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Bilingual Lexical Activation in Sentence and Non-sentence Context: A Study of
Cross-language Lexical Processing
Mehraban Hamavandy
Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
Mehraban2544@gmail.com
Mohammad Golshan
Azad University of Meibod, Yazd, Iran
mohammadd_golshann@yahoo.com
Abstract
Research on word recognition across languages has gained popularity in recent years, due to
its overall bearing on the psycholinguistic account of language acquisition. To this end, this study
was an attempt to demonstrate the differential influences of L2 proficiency, and type of context on
the lexical recognition and retrieval of bilinguals. For this purpose, ten participants who were native
speakers of Persian and were learning English at the two distinct levels of elementary and advanced
were requested to recite two texts, one in Persian and one in English, which were specifically
modified for the current research purpose. The results revealed that while advanced learners were
better performers on L2 lexis retrieval, their bare word recognition in L1 lagged behind in latency
from elementary learners.
Keywords: lexical access, bilingualism, cross-language differences, sentence processing
1. Introduction
The expanding awareness on the importance of becoming a bilingual1 in modern world has
stimulated a plethora of research on the different processes of turning into a bilingual, including
studies on how bilinguals recognize words in their first or second language. A core concern,
especially in the psycholinguistic account of bilingualism (and SLA as well) has been the nature
with which bilinguals activate lexical representations from both of their languages when reading a
language.
A central issue with regard to this area (Macnamara & Kushnir, 1971) was related to the
debate of whether the process of word recognition for a bilingual undergoes the initial activation of
word representations from a target language only (language-selective lexical access) or whether all
words known to an individual, including those from a non-target language, are considered as
potential candidates for recognition (nonselective access). Many studies have endeavored to
disambiguate the phenomenon, among which most have revealed that the two languages do
interrelate and interact during the process of word recognition. As an example, it has been shown
that when bilinguals recognize words in one of their languages, they process identical words in
another language (e.g. the words None in English as compared with Naan [meaning bread] in
Persian).
Assuming the dominance of non-selective lexical activation for bilinguals, what remains is
to understand the nature of the lexical items that become activated (e.g., orthographic, phonological,
and/or semantic) and the way context and linguistic task can probably influence the process of
activation. For example, in the monolingual domain, much research has been devoted to determine
the extent to which phonological codes within a language are automatically activated during visual
word identification. These studies gave proof that phonological codes become activated and affect
the visual identification of words (Glushko, 1979; Perfetti & Bell, 1991; Van Orden, 1987). Further
it has been specified that visual word identification is influenced by the consistency of mappings
between orthographic and phonological codes. When an orthographic code (e.g., lead) maps on to
multiple phonological codes (e.g., [lid] and [lod]), feed-forward activation from those competing
1
Bilingual in this article refers to both professional speakers of two languages as well as second language learners
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codes inhibits performance (Hino, et. al., 2002; Stone, et. al., 1997). These studies were significant
in revealing that, even in orthographically based tasks, phonological codes are activated and
influence performance. Similarly, when a phonological code (e.g., [meid]) maps onto multiple
orthographic codes (e.g., maid,made), feed-backward activation from those competing codes
inhibits performance (Pexman, et. al., 2001; Pexman, et. al., 2002). In the present study one of the
questions raised was whether similar ‘phonological dynamics’ (as stated by Schwarts et. al., 2005)
across the two languages of English and Persian take place.
Among other factors (variables) that have been identified in previous studies which might
contribute to the understanding of how certain lexical items in the repertoire of the language
speaker (learner) are demonstrated during L1/L2 word recognition one can refer to the following.
Word Frequency
The word frequency influence (more frequent words are recognized faster than words with a
lower frequency) is one of the most robust findings in the visual word recognition literature (Howes
& Solomon, 1951; Schilling, et. al., 1998; Whaley, 1978).This factor has been treated as a
predominant variable in almost every model of word recognition. For instance, interactive
activation models of lexical access assume that frequency affects the resting activation levels of
word representations (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981). Although the degree of the effect is to a
large extent reported to be task dependent, it has been assumed for all standard tasks of word
recognition. For the bilingual domain, some evidence suggests that the frequency effect might even
be larger in the second as compared with the first language (van Wijnendaele & Brysbaert, 2002).
