Between- and within-language priming is the same: evidence for shared bilingual syntactic representations
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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Examining Bilingual Language Control Using the Stroop Task
Published on: February 26, 2020
Leila Kantola1, Roger P G van Gompel
1Department of Language Studies, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden. leila.kantola@ling.umu.se
Abstract:
Two structural-priming experiments investigated how bilinguals represent syntactic structures. According to the shared-syntax account (Hartsuiker, Pickering, & Veltkamp, 2004), bilinguals have a single syntactic representation for structures that exist in both languages, whereas separate-syntax accounts claim that the representations for these structures are language specific. Our experiments tested native speakers of Swedish who were highly proficient in English. The results showed that structural priming within language and between languages was equally strong. This indicates that representations of syntactic structures from different languages are shared and, therefore, supports the shared-syntax account.
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