Effects Of Language Dominance Research Articles

Lexical-semantic activation in French-Spanish or French-English bilingual toddlers: An event-related potential (ERP) investigation

Both behavioral and neurophysiological evidence shows that lexical-semantic organization emerges by two years in monolingual children. Research in bilingual children is more scarce, and there is only a limited amount of neurophysiological evidence of the effect of language dominance on lexical-semantic activation. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study, we investigated whether bilingual French-Spanish and French-English learning 24- to 30-month-olds activate semantic relations between words similarly in their both languages, and whether the priming effects are similar in children learning two different language pairs. Participants were presented with related and unrelated dominant and non-dominant language word pairs in a within-language lexical-semantic priming paradigm. The amplitudes of N400 were modulated by trial type, language dominance and language group. A language-independent priming effect - more pronounced N400 amplitudes for unrelated than for related target words - was found in the group of toddlers learning French and Spanish. In the group of toddlers learning French and English, a priming effect was observed only in their non-dominant language. Our results propose that the language pair may contribute to lexical-semantic facilitation in priming tasks during early childhood.

Demonstratives in Spanish–Catalan simultaneous bilinguals: which system do they prefer?

Abstract Demonstratives are cross-linguistically widespread deictic expressions. Demonstrative systems exhibit variation in number of terms, and parameters affecting their usage. The present paper assesses the relationship between spatial deixis and bilingualism: how language dominance affects speakers of two languages with different demonstrative systems. Here, we compare the use of demonstratives by 72 European Spanish-Catalan simultaneous bilinguals in Mallorca to 30 European Spanish monolinguals. Our results confirmed a significant effect of physical distance between speaker and referent on demonstrative choice in both languages, and differences between languages in the use of the middle term. We did not find the expected effect of language dominance in simultaneous bilinguals. Moreover, we found no influence of the hearer's position on demonstrative choice in monolinguals or bilinguals in European Spanish or Majorcan Catalan. In view of our results, the present study contributes to the debate on how bilingual speakers employ different deictic expressions.

The Effect of Language Dominance on Classic Semantic, Action, Emotional, and Phonemic Fluency in Unbalanced Bilinguals.

Verbal fluency evaluation in bilingual speakers should include dual-language assessment to obtain a comprehensive profile of word retrieval abilities. This study is the first to compare classic semantic, action, emotional, and phonemic fluency in terms of the magnitude of their performance gaps between the dominant and nondominant language in unbalanced bilingual speakers. We also examined the quantitative relationship between language dominance and verbal fluency performance. Twenty-six bilingual adults completed a comprehensive set of classic semantic ("animals," "vegetables"), action ("do"), emotional ("happy," "sad," "afraid"), and phonemic ("F," "A," "S") fluency tasks in their dominant language (English) and nondominant language (Spanish) in two sessions on separate days. Participants also completed subjective and objective measures of language proficiency. All tasks yielded fewer correct responses in the nondominant language. The between-languages performance gap was the largest for "animals" and the smallest for emotional fluency. "Happy" yielded the most balanced performance among all semantic tasks and a positivity bias that was unaffected by language dominance. Finally, language dominance scores computed by a newly developed formula indicated relationships between self-rated proficiency and fluency performance. This study provides preliminary, normative data of classic semantic, action, emotional, and phonemic fluency that could be used to gauge unbalanced bilingual speakers' performance. Significant impacts of language dominance on "animals" demand caution in using this widely used classic semantic category in evaluating bilingual speakers' performance. The data also underscore the robustness of positivity biases in emotional fluency and the validity of using subjective measures to supplement neuropsychological assessment of fluency performance.