Akamatsu (2002) showed that bilingual speakers with Chinese, Japanese, or Persian as L1 and
English as L2 displayed differential effects of word frequency but comparable effects of
phonological regularity in English word naming. Finally, Baayen et al. (2006) demonstrated that
the relative frequency in written compared with spoken English (quantified as the ratio between the
two) played an important role in both English monolingual lexical decision and word naming: The
more frequent a word was in spoken relative to written English, the faster it was recognized.
Language Orthographic Neighborhood
Effects of orthographic neighborhood (i.e., words that are different from their neighboring
word in one letter only) are deemed to influence word selection through activation of multiple
words during word recognition. The relative importance of various neighborhood measures for the
different standard word recognition tasks has been discussed extensively in the literature on word
recognition (e.g. Andrews, 1997; Perea & Rosa, 2000; Carreiras et al., 1997; Grainger & Jacobs,
1996). The number of higher frequency neighbors has repeatedly been found to slow down
recognition latencies for the target word, whereas the total number of neighbors had no or only little
effect on recognition performance. Grainger & Jacobs(1996) found that higher frequency neighbors
delay the pass of the recognition threshold for a target word through lateral inhibition.
Morphological Family Size
Findings of many studies have revealed that the amount of derivations and compounds, from
which a word occurs, named as the morphological size, facilitates response latencies in monolingual
and bilingual lexical decision (de Jong, et. al., 2000; Dijkstra, et. al. 2005; Schreuder & Baayen,
1997). It is contended that the number of morphological family members have effect on recognition
latencies, and not only their frequency. This argument is against a purely frequency-based account
of the morphological family size effect.
Word Length
Results of most word recognition tasks have indicated that for words that are longer, more
time is demanded to recognize them. Consequently, as McGinnies, et. al. (1952) have stated, owing
to the possible transfer of reading strategies from L1 to L2, word length effects may also differ for
M. Hamavandy, M. Golshan - Bilingual Lexical Activation in Sentence and Non-sentence Context: A Study of Cross-
language Lexical Processing
39
bilingual readers varying in their L1 when reading words in their L2. Ziegler et al. (2001) have also
shown that word length effects were larger in German as opposed to English, due mainly to the
more shallow orthography of German language than English.
Number of Meanings
Lexical items which have several meanings have been subject to many studies whose main
aim has been to perceive the relationship between the form and semantic level of word
representation. Yet, there has been no hard-and-fast compliance on whether, why, and how this
factor can be influential on word recognition (e.g., Borowsky & Masson, 1996; Duffy, et. al. , 1988;
Hino, et. al., 2006), and whether related word senses have to be discriminated from unrelated word
meanings (Klein & Murphy, 2001; Rodd, et. al., 2002). It has been hypothesized that
native/nonnative speakers of a certain language are heavily influenced by the number of word
meanings during a word recognition task that probably entails relatively little semantic processing.
Considering that representations of L2 words have been regarded as less “richly populated” (i.e.,
possessing fewer senses) than L1 words it is possible that the number of meanings affects word
recognition in the first but not in the second language (Finkbeiner, et. al., 2004).
Familiarity
The respondents’ familiarity with the word has been assumed to be a highly determinant
factor during word recognition process (especially in the setting of the native language speakers
(Kreuz, 1987; Williams & Morris, 2004). Gernsbacher (1984) for instance reported that effects of
other variables (word frequency, word length, and number of meanings) on lexical decision
latencies disappeared when familiarity was controlled for.
In addition to the mentioned studies which mainly investigated the variables which influence
word recognition, a number of other relevant researches tried to shed light on the process of the
activation of the pronunciation of the words, usually taking place cross-linguistically. As an
instance, Jared and Szucs (2002) in their study asked French-English and English-French bilinguals
name words in three blocks of trials; two in English only and a third in French separating the two
English blocks. The English words included heterophonic homographs of French words [e.g., pain
(meaning ‘‘bread’’)] and unambiguous controls (e.g., camera). Their initial hypothesis was that if
phonological representations from the non-target language are active, then competition between
alternative pronunciations of the same word should delay naming for the heterophonic homographs.
