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Rosa E Guzzardo Tamargo1, Jorge R Valdés Kroff2, Paola E Dussias3

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Bilingualism
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Bilinguals alternate languages (code-switching) during communication.
  • Experience-based models suggest language processing relies on distributional patterns from production.
  • The role of production patterns in bilingual code-switching comprehension is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test if bilinguals use combinatorial distributional patterns from production to guide code-switched sentence comprehension.
  • To investigate production asymmetries in Spanish-English code-switching.
  • To examine the impact of these production patterns on comprehension.

Main Methods:

  • Analyzed spontaneous bilingual speech for production patterns in auxiliary + participle phrases.
  • Conducted an eye-tracking study with bilingual code-switchers to measure comprehension costs.
  • Correlated production asymmetries with comprehension patterns.

Main Results:

  • Confirmed production asymmetries in Spanish-English code-switches involving auxiliary + participle phrases.
  • Bilinguals' comprehension costs mirrored the observed production patterns.
  • Distributional differences in production significantly affected comprehension.

Conclusions:

  • Bilinguals are sensitive to production-derived distributional patterns in code-switching.
  • These patterns constrain and guide the comprehension of code-switched sentences.
  • Findings support links between language production and comprehension in bilinguals.