Mandarin-English Bilinguals Research Articles

A one-man bilingual cocktail party: linguistic and non-linguistic effects on bilinguals’ speech recognition in Mandarin and English

Multilingual speakers can find speech recognition in everyday environments like restaurants and open-plan offices particularly challenging. In a world where speaking multiple languages is increasingly common, effective clinical and educational interventions will require a better understanding of how factors like multilingual contexts and listeners’ language proficiency interact with adverse listening environments. For example, word and phrase recognition is facilitated when competing voices speak different languages. Is this due to a “release from masking” from lower-level acoustic differences between languages and talkers, or higher-level cognitive and linguistic factors? To address this question, we created a “one-man bilingual cocktail party” selective attention task using English and Mandarin speech from one bilingual talker to reduce low-level acoustic cues. In Experiment 1, 58 listeners more accurately recognized English targets when distracting speech was Mandarin compared to English. Bilingual Mandarin–English listeners experienced significantly more interference and intrusions from the Mandarin distractor than did English listeners, exacerbated by challenging target-to-masker ratios. In Experiment 2, 29 Mandarin–English bilingual listeners exhibited linguistic release from masking in both languages. Bilinguals experienced greater release from masking when attending to English, confirming an influence of linguistic knowledge on the “cocktail party” paradigm that is separate from primarily energetic masking effects. Effects of higher-order language processing and expertise emerge only in the most demanding target-to-masker contexts. The “one-man bilingual cocktail party” establishes a useful tool for future investigations and characterization of communication challenges in the large and growing worldwide community of Mandarin–English bilinguals.

Lexical pathway from L2 to L1 activation in intermediate proficient bilinguals: behavioral and ERP evidence.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that second language (L2) comprehension is often accompanied by activations in the first language (L1). Using both behavioral measurement and event-related potential (ERP), this study conducted two experiments to investigate whether a direct activation pathway exists from L2 lexical representation to L1 lexical representation (the lexical pathway) in intermediate proficient bilinguals. In Experiment 1, we designed a vowel letter search task on English word pairs, which enables bilinguals to prevent semantic priming in the first 300 ms processing stage after the words' onset. In Experiment 2, Mandarin-English bilinguals were recruited to complete this task on English word pairs with occasional first character repetition between the Chinese counterparts of a word pair. Results showed a significant main effect within both the P200 and N400 time windows, indicating the activation of bilinguals' L1 lexical representation during these intervals. However, the main effect of semantic relatedness was only significant in the N400 time window. These results suggest that bilinguals can activate their L1 lexical representation directly before engaging in conceptual representation. This finding supported a lexical pathway of activation from L2 lexical representation to L1 lexical representation during visual-word recognition in intermediate proficient bilinguals.

How Mandarin-English bilinguals interpret qián/forward: impact of language proficiencies on retrieval of temporal concepts.

Mandarin qián and English forward are semantically equivalent in the domain of Space, but could be semantically opposite in the domain of Time. In other words, equivalent spatial lexical items could convey opposite temporal concepts. What temporal concepts conveyed by qián and forward would be retrieved by Mandarin-English (M-E) bilinguals with different language proficiencies? Drawing a sample from college students in Mainland China, this study examines how L1 and L2 proficiencies would affect M-E bilinguals' retrieval of temporal concepts by examining their interpretation of the Mandarin temporal metaphor of qián and the English temporal metaphors of forward. The results show that L1 temporal concepts would be retrieved more frequently than L2 temporal concepts regardless of the testing languages, that L1 and L2 proficiencies were not predictors for the way of interpretation, and that the higher L2 proficiency group could retrieve temporal concepts in line with the testing languages with higher accuracy than the lower L2 proficiency group. The findings suggest that bilinguals with higher L2 proficiency may be able to represent temporal concepts with language tags or may have an attentional and/or inhibitory control advantage.

The relationship between working memory capacity, bilingualism, and ambiguous relative clause attachment.

