possibly due to the working memory related processes. These findings suggest that ILHP processing induce a competition between languages in the brain, supporting the BIA+ model and that right DLPFC could be part of the task/decision system of BIA+ model. Lastly, current findings suggest that task requirements can modulate the location and the magnitude of the brain activity.

Different effects of L1 and L2 phonology on L3 lexical learning: An ERP study

This study investigated the influence of phonological word representations from both first language (L1) and second language (L2) on third language (L3) lexical learning in L1-dominant Spanish–English bilinguals. More specifically, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine whether L1 Spanish and L2 English phonology modulates bilinguals’ brain response to newly learned L3 Slovak words, some of which had substantial phonological overlap with either L1 or L2 words (interlingual homophones) in comparison to matched control words with little or no phonological overlap. ERPs were recorded from a group of 20 Spanish–English bilinguals in response to 120 auditory Slovak words, both before and after a three-day-long learning period during which they associated the L3 Slovak novel words with their L1 Spanish translations. Behaviorally, both L1 Spanish and L2 English homophony facilitated the learning of L3 Slovak words in a similar manner. In contrast, the electrophysiological results of the post-training ERPs, but not the pre-training ERPs, showed an N100 effect for L2 English interlingual homophones and opposite N400 effects for L1 Spanish and L2 English interlingual homophones in comparison to control words. These findings suggest different neurocognitive mechanisms in the use of L1 and L2 phonological information when learning novel words in an L3.

INDICATIVE ACCUMULATION IN THE HOLY QUR’AN

The research dealt with the most essential linguistic and expressive issues that contributed to this great Qur’an being summarized in its apparent phrases, abundant in its latent connotations, deep in its aims and objectives, and as a result it led to this amount of moral accumulation in its short glorious texts; Exemplified by the manifestations of miraculous expansion that no human being can encircle, no matter what he takes from the point of view and knowledge. Starting from (interlingual homophones Homonyms), passing through the phenomena (Qur’anic recitations), and ending with the phenomenon (metaphor); And that is through rapid tourism between the artifacts of those phenomena, and getting acquainted with their jurisprudence and the field of function , and the secrets contained under each of them, and the benefits and merits they added to the Holy text.

Interlingual Homophone Retrieval in Typical Malayalam - Hindi Bilinguals

Inter-lingual homophones are words that have similar pronunciation but different meanings across languages. The processing of this may vary with languages. Few studies in Indian languages have been attempted (Maitreyee and Goswami in Kannada-Hindi, Rajalekshmi, Kumaraswamy and Rao Hindi-English, Vinodhini and Ramya Tamil-English) in accordance with this. The aim of the present study was to investigate the language of dominance and its pattern in Malayalam –Hindi bilinguals using interlingual homophones. Twenty native speakers of Malayalam and 20 non- native Malayalam speakers participated who were graduate students. A non-standardized list of 20 paired- words was formed as a stimuli. Words belonging to both the languages (Malayalam and Hindi), having the pronunciation but different meaning were selected for the study. The findings of the present study suggested that one can perform better in first language (L1) without the interference of the other (L2) effectively, giving the picture oftwo separate lexicons for both the languages. They show a selective lexical-access (i.e., only one language is stimulated at a time) and this is in accordance with the earlier findings.

Early activation of cross-language meaning from phonology during sentence processing.

The current study investigated whether shared phonology across languages activates cross-language meaning when reading in context. Eighty-five bilinguals read English sentences while their eye movements were tracked. Critical sentences contained English members of English-French interlingual homophone pairs (e.g., mow; French homophone mate mot means "word") or they contained spelling control words (e.g., mop). Only the meaning of the unseen French homophone mate fit the context (e.g., Hannah wrote another mow/mop on the blackboard for the spelling test). Differences in fixation durations between homophone errors and spelling control errors provided evidence for cross-language activation that extended to semantic representations. When the unseen French homophone was of high frequency, shorter first fixations and gaze durations were observed on English interlingual homophones than on English control words, providing evidence that the French meaning associated with the shared phonology was activated during early stage word identification. Individual differences analyses showed that these effects were larger when bilinguals were using the nontarget language (i.e., French) more regularly in daily life. Results provide evidence that cross-language activation of phonology can be sufficiently strong to activate corresponding semantic representations during single language sentence processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Language selective or non-selective in bilingual lexical access? It depends on lexical tones!