Therefore, the French naming block was included to test the hypothesis that the requirement to
produce in the non-target language would further increase this ‘cost’. When bilinguals named words
in their weaker L2, there were increased latencies for the interlingual homographs, both before and
after the French naming block. When bilinguals named words in their L1( as their more dominant
language), in this case English, there was once again a cost for naming the homographs, yet the
influence was found only after the L2 was activated by a block of French word naming. The
finding being in line with non-selective theory of language activation, since bilinguals seemed to
activate phonological codes from both of their languages, even when reading in their L1. Though,
how influential L1 is, depends upon the time when L2 had been activated.
In a very similar approach, Jared and Kroll (2001) investigated whether and to what extent
sub-lexical phonology was influenced by similar cross-language effects. Participants of their study
who were English-French bilinguals named English words that either had word body ‘enemies’ in
French (e.g., pain), English (e.g., steak) or no enemies in either French or English (e.g., stump). The
final finding revealed a very analogous pattern with that of Jared and Szucs (2002), mentioned
earlier. Participants who were bilinguals of English & French, named words in English (that had
word body enemies in French), in a longer duration of time, yet this ‘cost’ was found to take place
only after naming the French word block.
Taken together, these studies mainly imply that effects of cross-language activation are
constrained when production is in the L1 and lexical selection is required by the task
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Another related question sought for in the literature is, how the cognitive nature of L2
reading is distinct from reading in the native language (L1) and how might this difference account
for the probable decreased reading rate?
There are at least two fundamental characteristics mentioned in SLA literature that
distinguish L2 reading. First, basic word recognition processes may be slowed in L2 due to
decreased familiarity and frequency of use of the language (as mentioned earlier). Second, there is
now abundant evidence from psycholinguistic research suggesting that bilinguals are not able to
selectively turn o? one of their languages during comprehension (Dijkstra, et. al. 2001; Dijkstra, et.
al., 2000; Dijkstra, et. al., 1999; Dijkstra, et. al., 1998). It is believed that information embedded in
the context at the sentence level can also guide lexical access in L1( and at times L2) of bilinguals
Lexical access out of context: Monolingual and bilingual studies
If lexis is presented to the readers in an out-of-context fashion, it can be expected that they
will face ambiguity with regards to lexical selection. This ambiguity has been shown to take place
at multiple lexical levels including semantic (e.g., bugs) and phonological (e.g., lead). What has
aroused many studies in this field has been the dexterity of many skilled readers, who irrespective
of the extent pf lexical ambiguity, can quickly prompt to process words such as homonyms and
homo graphs and integrate them into the text being read. This issue has been a source of interest for
many researchers to see how multiple meanings of words are represented, activated, and ultimately
selected. Other studies have also investigated the processing of ambiguous words out of context, for
instance, in a lexical decision task. The obtained results showed that recognition performance for
homonyms are facilitated relative to unambiguous words (Pexman & Lupker, 1999; Rodd, et. al. ,
2002). Rod et. al., for instance, suggest that the multiple representations of homonyms are activated
in parallel. They maintain that lexical access, at least in isolated word recognition tasks, involves
the initial activation of numerous lexical competitors within the lexicon.
Lexical access in sentence context: Monolingual and bilingual studies
In every day communication, words are most often encountered in a meaningful context and
not in isolation. The question can therefore be whether the presence of a meaningful context
constrains cross-language activation? Putting it another way, can information activated top-down
from semantics in?uence the bottom-up processes of lexical access? In the monolingual domain, it
has been contended that context aids in the interpretation of ambiguous words.
However, what is still debated is the point at which selection of the appropriate meaning
takes place and how early in the process of lexical access context can exert its effect. According to
context-dependent accounts, the conceptual representations of sentences that readers build have an
early influence on lexical access. Thus, language processing is seen as being highly interactive,
such that lexical knowledge, world knowledge, and the semantic and syntactic information provided
by a sentence interact with the bottom-up processes that drive lexical access. This account is based
on the ending that words are processed faster when they are embedded in a congruent sentence
context than a neutral or incongruent context (e.g., Simpson et al., 1989; Stanovich & West, 1979).
This study was directed toward finding answer to two questions. First, to investigate the
lexical access and the amount of word recognition with regard to the proficiency level of the
subjects, and second, to probe the role of context in accessing lexical items with consideration of
the differences between the two languages (L1 and L2).