Working memory (WM) capacity has been shown to influence how readers resolve syntactic ambiguities. Building on the work of Swets et al. (2007, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136[1], 64-81), the goal of the present study was to assess the effects of working memory and language proficiency on first language (L1) relative clause attachment decisions across three different language samples: English monolinguals, L1-L2 Spanish-English heritage bilinguals, and L1-L2 Mandarin-English bilinguals. Binomial logistic regression analyses demonstrated that low WM span is associated with a preference to attach ambiguous relative clauses higher in the syntactic structure, as reported by Swets et al. (2007), and contrary to a recency strategy. We also observed that proficiency in L1 and L2 have little effect, suggesting that relative clause attachment preferences primarily reflect the properties of the language and the working memory capacity of the comprehender.

Do accent and input modality modulate processing of language switches in bilingual language comprehension?

We examined how bilinguals process language switches between their first (L1) and second language (L2). Language switching costs (slower responses to language switch than nonswitch trials) appear to arise more systematically in production than in comprehension, possibly because the latter context might sometimes elicit less language coactivation (Declerck et al., 2019). This might reduce language competition and in turn the need for bilinguals to apply language control when processing language switches. Yet even in comprehension, language coactivation may vary depending on variables such as the accent of the speaker (e.g., whether the L2 words are pronounced with an L1 or L2 accent) and input modality (spoken or written). In three experiments conducted during 2021-2022, we tested how unbalanced Mandarin-English bilinguals processed language switches during comprehension and the potential influence of a speaker's accent and input modality. Overall, across settings, participants experienced significant language switching costs. In some conditions, switching costs were larger to L1-Mandarin than to L2-English, an asymmetry consistent with the participants' dominance in L1-Mandarin and the application of language control. However, manipulating accent and input modality did not influence language switches, suggesting they did not impact language coactivation sufficiently to modulate language control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Production of the English /ɹ/ by Mandarin-English Bilingual Speakers.

Rhotic sounds are some of the most challenging sounds for L2 learners to acquire. This study investigates the production of English rhotic sounds by Mandarin-English bilinguals with two English proficiency levels. The production of the English /ɹ/ by 17 Mandarin-English bilinguals was examined with ultrasound imaging and compared with the production of native English speakers. The ultrasound data show that bilinguals can produce native-like bunched and retroflex gestures, but the distributional pattern of tongue shapes in various contexts differs from that of native speakers. Acoustically, the English /ɹ/ produced by bilinguals had a higher F3 and F3-F2, as well as some frication noise in prevocalic /ɹ/, features similar to the Mandarin /ɹ/. Mandarin-English bilinguals did produce language-specific phonetic realizations for the English and Mandarin /ɹ/s. There was a positive correlation between language proficiency and English-specific characteristics of /ɹ/ by Mandarin-English bilinguals in both articulation and acoustics. Phonetic similarities facilitated rather than hindered L2 speech learning in production: Mandarin-English bilinguals showed better performance in producing the English /ɹ/ allophones that were more similar to the Mandarin /ɹ/ (syllabic and postvocalic /ɹ/s) than producing the English /ɹ/ allophone that was less similar to the Mandarin /ɹ/ (prevocalic /ɹ/). This study contributes to our understanding of the mechanism of speech production in late bilinguals.

Complex sentence production in bilingual and monolingual children

ABSTRACT Bilingual children often lag behind monolinguals on standardized measures of language acquisition, such as vocabulary tests. This bilingual lag could be related bilinguals’ lesser experience with the target language relative to monolinguals. In this study, we predicted that sequential Mandarin-English bilinguals would perform worse than same-aged English monolinguals on a standardized measure of complex sentence production. As predicted, the bilingual preschoolers performed worse than age-matched English monolinguals. However, once English experience was covaried, there was no significant difference between the two groups. After controlling for age, we tested three predictors of complex sentence production: (1) English vocabulary, (2) verbal memory, and (for the bilinguals) (3) Mandarin vocabulary. For both bilinguals and monolinguals, English vocabulary and verbal memory were significant predictors. These results support the argument that experience with a particular language is highly predictive of children’s ability to produce complex sentences in that language. Verbal memory is also an important predictor of individual differences in the ability to produce complex sentences.