Much of the literature surrounding bilingual spoken word recognition is based on bilinguals of non-tonal languages. In the Mandarin spoken word recognition literature, lexical tones are often considered as equally important as segments in lexical processing. It is unclear whether and how lexical tones contribute to bilingual language processing. One recent study demonstrates that tonal bilinguals require the availability of both tonal and segmental information to induce cross-language lexical competition during bilingual lexical access, even without phonological overlap between the target and non-target language. The current study investigates whether overt phonological overlap between the target and non-target language would equally require both tonal and segmental information available to induce cross-language lexical competition. We employed two auditory lexical decision experiments with both Mandarin-English bilinguals and English monolinguals to test whether inter-lingual homophones (IH) would induce lexical competition from the non-target language, L1 Mandarin. Our results show that cross-language lexical competition was only observed with the presence of lexical tones, in addition to segmental overlap.

The impact of individual differences on cross-language activation of meaning by phonology

We investigated how individual differences in language proficiency and executive control impact cross-language meaning activation through phonology. Ninety-six university students read English sentences that contained French target words. Target words were high- and low-frequency French interlingual homophones (i.e., words that share pronunciation, but not meaning across langauges; mot means ‘word’ in French and sounds like ‘mow’ in English) and matched French control words (e.g., mois – ‘month’ in French). Readers could use the homophones’ shared phonology to activate their English meanings and, ultimately, make sense of the sentence (e.g., Tony was too lazy to mot/mois the grass on Sunday). Shorter reading times were observed on interlingual homophones than control words, suggesting that phonological representations in one language activate cross-language semantic representations. Importantly, the magnitude of the effect was modulated by word frequency, and several participant-level characteristics, including French proficiency, English word knowledge, and executive control ability.

Neural signatures of language co-activation and control in bilingual spoken word comprehension

To examine the neural signatures of language co-activation and control during bilingual spoken word comprehension, Korean-English bilinguals and English monolinguals were asked to make overt or covert semantic relatedness judgments on auditorily-presented English word pairs. In two critical conditions, participants heard word pairs consisting of an English-Korean interlingual homophone (e.g., the sound /mu:n/ means “moon” in English and “door” in Korean) as the prime and an English word as the target. In the homophone-related condition, the target (e.g., “lock”) was related to the homophone’s Korean meaning, but not related to the homophone’s English meaning. In the homophone-unrelated condition, the target was unrelated to either the homophone’s Korean meaning or the homophone’s English meaning. In overtly responded situations, ERP results revealed that the reduced N400 effect in bilinguals for homophone-related word pairs correlated positively with the amount of their daily exposure to Korean. In covertly responded situations, ERP results showed a reduced late positive component for homophone-related word pairs in the right hemisphere, and this late positive effect was related to the neural efficiency of suppressing interference in a non-linguistic task. Together, these findings suggest 1) that the degree of language co-activation in bilingual spoken word comprehension is modulated by the amount of daily exposure to the non-target language; and 2) that bilinguals who are less influenced by cross-language activation may also have greater efficiency in suppressing interference in a non-linguistic task.

On the production of interlingual homophones: delayed naming and increased N400

ABSTRACTBilinguals take longer to identify interlingual homophones than control words. For example, Dutch–English bilinguals take longer to identify an English word like “leaf” ([li:f]), a homophone of the Dutch word “lief” ([lif]; meaning “sweet”), than to identify a control word like “branch”. This homophone-delay effect, observed with both visual and auditory presentation, has been interpreted as evidence in favour of language non-selective lexical access. The present article examines whether a homophone effect is also present in word production. Theoretically, homophone production may profit from feedback from a phonemic level back to a lexical level, but may suffer from a semantic conflict during a process of output monitoring. In line with the latter view, the results show (a) a delay in the production of homophones in the second language, (b) an increased error percentage in the production of homophones in both the first and second language, (c) a reduction in P200 amplitude in the production of homophones in the second language and (d) an increase in the N400 in the production of homophones in both languages of the bilingual.

Do semantic sentence constraint and L2 proficiency influence language selectivity of lexical access in native language listening?