2. Method
Participants
Participants of this study were ten learners of English (as their L2) whose L1 was Persian.
The gender variable was controlled for in the study (all subjects were male), and the subjects’ ages
ranged 17-29. They were at different levels of proficiency in English (five were Elementary and
five at the advanced level), who were under education for their foreign language (English) by the
M. Hamavandy, M. Golshan - Bilingual Lexical Activation in Sentence and Non-sentence Context: A Study of Cross-
language Lexical Processing
41
time the experiment was conducted. The participants were rewarded for participation in the
experiment by giving 3 extra hours of instruction on their listening comprehension.
Materials
Two similar texts, one in the L1 of the participants (Farsi) and one in their L2 (English) was
used in the study. The texts were similar in meaning and its lexical items met the following criteria:
They were between five to eight letters long each; the first and last letter was left in its place and the
in-between letters were randomized. Only content words were used (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs); they were monosyllabic; and each word had only one possible spelling and one
pronunciation.
To make sure all the lexical items would be known by the participants, the unjumbled text
was given to two other students in each level to indicate the unfamiliar words. Words that were
indicated as unknown were excluded from the text, and were replaced with their synonyms. Also,
two lists of lexical items (which met the above-mentioned criteria) one in Persian and one in
English each consisting of ten words were given to the participants for recitation. (See Appendix)
Design and Procedure
Participants were presented with the two texts and the words (in the L1 and L2 of subjects)
and were asked to read them aloud, while their responses were recorded. Participants were
instructed to respond quickly and accurately and to guess if they did not know a word’s
pronunciation. Reaction time (RT) was recorded in seconds from the onset of stimulus presentation
to the end of articulation. Participants were given 3-5 practice trials prior to the experiment.
4. Results of the Experiment
Analyses of variance were performed on naming latencies and mean percent error scores.
Mean naming latencies (in seconds) and percent error rates for naming the lexical items in English
(L1) and Persian (L2) were also calculated.
Latency data
A two-way ANOVA was performed to determine whether and to what degree overall effect
of language and proficiency level could be detected on lexical recognition time duration. There was
significant effect of language, F1 (1, 8) = 17.63, p ˂ 0.05, MSE=12597.28; F2 (l, 8) =328.01, p ˂
0.05, MSE=0.401.29, reflecting longer naming latencies in L2 than L1. This main effect was
qualified by an interaction with level of proficiency in the subject analysis, F3 (1, 8) = 485.32, p ˂
0.05, MSE=0.386.6. Paired t-tests performed with a Bonferroni correction showed that elementary
learners named slower than advanced peers in L2, t (l, 1) = - 6.10, p ˂ 0.05, while this difference in
latency was not observed in L1, t (1, 1) = 0.17, p ˂ 0.05.
Also, a three-way (language type [L1 or L2], proficiency level, phonological similarity)
ANOVA was performed on the mean naming latencies and percent error rates.
In the analysis of naming latencies, the main effect of the proficiency level of the subjects
turned out as the most significant factor, F1(2, 17) = 16.35, p ˂ 0.05, MSE = 22399.95; F2(2, 43) =
43.71, p ˂ 0.05, MSE = 3370.15 indicating longer latencies for the advanced participants who were
reciting in L1 (Persian) relative to that of elementary learners. Another central research question
addressed in the present study was the significant interaction between the proficiency level of the
subjects and phonological similarity of the lexical items. The ANOVA results indicated that, as
mentioned earlier, advanced learners were slower in their L1. Probably naming latencies were
delayed when a highly similar phonological representation in the L1 mapped on to two, or more
distinct phonological representations in L2, lengthening the lexical activation. Other studies with a
similar finding have considered it as an evidence for feed-forward activation from orthography to
phonology across the subjects’ two languages.