The role of cognitive control in bilingual language comprehension: An event-related potential study of dense code-switching sentences

AbstractThis study investigated the engagement of domain-general cognitive control during the comprehension of dense code-switching sentences. Stimulus-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while L1-dominant Chinese–English bilinguals read switch and non-switch sentences. The results of the reading task revealed language dominance effects on the N400, left anterior negativity (LAN) and late positive component (LPC). The language dominance effects at lexical level (i.e., on the N400 and LAN) were modulated by individual differences in monitoring capacity. In contrast, inhibition capacity predicted code-switching costs at the sentence level (i.e., for the LPC component). The results suggest that proactive monitoring and reactive inhibition affect different processing stages during the comprehension of dense code-switching sentences. These findings partially align with processing models of code-switching incorporating a dual control mode perspective and contribute new insight into the dynamic interplay between reactive and proactive control processes.

Acquiring the Dutch Plural in a Bilingual Setting: Investigating the Effects of Language Dominance, Overlap, and Variability

In this study, we aimed to deepen the understanding of the circumstances under which crosslinguistic influence occurs, by focusing on the acquisition of the Dutch plural by two- and three-year old children who attend bilingual Dutch-English daycare. In doing so, we explored the roles of variability, overlap and language dominance as these are all factors that have been linked to the occurrence of crosslinguistic influence in studies on bilingual language acquisition and language contact. We investigated the expectation that young children who are exposed to English might show a stronger preference for -s pluralization in Dutch, because of the partial overlap in Dutch and English pluralization. In total, a group of 95 children that grew up with only Dutch and/or English at home and attended bilingual (Dutch-English) daycare (51 females, 44 males, mean age = 3;6 years) participated in an elicited production task. Results showed that no clear-cut evidence for unidirectional crosslinguistic influence from English to Dutch could be found in the form of -s overgeneralizations. However, we did find evidence for the role of variability in this domain of language, since children made more overgeneralizations when rhyme and sonorancy contradicted. Also, English exposure seemed to facilitate correct production of the -s affix, and children who overgeneralized the -s affix were mostly children that were exposed to the English language at home, suggesting that language dominance does play a role in preference for the -s affix.

The dynamic role of inhibitory control in language switching during number-word task performance in dominant and balanced bilinguals.

Language is one of the fascinating abilities of the human species. The beauty of language becomes intriguing when we examine language processing among bilinguals. This work attempted to study the effects of language dominance among native Hindi speakers who were either Hindi dominant, English dominant, or balanced bilingual in a language switching task. The task required the participants to read aloud the number-words that were presented singly on the computer screen. The findings support the inhibitory control model's predictions as the results were indicative of asymmetrical switch cost for both the Hindi and English dominant bilinguals. In both the language dominance condition, moving back to the dominant language from a non-dominant language required more time than vice versa. The results also indicated overall reduced reaction time in the reading task performance for balanced bilinguals, further demonstrating the benefits of balanced bilingualism.

Inhibitory control of the dominant language: Reversed language dominance is the tip of the iceberg

Theories of speech production have proposed that in contexts where multiple languages are produced, bilinguals inhibit the dominant language with the goal of making both languages equally accessible. This process often overshoots this goal, leading to a surprising pattern: better performance in the nondominant vs dominant language, or reversed language dominance effects. However, the reliability of this effect in single word production studies with cued language switches has been challenged by a recent meta-analysis. Correcting for errors in this analysis, we find that dominance effects are reliably reduced and reversed during language mixing. Reversed dominance has also consistently been reported in the production of connected speech elicited by reading aloud of mixed language paragraphs. When switching, bilinguals produced translation-equivalent intrusion errors (e.g., sayingperoinstead ofbut) more often when intending to produce words in the dominant language. We show this dominant language vulnerability is not exclusive to switching out of the nondominant language and extends to non-switch words, linking connected speech results to patterns first reported in single-picture naming studies. Reversed language dominance is a robust phenomenon that reflects the tip of the iceberg of inhibitory control of the dominant language in bilingual language production.