We investigated whether language nonselective lexical access in bilingual auditory word recognition when listening in the native language (L1) is modulated by (a) the semantic constraint of the sentence and (b) the second language (L2) proficiency level. We report 2 experiments in which Dutch-English bilinguals with different proficiency levels completed an L1 auditory lexical-decision task on the last word of low- and high-constraining sentences. The critical stimuli were interlingual homophones (e.g., lief [sweet] - leaf /li:f/). Participants recognized homophones significantly slower than matched control words. Importantly, neither the semantic constraint of the sentence, nor the proficiency level of the bilinguals interacted with this interlingual homophone effect. However, when we compared the slow and fast reaction times (RTs), we observed a reduction in the homophone interference effect when listening to high-constraining sentences in L1 for the slow RTs, but not for the fast RTs. Taken together, this provides strong evidence for a language-nonselective account of lexical access when listening in L1, and suggests that even when low-proficient bilinguals are listening to high-constraint sentences in L1, both languages of a bilingual are still activated.

Phonological processing dynamics in bilingual word naming.

The current study investigated phonological processing dynamics in bilingual word naming. English-French and French-English bilinguals named interlingual heterophonic homographs (i.e., words that share orthography but not meaning or pronunciation across languages), heterophonic cognates (i.e., words that share both orthography and meaning across languages, but not pronunciations), interlingual homophones (i.e., words that share pronunciation, but not orthography or meaning across languages), and single-language matched control words in both English and French naming tasks. Cross-language phonological activation was strongest in bilinguals' second language. The results provided evidence for feedforward activation of phonological representations in the nontarget language, as well as feedback activation of these phonological representations from semantic representations. Results are interpreted within the more recent Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA+) framework.

Automatic perceptual simulation of first language meanings during second language sentence processing in bilinguals

Research supports the claim that, when understanding language, people perform mental simulation using those parts of the brain which support sensation, action, and emotion. A major criticism of the findings quoted as evidence for embodied simulation, however, is that they could be a result of conscious image generation strategies. Here we exploit the well-known fact that bilinguals routinely and automatically activate both their languages during comprehension to test whether this automatic process is, in turn, modulated by embodied simulatory processes. Dutch participants heard English sentences containing interlingual homophones and implying specific distance relations, and had to subsequently respond to pictures of objects matching or mismatching this implied distance. Participants were significantly slower to reject critical items when their perceptual features matched said distance relationship. These results suggest that bilinguals not only activate task-irrelevant meanings of interlingual homophones, but also automatically simulate these meanings in a detailed perceptual fashion. Our study supports the claim that embodied simulation is not due to participants' conscious strategies, but is an automatic component of meaning construction.

Acoustic measurement of word-initial stop consonants in English-French interlingual homophones

The purpose of the present study is to examine word-initial stop consonants of Canadian English (CE) and Canadian French (CF) interlingual homophones in order to describe how they differ in their acoustic properties. Interlingual homophones (IH) are words across languages that are phonemically identical but phonetically and semantically different, for example, English two /tu/ and French tout <all> /tu/. Even though they are deemed phonemically identical, at the acoustical level they may be quite different. In the current study, Canadian bilingual English and French speakers were asked to produce interlingual homophones embedded in carrier phrases and in isolation. Voice onset time, relative burst intensity, and burst spectral properties of the IH words were measured and compared within and across languages. The acoustic measurements obtained will be used (1) to make predictions about which acoustic features may provide cues to language identity, and (2) to create stop tokens for a Goodness Rating study. Results from this study will provide insight on the acoustic-phonetic representation of stop consonants in Canadian bilingual English and French speakers.

Head start for target language in bilingual listening

In this study we investigated the availability of non-target language semantic features in bilingual speech processing. We recorded EEG from Dutch–English bilinguals who listened to spoken sentences in their L2 (English) or L1 (Dutch). In Experiments 1 and 3 the sentences contained an interlingual homophone. The sentence context was either biased towards the target language meaning of the homophone (target biased), the non-target language meaning (non-target biased), or neither meaning of the homophone (fully incongruent). These conditions were each compared to a semantically congruent control condition. In L2 sentences we observed an N400 in the non-target biased condition that had an earlier offset than the N400 to fully incongruent homophones. In the target biased condition, a negativity emerged that was later than the N400 to fully incongruent homophones. In L1 contexts, neither target biased nor non-target biased homophones yielded significant N400 effects (compared to the control condition). In Experiments 2 and 4 the sentences contained a language switch to a non-target language word that could be semantically congruent or incongruent. Semantically incongruent words (switched, and non-switched) elicited an N400 effect. The N400 to semantically congruent language-switched words had an earlier offset than the N400 to incongruent words. Both congruent and incongruent language switches elicited a Late Positive Component (LPC). These findings show that bilinguals activate both meanings of interlingual homophones irrespective of their contextual fit. In L2 contexts, the target-language meaning of the homophone has a head start over the non-target language meaning. The target-language head start is also evident for language switches from both L2-to-L1 and L1-to-L2.

