Language nonselective lexical access in bilingual toddlers.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Bilingualism research often focuses on later stages of language acquisition.
• Understanding early cross-language interactions is crucial for developmental models.
• The precise mechanisms of lexical access in young bilinguals remain under investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate cross-language activation in toddlers acquiring their second language (L2).
• To determine if L2 words prime recognition of related L1 words.
• To examine the role of phonological and translation relationships in cross-language priming.

Main Methods:

• Bilingual toddlers and monolingual controls participated in a word recognition task.
• Prime-target word pairs varied in phonological relatedness and translation relationship.
• Reaction times and accuracy were measured to assess target word recognition.

Main Results:

• Bilingual toddlers showed facilitated recognition for phonologically related L1 targets, suggesting non-selective language access.
• A late interference effect in the translation priming condition indicated non-selective lexical access.
• Monolingual controls did not exhibit similar priming effects, confirming bilingual-specific cross-language activation.

Conclusions:

• Early bilinguals demonstrate cross-language activation, influencing L1 word recognition through L2 input.
• Evidence supports language non-selective lexical access in toddlers acquiring an L2.
• This study provides the first empirical evidence of cross-talk between languages in early L2 acquisition.