Exploring the Nature of Syntactic Priming of English-Mandarin Bilinguals Comparing with English Monolinguals

This study investigates the nature of syntactic priming in English-Mandarin bilinguals. Compared with the English monolinguals, the results show that differences between bilingual and monolingual groups can be attributed to the different syntactic structures and subtle linguistic differences between English and Mandarin, including the impact and potential language interference. The study also emphasizes that there are marginally significant differences between passive and locative conditions among bilingual groups, with passive priming showing a stronger priming effect. Importantly, the study elucidates the sensitivity of English-Mandarin bilinguals to argument structure and the influence of animacy distribution on the generation of passive sentences, as well as the reduced use of passive sentences by bilinguals compared to monolinguals. The research demonstrates that the argument structure priming hypothesis and animacy distribution also exist in English-Mandarin bilingual groups the same as the English monolinguals [1].

Assessing Speech Production in Mandarin–English Bilingual Children: Comparison of Mandarin and English Sound Systems and Special Considerations

Purpose: When assessing bilingual children's speech, it is important to determine whether the errors are indicative of a true speech sound disorder or a speech sound difference. The purpose of this tutorial is to provide cultural and linguistic background of Mandarin in comparison to English and to outline the process of speech production assessment for Mandarin–English bilingual children. Method: Pertinent literature was reviewed around varieties of Chinese, unique features of the Mandarin sound system, commonly used transcription methods (International Phonetic Alphabet and Pinyin ), and patterns of Mandarin-influenced English. Previous research findings on the acquisition of consonants, vowels, and tones in monolingual Mandarin-speaking children were summarized. Results: The assessment process including consonants, vowels, tones, syllable structures, and lexical stress was described and illustrated with flow charts. Recourses related to cultural and linguistic information of Mandarin and accessible assessment materials are referenced. Conclusions: A thorough knowledge of a child's language background is crucial in planning assessment of speech production for Mandarin–English bilingual children. A comparative understanding of the sound systems of Mandarin and English facilitates clinical decision making.

L1 Influence on Stop Consonant Production: A Case Study of Malaysian Mandarin-English Bilinguals

ABSTRACT Although English plays an important role in the linguistic repertoire of Malaysian speakers, there have been limited acoustic studies on the phonological aspect of English spoken in Malaysia. This study investigates the phonetic variation of the English initial stop consonants produced by 10 Mandarin–English bilinguals by measuring voice onset time (VOT) and closure duration as the primary acoustic cues. The effects of place of articulation are also examined. The results are then compared with Mandarin (ChM) and British English (BrE). Findings show phonetic variation in Chinese-influenced English (ChE) from both ChM and BrE with a tendency of assimilation towards BrE. The intermediate data distribution of VOT in ChE also shows weaker voicing contrast. While previous studies suggest closure duration as a secondary cue for the acquisition of stop consonants, it seems to carry an equivalent weight in the voicing distinction of ChM. However, ChE shows greater similarity to BrE with closure duration playing less role in voicing distinction. While bidirectional influence of both first language and BrE in the phonetic realisation of initial stop consonants among Mandarin–English bilinguals is observed, language-specific and social factors may set Malaysian Mandarin–English bilinguals apart due to the complex linguistic settings in multilingual Malaysia.

Is retroflexion a stable cue for distributional learning for speech sounds across languages? Learning for some bilingual adults, but not generalisable to a wider population in a well powered pre-registered study.

Bilinguals are widely reported to have certain kinds of cognitive advantages, including language learning advantages. One possible pathway is a language-specific transfer effect, whereby sensitivity to structural regularities in known languages can be brought to to-be-acquired languages that share particular features. Here we tested for transfer of a specific linguistic property, sensitivity to retroflexion as contrastive phonemic feature. We designed a task for bilinguals with homogeneous language exposure (i.e., bilingual in the same languages) and heterogeneous feature representation (i.e., differing levels of proficiency). Hindi and Mandarin Chinese both have retroflexion in phoneme contrasts (Hindi: stop consonants, Mandarin: sibilants). In a preregistered study, we conducted a statistical learning task for the Hindi dental-retroflex stop contrast with a group of early parallel English-Mandarin bilinguals, who varied in their Mandarin understanding levels. We based the target sample size on power analysis of a pilot study with a Bayesian stop-rule after minimum threshold. Contrary to the pilot study (N = 15), the main study (N = 50) did not find evidence for a learning effect, nor language-experience variance within the group. This finding suggests that statistical effects for the feature in question may be more fragile than commonly assumed, and may be evident in only a small subsample of the general population (as in our pilot). These stimuli have previously shown learning effects in children, so an additional possibility is that neural commitment to adults' languages prevents learning of the fine-grained stimulus contrast in question for this adult population.

