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Processing Code-Switching in Algerian Bilinguals: Effects of Language Use and Semantic Expectancy.

Souad Kheder¹, Edith Kaan¹

¹Department of Linguistics, University of Florida, Gainesville FL, USA.

Frontiers in Psychology

|March 15, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Bilinguals process language switches more easily when sentence context is highly constraining. Language use and frequent code-switching habits further influence this processing, especially for proficient French speakers.

Keywords:

base language code-switching language expectancy listening processing semantic constraint

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Area of Science:

Psycholinguistics
Cognitive Neuroscience
Sociolinguistics

Background:

Bilingual language processing involves complex interactions between languages.
Code-switching, the alternation between two languages, is common in bilingual communities.
Understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying code-switching is crucial for psycholinguistics.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how sentence constraint and language use affect expectancy of language switches in bilingual listeners.
To examine the influence of typical (Algerian Arabic-French) versus atypical (Standard Arabic-French) code-switching contexts on processing.
To explore the role of code-switching habits and L2 proficiency in modulating semantic constraint effects.

Main Methods:

Cross-modal naming paradigm with 65 Algerian bilinguals (Algerian Arabic-French speakers).
Participants listened to sentence fragments in either Algerian Arabic or Standard Arabic, followed by a French target noun phrase.
Speech onset times were recorded to measure processing efficiency under varying semantic constraint and language contexts.

Main Results:

A significant semantic constraint effect was observed: French switches were processed faster in high-constraint contexts.
The effect of semantic constraint was more pronounced in the typical Algerian Arabic-French code-switching context.
Semantic constraint effects were reduced in frequent code-switchers and those with higher proficiency in L2 French.

Conclusions:

Language use and habitual code-switching patterns significantly influence the processing of language switches.
Semantic predictability plays a key role in facilitating cross-lingual processing.
Findings contribute to models of bilingual language processing and control mechanisms in code-switching.