The influence of sentence context and accented speech on lexical access in second-language auditory word recognition

Until now, research on bilingual auditory word recognition has been scarce, and although most studies agree that lexical access is language-nonselective, there is less consensus with respect to the influence of potentially constraining factors. The present study investigated the influence of three possible constraints. We tested whether language nonselectivity is restricted by (a) a sentence context in a second language (L2), (b) the semantic constraint of the sentence, and (c) the native language of the speaker. Dutch–English bilinguals completed an English auditory lexical decision task on the last word of low- and high-constraining sentences. Sentences were pronounced by a native Dutch speaker with English as the L2, or by a native English speaker with Dutch as the L2. Interlingual homophones (e.g., lief “sweet” – leaf /liːf/) were always recognized more slowly than control words. The semantic constraint of the sentence and the native accent of the speaker modulated, but did not eliminate interlingual homophone effects. These results are discussed within language-nonselective models of lexical access in bilingual auditory word recognition.

Are phonological representations in bilinguals language specific? An ERP study on interlingual homophones

Event-related potentials (ERPs) served to investigate whether phonological representations from both the first (L1) and second (L2) language of bilinguals are activated during silent reading of L2 words. French-English late bilinguals and control monolingual English speakers read interlingual homophones (e.g., "knee" in English, which has substantial phonological overlap with the French word "nid," meaning "nest") and matched control words. Results showed a reduction in N400 amplitude in response to interlingual homophones in comparison to control words for bilinguals, but not for English monolinguals. The reduced N400 response to homophones in bilinguals suggests facilitation of word recognition. These results suggest parallel activation of both L1 and L2 phonological representations when reading silently in the L2. These findings point to a language nonspecific model for bilinguals at the phonological level of representation.

Cross-language phonological activation of meaning: evidence from category verification

The study investigated phonological processing in bilingual reading for meaning. English–French and French–English bilinguals performed a category verification task in either their first or second language. Interlingual homophones (words that share phonology across languages but not orthography or meaning) and single language control words served as critical stimuli. The interlingual homophones and their control words were not members of the categories, but their interlingual homophone mates were category members (e.g., A vegetable: shoe, where chou in French means “cabbage”). The bilinguals made more errors and had longer decision latencies on homophones than on their control words, providing evidence for cross-language phonological activation of meaning. Results are discussed with respect to the Bilingual Interactive Activation Model (BIA+).

How verbs can activate things: Cross-language activation across word classes

The present study explored whether language-nonselective access in bilinguals occurs across word classes in a sentence context. Dutch–English bilinguals were auditorily presented with English (L2) sentences while looking at a visual world. The sentences contained interlingual homophones from distinct lexical categories (e.g., the English verb spoke, which overlaps phonologically with the Dutch noun for ghost, spook). Eye movement recordings showed that depictions of referents of the Dutch (L1) nouns attracted more visual attention than unrelated distractor pictures in sentences containing homophones. This finding shows that native language objects are activated during second language verb processing despite the structural information provided by the sentence context.

Cross-language activation of phonology in young bilingual readers

We investigated whether children who were learning to read simultaneously in English and French activate phonological representations from only the language in which they are reading or from both of their languages. Children in French Immersion programs in Grade 3 were asked to name aloud cognates, interlingual homographs, interlingual homophones, and matched control words. Half of the participants performed the task in English, their first oral language, and half performed the task in French. Control monolingual children in each language were also tested. In the French reading task, fewer errors were observed for cognates and interlingual homophones than for matched control words, whereas more errors were produced for interlingual homographs than matched controls. Only the inhibitory interlingual homograph effect was observed in the English reading task. These data provide evidence that phonological activation in bilinguals is not language selective. The locus of each of these effects in the bilingual word recognition system is discussed.