Dual-tasking while using two languages: Examining the cognitive resource demands of cued and voluntary language production in bilinguals.

The way bilinguals switch languages can differ depending on the context. In cued dual-language environments, bilinguals select a language in response to environmental cues (e.g., a monolingual conversation partner). In voluntary dual-language environments, bilinguals communicating with people who speak the same languages can use their languages more freely. The control demands of these types of language-production contexts, and the costs of language switches, have been argued to differ (Adaptive Control Hypothesis). Here, we used a dual-task paradigm to examine how cued and voluntary bilingual production differ in cognitive resources used. Forty Mandarin-English bilinguals completed two language-switching paradigms as the primary task; one in response to cues and one while using two languages freely. At the same time, they also had to respond to the pitch of tones (secondary task). Response times (RTs) on the secondary task, as well as naming times on the primary task, were shorter under the voluntary- than cued-naming condition. Task workload ratings were also higher under the cued- than voluntary-naming condition. This suggests more attentional resources are needed in a cued-naming context to monitor cues and select languages accordingly. However, the costs associated with switching from one language to the other were similar in both voluntary- and cued-naming contexts. Thus, while cued-naming might be more effortful overall, cued and voluntary switching recruited similar levels of cognitive resources.

Noun and Verb Impairment in Single-Word Naming and Discourse Production in Mandarin-English Bilingual Adults with Aphasia

ABSTRACT Background Previous studies on bilingualism and aphasia have identified a similar pattern of verb-noun dissociation in single-word naming (i.e., lower accuracy for verbs than nouns) in both languages. However, whether a similar pattern of verb and noun dissociation emerges in discourse production remains unknown, particularly in typologically dissimilar languages. Aims This study investigated patterns of verb and noun impairment in both single-word naming and discourse production, and whether naming was associated with lexical retrieval in discourse production in Mandarin-English bilingual adults with aphasia (BWA). Methods Twelve Mandarin-English bilinguals with chronic aphasia completed standardized assessments on object and action naming, and three discourse tasks from the AphasiaBank (i.e., sequential pictures, single-picture, storytelling) in both L1 (Mandarin) and L2 (English). Item-level accuracy of object and action naming was fit into a generalized mixed-effects model to estimate single-word naming ability as a function of grammatical category. The proportion of verb and noun production and the number of verbs and nouns per utterance were fit into multivariate linear regression models to assess lexical retrieval in discourse. Finally, another linear regression was performed to examine the association between naming and lexical retrieval in discourse production. Results The naming accuracy for verbs was lower than for nouns in both L1 and L2. Mandarin-English BWA also demonstrated less production of verbs than nouns in discourse. However, depending on the type of the task, the effect of word category was greater in L2 than in L1. This cross-linguistic difference of the verb-noun dissociation was diminished in individuals with lower aphasia severity. Our results further showed a direct relationship between naming and lexical retrieval in discourse, irrespective of the language. Conclusions Our findings suggest an overall similar pattern of verb and noun dissociation across different linguistic contexts. However, depending on the cognitive-linguistic demands of the task, the verb-noun dissociation may emerge in L1 and L2 to varying degrees in individuals with different levels of aphasia severity. This study facilitates better understanding of verb and noun retrieval in Mandarin-English BWA.

Maternal heritage language proficiency and child bilingual heritage language learning

ABSTRACT ‘Should I talk to my child in a language that I am not good at?’ This question reveals the dilemma that many bilingual parents are facing. In the current study, 301 English-Mandarin bilinguals’ mothers in Singapore self-evaluated their Mandarin proficiency and we assessed the 4–5 years old children’s Mandarin receptive vocabulary and grammar. We also investigated children’s bilingual language exposure with a parental questionnaire and children’s phonological short-term memory with CTOPP. The results indicated that mothers’ Mandarin proficiency would affect the amount of Mandarin they speak to their children. Those mothers with a medium- or high-level Mandarin proficiency demonstrated a significantly stronger influence on children’s Mandarin vocabulary and grammar than the mothers with lower Mandarin proficiency. Specifically, mothers’ Mandarin proficiency mediated the relations between familial SES and children’s Mandarin skills after controlling children’s Mandarin exposure at home, gender, and short-term phonological memory. Our findings suggest the unique role that maternal Mandarin proficiency plays in early heritage language learning. It indicates that mothers who have a decent command of heritage language should be encouraged to use this language more often with their children, considering maternal heritage language proficiency as a promotive factor from the influence of low SES.