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Error data
A two-way ANOVA (language, proficiency) revealed a main effect of language, reflecting
increased error rates in L2 relative to L1. F1 (l, 8) = 10.55, p ˂ 0.05, MSE = 4.6. There was no
significant effect of proficiency observed on error rates for the subjects’ L1. F2 (1, 12) = 3.10, p ˂
0.05, MSE = 55.5
5. Discussion and conclusion
Results of the present study imply that the degree to which lexical items become activated
across languages highly depends on the proficiency level as well as the phonological distance (feed-
forward or –backward ness) of lexical items. This differential effect of phonological distance on
word recognition has also been reported in previous studies, which demonstrated that under some
circumstances language-specific phonologic (orthographic) distance cues can be indicative of word
recognition timing (Vaid, et. al., 2002, Thomas & Allport, 2000).
As in the present study, Gottlob et al. (1999) found that words that mapped on to two
phonological representations for the readers’ L2 (e.g., lead) were delayed in a naming task. They
explained this effect of phonological ambiguity within a ‘resonance approach’ to lexical access.
According to this view, word recognition occurs through resonance, which is achieved when feed
forward and -backward activation between orthographic, phonological, and semantics codes is
mutually reinforcing. Thus, lexical processing will be delayed whenever there is a mismatch
between the codes.
In a similar vein Kroll et. al. (2002) and Schwarts et. al. (2005) found close results with the
present study. In those studies the researchers also observed difference in lexical representations
across the languages of their subjects with regard to their L2 proficiency level. Kroll et. al., for
instance, conclude that lexical representations in the L2, even for relatively proficient bilinguals, are
weaker than those in the LI, lengthening the time in which information becomes activated and
increasing the likelihood that competitive dynamics will influence processing
Another objective of the present study was to examine the nature of bilingual lexical
activation in sentence context. More speci?cally, it was hoped to determine whether the presence of
a sentence context would modify cross-language, non-selective activation. Overall the ?ndings
demonstrated that the mere presence of a sentence context, and the language cues it might provide,
were not su?cient to constrain non-selectivity since e?ects of cross-language activation persisted in
low-constraint sentences. Instead, e?ects of non-selectivity were decreased only when the sentences
provided rich semantic information. This can be an indication that the top-down processes of
sentence comprehension can interact directly with the bottom-up processes of lexical access and
reduce the number of lexical entries that compete for selection.
Although findings of the present study are indicative of interactions between the top-down
processes of sentence comprehension and the bottom-up processes of lexical access, it could not
definitively be concluded that actual selective access had taken place.
During L1 lexical recognition for advanced learners an interfering context effect was obtained. This
effect was absent in bare noun naming. The question therefore can be what caused the interference
effect in word naming within a textual constraint? One claim can be that in bare noun naming,
phonological codes can be directly accessed from the orthographic input codes, as the task does not
require lexical-semantic retrieval of other words. In the framework proposed by Levelt et al. (1999),
an accessed lemma (i.e. abstract lexical representations) spreads activation to the corresponding
lexical concept, which co-activates related concepts and their lemmas. This, in turn, will lead to
competition among semantically related lemmas, which can be a cause of the observed interference
effect in this study.
The semantic interference effect observed in this study is also compatible with findings
reported by Vitkovitch and Humphreys (1991) that demonstrated increased error rates in picture
naming when targets were preceded by items from the same semantic category. The authors claim
that most probably lexical competition has been at the root of that effect there, too.
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In future research it will be critical to understand whether and how these interactions are
constrained by contextual support in situations that may better reflect the real-life language
experience of bilinguals.
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Appendix: Materials of the study
English Text
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoetnat tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can
be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mind deos not
raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
متن فارسی
برپايه تقحيقات داشنگاه کميربج ، مھم نسيت حروف واژگان به چه تربيتی چنيش شده اند ، بلکه تھنا درست بودن حرف اول
اين به اين دليل است . بقيه متيواند کام; در ھم رتخيه باشد ولی شما قادر به خواندن باشيد بی ھيچ ملشکی. و آخر اھيمت دارد
جالب بود، مگر نه؟. را به تھنايی نمی خاوند بکله ھر واژه را به صورت کلی درک مکنيدکه مغز انسان ھر حرف
لغات فارسی
آماشيدنی
ترليی
التکريسته
مبانع
باتکری
کتنور
وادلين
مباسقه
موجدوات
اتنخاب
English Words
Agnry
Dreive
Cenvoy
Nitoce
Batceria
Stertch
Frezeer
Radaiotr
Borad
Chnace