The impact of language dominance on Russian-Hebrew bilingual children’s narrative production

Abstract The study explores the effect of language dominance on microstructure, macrostructure, and Internal State Terms (ISTs) in narratives of Russian-Hebrew bilingual children and examines within-language and cross-language associations between narrative elements in two dominance groups. Narratives were collected from 38 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children aged 5;5–6;7 using the LITMUS-MAIN retelling procedures. The children were divided into L1-dominant (N = 19) and L2-dominant (N = 19) bilinguals based on performance on proficiency tests in L1/Russian and L2/Hebrew. The narratives were coded for microstructure measures: number of different words (NDW), total number of tokens (TNT), number of C-units (CUs), and Mean Length of C-unit (MLCU); and for macrostructure measures: Story Structure and Story Complexity. Ratios of IST tokens and types were calculated per C-unit. Children produced significantly higher NDW, TNT, and MLCU in L2/Hebrew than in L1/Russian. Scores on macrostructure measures and ratios of total ISTs were similar across languages. L1-dominant bilinguals demonstrated similarity between L1 and L2 for microstructure and IST types, whereas L2-dominant bilinguals produced more IST types in L2/Hebrew and had relatively few significant cross-language correlations. Findings for language dominance and cross-language differences are discussed for those narrative features which emerged as sensitive to these effects.

The Role of Task Complexity and Dominant Articulatory Routines in the Acquisition of L3 Spanish

Many studies in L3 phonetics and phonology have found that language dominance plays an influential role in determining the source of transfer. However, any effect of language dominance is likely dependent on many factors, including task complexity. As complexity increases, learners should be increasingly likely to rely on the more automatic articulatory routines from their dominant language. We tested this hypothesis by examining the production patterns of L1 Mandarin–L2 English–L3 Spanish speakers acquiring the Spanish tap and trill, performing a less complex word-reading task and a more complex sentence reading task. The results of the former were reported in a previous study, revealing that the speakers transferred the L2 English [ɹ] and [ɾ] to some extent when acquiring the Spanish rhotics. We hypothesized that such transfer would be less prevalent in the same speakers performing the sentence reading task. The results revealed some support for the hypothesis. Transfer of L2 [ɾ] decreased in the sentence reading task, as did transfer of L2 [ɾ] (in trill productions). L2 [ɹ] substitutes did not vary with task. The results highlight that transfer from previous languages is partially dependent on task. Future work should establish when and to what extent language dominance influences the source of transfer.

Connecting perception and production in early Catalan-Spanish bilingual children: language dominance and quality of input effects.

This study investigates perception and production of the Catalan mid-vowel /e/-/ɛ/ contrast by two groups of 4.5-year-old Catalan-Spanish bilingual children, differing in language dominance. Perception was assessed with an XAB discrimination task involving familiar words and non-words. Production accuracy was measured using a familiar-word elicitation task. Overall, Catalan-dominant bilingual children outperformed Spanish-dominant bilinguals, the latter showing high variability in production accuracy, while being slightly above chance level in perception. No correlation between perception and production performance could be established in this group. The effect of language dominance alone could not explain the Spanish-dominant participants' performance, but quality of Catalan input (native vs. accented speech) was identified as an important factor behind familiar-word production and the inaccurate representation of the target contrast in the lexicon of the bilinguals' less-dominant language. More fine-grained measurements of experience-related factors are needed for a full understanding of the acquisition of challenging contrasts in bilingual contexts.

The acquisition of relative clauses by Spanish-Basque learners of L3 English: does dominance play a role?

Abstract Several studies in the area of third language acquisition (L3A) have considered various factors influencing this process, but the effect of language dominance has not been thoroughly examined. The main goal of this study is to investigate whether the acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) in L3 English is influenced by language internal factors, such as the syntactic features of the target language, or by external factors in the form of cross-linguistic influence (CLI). A total of 90 participants (40 Spanish-dominant, 40 Basque-dominant, 10 L1 Spanish-L2 English) and 10 native speakers of English completed a production and a comprehension task. Findings show that the L3 learners’ production of RCs seems to be driven by language internal factors, whereas their comprehension appears to be influenced by their previously acquired languages, mainly by Spanish. It is concluded that neither language dominance nor other traditionally considered factors play a determinant role in the acquisition of RCs in L3 English by these participants.