Language switching in different contexts and modalities: Response-stimulus interval influences cued-naming but not voluntary-naming or comprehension language-switching costs

AbstractLanguage switching is often associated with language competition and switching costs. However, the underlying mechanisms might differ depending on context (free versus cued naming) and modality (production or comprehension). In this study, we assessed how response-stimulus intervals (RSI) influence language-switching costs. Longer RSIs might provide more time for interference from the previous trial to decay and result in smaller switching costs. Mandarin–English bilinguals completed two dual-language production tasks (Experiment 1: cued and voluntary picture naming) and one comprehension task (Experiment 2: animacy judgement) with a short RSI and a long RSI condition. While switching costs were present in all tasks, they were only influenced by RSI length in the cued-production task, with smaller switching costs in the long RSI condition. In contrast, RSI did not influence voluntary-production or comprehension costs. This suggests that bilinguals might apply language control differently to switch languages depending on the type of switching and modality.

Reference production in Mandarin-English bilingual preschoolers: Linguistic, input, and cognitive factors.

Reference in extended discourse is vulnerable to delayed acquisition in early childhood. Although recent research has increasingly focused on effects of linguistic, input, and cognitive factors on reference production, these studies are limited in number and the results are mixed. The present study provides insight into bilingual reference production by investigating how production of referring expressions in the two languages of preschool bilingual children may be influenced by structural similarities and differences between the languages, frequency of referring expressions in maternal input, amount of exposure to each of the languages, and working memory capacity. Using two stories in the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN), we examined character introduction and re-introduction in oral narratives of 4–6-year-old Singaporean bilingual children acquiring Mandarin Chinese and English (n = 21), and in child-directed speech of the mothers (n = 17). The children’s language exposure, executive function, and general bilingual proficiency were also recorded or directly tested through structured interviews with the parents or standardized assessments with the children. Data collection was conducted remotely in real time over a video-conferencing platform, supplemented by on-site audio recording to ensure sound quality. Results showed prolonged development in the production of felicitous REs for first mentions and over-reliance on overt marking of definiteness in our bilingual children. Mixed modeling revealed that frequency of felicitous REs in the input predicted children’s production of felicitous REs across languages and discourse functions, with a modulating effect of working memory. Overall, our findings are consistent with previous ones in that reference production is vulnerable in early Mandarin-English bilinguals in a multilingual society. This study also presents novel evidence that structural frequency in the input interacts with working memory in shaping patterns of reference production in bilingual children.

The dual role of post-stop fundamental frequency in the production and perception of stops in Mandarin-English bilinguals

In non-tonal languages with a two-way laryngeal contrast, post-stop fundamental frequency (F0) tends to vary as a function of phonological voicing in stops, and listeners use it as a cue for stop voicing. In tonal languages, F0 is the most important acoustic correlate for tone, and listeners likewise rely heavily on F0 to differentiate tones. Given this ambiguity of F0 in its ability to signal phonological voicing and tone, how do speakers of a tonal language weight it in production and perception? Relatedly, do bilingual speakers of tonal and non-tonal languages use the same weights across different language contexts? To address these questions, the cross-linguistic performances from L1 (first language) Mandarin-L2 (second language) English bilinguals dominant in Mandarin in online production and perception experiments are compared. In the production experiment, the participant read aloud Mandarin and English monosyllabic words, the onsets of which typified their two-way laryngeal contrast. For the perception experiment, which utilized a forced-choice identification paradigm, both the English and Mandarin versions shared the same target audio stimuli, comprising monosyllables whose F0 contours were modeled after Mandarin Tone 1 and Tone 4, and whose onset was always a bilabial stop. The voice onset time of the bilabial stop and the onset F0 of the nucleus were manipulated orthogonally. The production results suggest that post-stop F0 following aspirated/voiceless stops was higher than that following unaspirated/voiced stops in both Mandarin and English production. However, the F0 difference in English was larger as compared to Mandarin, indicating that participants assigned more production weight to post-stop F0 in English than in Mandarin. On the perception side, participants used post-stop F0 as a cue in perceiving stops in both English and Mandarin, with higher post-stop F0 leading to more aspirated/voiceless responses, but they allocated more weight to post-stop F0 when interpreting audio stimuli as English words than as Mandarin words. Overall, these results argue for a dual function of F0 in cueing phonological voicing in stops and lexical tone across production and perception in Mandarin. Furthermore, they suggest that bilinguals are able to dynamically adjust even a secondary cue according to different language contexts.

