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The influence of language exposure on lexical and syntactic language processing
Tracy Love1, Edwin Maas, David Swinney
1University of California, San Diego, Department of Psychology-0109, La Iolla, CA 92093-0109, USA. tlove@ucsd.edu
Experimental Psychology
|July 24, 2003
Summary
Bilingual and non-native English speakers process complex sentence structures differently than monolingual native English speakers. These distinct language processing patterns highlight variations in how different bilingual groups handle syntactic complexities.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
Background:
- Proficient bilinguals were previously thought to process language structurally like monolinguals.
- Understanding language processing in diverse linguistic groups is crucial for cognitive models.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate on-line structural language processing in monolingual native English speakers (MNES), non-native English speakers (NNES), and bilingual native English speakers (BNES).
- To compare processing of syntactically complex structures across these three groups.
Main Methods:
- Utilized on-line measures to examine the processing of object-relative constructions.
- Analyzed the activation of lexical information in biasing contexts.
Main Results:
- Both NNES and BNES groups exhibited different processing patterns compared to MNES.
- Significant performance differences were observed between NNES and BNES groups in processing complex structures.
- Lexical information activation varied, suggesting distinct underlying processes in different bilingual types.
Conclusions:
- Bilingual and non-native English speakers show unique patterns in processing complex syntactic structures, diverging from monolinguals.
- The findings indicate that different cognitive processes are engaged by various bilingual populations during language comprehension.
- This research necessitates refined models of on-line language comprehension that account for linguistic diversity.