Older bilinguals reverse language dominance less than younger bilinguals: Evidence for the inhibitory deficit hypothesis.

Inhibitory control is thought to play a key role in how bilinguals switch languages and may decline in aging. We tested these hypotheses by examining age group differences in the reversed language dominance effect-a signature of inhibition of the dominant language that leads bilinguals to name pictures more slowly in the dominant than the nondominant language in mixed-language testing blocks. Twenty-five older and 48 younger Spanish-English bilinguals completed a cued language-switching task. To test if inhibition is applied at the whole-language or lexical level, we first presented one set of pictures repeatedly, then introduced a second list halfway through the experiment. Younger bilinguals exhibited significantly greater reversed language dominance effects than older bilinguals (who exhibited nonsignificant language dominance effects). In younger bilinguals, dominance reversal transferred to, and was even larger in, the second list (compared to the first). The latter result may suggest that inhibition is partially offset by repetition in ways that are not yet fully understood. More generally, these results support the hypotheses that aging impairs inhibitory control of the dominant language, which young bilinguals rely on to switch languages. Additionally, inhibition is applied primarily at the whole-language level, and speculatively, this form of language control may be analogous to nonlinguistic proactive control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessing the Evidence for Asymmetrical Switch Costs and Reversed Language Dominance Effects - A Meta-Analysis.

Two seemingly counterintuitive phenomena – asymmetrical language switch costs and the reversed language dominance effect – prove to be particularly controversial in the literature on language control. Asymmetrical language switch costs refer to the larger costs for switching into the dominant language compared to switching into the less dominant language, both relative to staying in either one language. The reversed language dominance effect refers to longer reaction times when in the more dominant of the two languages in situations that require frequent language switching (i.e., mixed-language blocks). The asymmetrical language switch costs are commonly taken as an index for processes of transient, reactive inhibitory language control, whereas the reversed language dominance effect is taken as an index for sustained, proactive inhibitory language control. In the present meta-analysis, we set out to establish the empirical evidence for these two phenomena using a Bayesian linear mixed effects modelling approach. Despite the observation of both phenomena in some studies, our results suggest that overall, there is little evidence for the generality and robustness of these two effects, and this holds true even when conditions – such as language proficiency and preparation time manipulations – were included as moderators of these phenomena. We conclude that asymmetrical switch costs and the reversed language dominance effect are important for theory development, but their utility for theory testing is limited due to their lack of robustness and the absence of confirmed moderatory variables.

The Effect of Language Dominance on the Selective Attention of Segments and Tones in Urdu-Cantonese Speakers

To perceive a second language (L2), non-native speakers not only have to focus on phonological, lexical, and grammatical knowledge, but also need to develop a good mastery of L2 strategic knowledge, including selective attention and language planning. Previous research has found that non-tonal speakers are overtly attentive to segments, while tonal language speakers give more attention to tones. However, it is unclear how different dominant language speakers distribute their attention while processing segments or tones and segments and tones stimuli in non-native speeches. The present study also aims to examine the roles of language dominance play in the designed perceptual tasks. In the current study 20 Cantonese native speakers, 18 Cantonese-dominants, and 18 Urdu-dominants participated in an attention distribution experiment in Cantonese. The results show that the Urdu-dominants retain their L1 attentional strategy in the processing of Cantonese stimuli, classifying the stimuli along segments, while the Cantonese native speakers are more attentive to tones. Moreover, the Cantonese-dominants show a perceptual flexibility as highly proficient and experienced listeners. The results reveal that language dominance plays a vital role in listeners' attention distribution. The research also supports PAM-L2 theory on bilingual. The findings of the current study can be applied to Chinese language learning and teaching and language acquisition studies.

What Cognates Reveal about Default Language Selection in Bilingual Sentence Production.