The influence of L2 experience on L1 speech perception: Evidence from Mandarin–English bilinguals

Aims: Previous studies have documented that consonants contribute more to lexically related processes than vowels in English, whereas an opposite pattern occurs in Mandarin Chinese processing. The current study aims to examine how the long-term learning of English (L2) influences Mandarin (L1) consonant, vowel, and tone perception in bilingual adults. It also attempts to examine the multi–competence theory at the level of speech perception. Methodology: A total of 73 Mandarin–English bilinguals with different L2 proficiency levels performed the L1 syllable perception task in an active oddball paradigm. The deviant syllables differed from the standard in consonant, vowel, or tone. Participants were asked to press a button whenever they heard a different syllable. Data and analysis: The reaction time and accuracy of each deviant syllable were recorded by E-prime 2.0. These data were analyzed using mixed-effects models. Findings/conclusions: Results showed that the relative role of vowel was the strongest, followed by consonant, and then by tone in L1 speech perception. The pattern of their relative roles/phonological bias was not influenced by L2 proficiency, indicating that the phonological bias in L1 speech perception is not affected by a transfer from non-native to native processing, but determined by the acoustic/phonological cues and lexical information carried by consonant, vowel, and tone. However, the perceptual sensitivity to L1 speech increased with L2 proficiency, demonstrating a positive L2 effect on L1 at the level of speech perception. Originality: The current study first investigated the influence of L2 experience on L1 phonological bias in bilinguals whose first and second languages were typologically distant. Significance/implications: Our findings lend support to the multi-competence theory and extend it to the level of speech perception.

The Effects of Working Memory Capacity in Metaphor and Metonymy Comprehension in Mandarin-English Bilinguals' Minds: An fMRI Study.

This study investigated the role of working memory capacity (WMC) in metaphoric and metonymic processing in Mandarin–English bilinguals’ minds. It also explored the neural correlations between metaphor and metonymy computations. We adopted an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design, which consisted of 21 English dialogic sets of stimuli and 5 conditions: systematic literal, circumstantial literal, metaphor, systematic metonymy, and circumstantial metonymy, all contextualized in daily conversations. Similar fronto-temporal networks were found for the figurative language processing patterns: the superior temporal gyrus (STG) for metaphorical comprehension, and the inferior parietal junction (IPJ) for metonymic processing. Consistent brain regions have been identified in previous studies in the homologue right hemisphere of better WMC bilinguals. The degree to which bilateral strategies that bilinguals with better WMC or larger vocabulary size resort to is differently modulated by subtypes of metonymies. In particular, when processing circumstantial metonymy, the cuneus (where putamen is contained) is activated as higher-span bilinguals filter out irrelevant information, resorting to inhibitory control use. Cingulate gyrus activation has also been revealed in better WMC bilinguals, reflecting their mental flexibility to adopt the subjective perspective of critical figurative items with self-control. It is hoped that this research provides a better understanding of Mandarin–English bilinguals’ English metaphoric and metonymic processing in Taiwan.

Do L1 tone language speakers enjoy a perceptual advantage in processing English contrastive prosody?*

AbstractThis study compared the ability of English monolinguals and Mandarin–English bilinguals to make use of English contrastive prosody not only in natural speech but also in masked speech, in which the only available information was prosodic. In contrast to earlier studies (Choi et al., 2019; Choi, 2021; Tong et al., 2015) which found that L1 tone language speakers outperformed native speakers in tasks involving the use of pitch to identify stress position in English, we did not find a similar advantage for Mandarin–English bilinguals in the interpretation of English contrastive prosody, even under conditions that enforced reliance on pitch contours. These findings are consistent with other studies suggesting that the integration of prosodic information into discourse is an area of particular difficulty for L2 speakers.