When producing connected speech, bilinguals often select a default-language as the primary force driving the utterance. The present study investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying default language selection. In three experiments, Spanish-English bilinguals named pictures out of context, or read aloud sentences with a single word replaced by a picture with a cognate (e.g., lemon-limón) or noncognate name (e.g., table-mesa). Cognates speeded naming and significantly reduced switching costs. Critically, cognate effects were not modulated by sentence context. However, switch costs were larger in sentence context, which also exhibited significant language dominance effects, asymmetrical switch costs, and asymmetrical cognate facilitation effects, which were absent or symmetrical respectively in bare picture naming. These results suggest that default-language selection is driven primarily by boosting activation of the default language, not by proactive inhibition of the nondefault language. However, relaxation of proactive control in production of connected speech leads to greater reliance on reactive control to produce language switches relative to out-of-context naming, a contextually driven dynamic tradeoff in language control mechanisms.

Bilingual language dominance and contrastive focus marking: Gradient effects of K’ichee’ syntax on Spanish prosody

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:This study examines prosodic contrastive focus marking in the Spanish of 24 simultaneous K’ichee’-Spanish bilinguals via the following research questions: (1) How do K’ichee’-Spanish bilinguals prosodically mark contrastive focus in Spanish? (2) Is there evidence of K’ichee’ influence in Spanish prosody and is this possible K’ichee’ influence correlated with the language dominance of the bilinguals?Design/methodology/approach:Participants produced utterances in both broad and contrastive focus conditions via a question-answer task.Data and analysis:Tonic syllables of 1638 target words were analyzed according to L- and H-tone alignment and the rise of the pitch contour. Data were analyzed via linear mixed-effects models according to pragmatic condition (categorical effect) and language dominance (continuous effect).Findings/conclusions:Results indicate gradient effects of language dominance of possible K’ichee’ influence. Spanish-dominant bilinguals tend to prosodically mark contrastive focus to a greater degree than K’ichee’-dominant bilinguals. It is proposed that this may be due to the different focus marking strategies between K’ichee’ and Spanish. K’ichee’ primarily marks contrastive focus syntactically whereas it is much more common in Spanish to only mark contrastive focus prosodically.Originality:This study employs a modified version of the question-answer task, which uses video clips to elicit the data in order to include participants with low literacy rates and control the elicitations. It also provides one of the first analyses of intonation in Guatemalan Spanish and the task and data allow for direct comparisons with the K’ichee’ data produced by these same bilinguals.Significance/implications:These results parallel those of similar studies: among bilinguals, the syntactic contrastive focus marking strategy of one language may affect the prosodic contrastive focus marking strategy of their other language. Additionally, the use of language dominance as a continuous variable expands our understanding of inter-speaker variation in such studies.

Effects of language dominance on home reading practices of bilingual families

Aims and objectives: Many children grow up in bilingual families; however, little is known about how these families use their two languages in their home reading practices. The goal of this study was to examine the effect of language proficiency on the shared storybook reading practices of bilingual families. Methodology: We gathered questionnaire data about home reading activities in French–English bilingual families with 5-year-old children ( n = 66) who had different proficiency levels in each language. Data and analyses: We compared home reading environment, parent reading practices, and child learning and interest in books across the families’ dominant and non-dominant languages using a series of 2-way mixed analyses of variance. Findings: Families gave more emphasis to reading practices in the family’s dominant language: they owned more books, read more often, spent more time, and started reading to the child at an earlier age in the dominant than in the non-dominant language. Dominance also affected parent reading behaviors: parents reported more often translating words and switching from their non-dominant to their dominant language. Parents reported that children enjoyed being read to and readily learned new words in both languages, but ratings were higher for the dominant language. Effects of dominance were strongest in families with less balanced language dominance. Originality: This study compares bilingual families’ home reading practices in both of their languages, providing a clearer picture of how families navigate early dual-language literacy in a bilingual community where both languages are spoken in everyday life and have similar sociolinguistic status. Significance: Results suggest that even in bilingual communities, family home reading practices may exacerbate uneven development across children’s two languages. These findings highlight the importance of identifying strategies to support enriched home reading practices in bilingual families’ non-dominant language.

Which bilinguals reverse language dominance and why?

When naming pictures in mixed-language blocks, bilinguals sometimes exhibit reversed language dominance effects. These have been attributed to proactive inhibitory control of the dominant language, or adaptation of language-specific selection thresholds. Even though reversed dominance arguably provides the most striking evidence of inhibition, few studies have focused on when and why this effect occurs. We investigated this topic in a large data set (>400 bilinguals) using a continuous and objective measure of language dominance. We found larger reversed language dominance effects in more (vs. less) balanced bilinguals in mixed-language blocks. However, after taking into account standard language dominance effects in single-language blocks, the extent to which dominance effects changed across block types was actually significantly smaller for more balanced bilinguals, which is in line with the inhibitory control account. Interestingly, dominance reversal was not associated with increased overall speed in the mixed-language block. Thus, dominance reversal is more likely in balanced bilinguals not because they are better at applying proactive control, but because they are more likely to overshoot when the goal is to make both languages about equally accessible – and overall, unbalanced bilinguals apply more proactive control than balanced bilinguals to facilitate picture naming in mixed-language blocks.

Language and Decoding Skills in Greek-English Primary School Bilingual Children: Effects of Language Dominance, Contextual Factors and Cross-Language Relationships Between the Heritage and the Majority Language

Bilingual children are a heterogeneous population, as the amount of input and use of their languages may differ due to various factors, for example, the status of each language (majority, minority), which language is used in the school, and whether children are acquiring literacy in one or both languages. Their language ability depends to a large extent on the use of each language and on whether they each language at the same rate. The aim of the study was to investigate how primary school bilingual children in the UK perform on several domains of language and reading skills and how these relate to language dominance. Moreover, it addressed how this performance is affected by a range of contextual factors and whether there are cross-language relationships in the children’s language and reading abilities. Forty Greek-English bilingual children in Year 1 and Year 3 were tested on vocabulary, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, morpho-syntax, and decoding in Greek and English. The results showed that as a group, the children were Greek dominant before the age of 4 but English dominant now and confirm that language dominance could change even before children enter school and affects language and literacy skills equally. A strong relationship between language use and performance was only in evidence in the minority language, which suggests that parental effort should be directed towards the minority language because schooling appears to level out differences in the majority language. There was no negative relationship between the use of the heritage language and children’s language and reading performance in the majority language. In contrast, significant positive cross-language associations were revealed among vocabulary, phonological awareness, inflectional morphology and decoding skills. The practical implications of this study are that parents and teachers should be informed for the positive effects of heritage language use in and outside the home for the maintenance of the heritage language and for the development of the children’s language and literacy skills.

Language dominance does not always predict cross-linguistic interactions in bilingual speech production

Abstract The present study describes the results of two experiments that analyze the effects of language dominance on Catalan/Spanish bilingual speech production. We examined the acoustics of the Catalan [a]~[ə] alternation (a phonological process induced by lexical stress) and of the Catalan mid vowel contrasts /e/-/ɛ/ and /o/-/ɔ/ (two phonemic contrasts) in the speech of Catalan- vs. Spanish-dominant early Catalan/Spanish bilinguals from Majorca (Spain). The results indicate that, contrary to the analysis of the Catalan mid vowels, stressed and unstressed Spanish and Catalan /a/ yielded no significant difference as a function of language dominance. These findings suggest that unstressed vowel reduction, a phonological process, may be relatively easier to acquire than phonemic contrasts with a low functional load (/e/-/ɛ/, /o/-/ɔ/), perhaps because its predictability and high frequency may attract attention and/or relieve cognitive resources, which could be conducive to phonological learning. These findings demonstrate that language dominance effects in the production of phonemic contrasts, widely researched in the literature on early bilingualism, do not guarantee the same effects on the implementation of phonological processes.