Shared translation in second language activates unrelated words in first language

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Bilingual language processing is complex, involving the interplay between multiple languages.
• Understanding how semantic knowledge is coactivated during reading is crucial for psycholinguistics.
• Previous research often used explicit L2 stimuli, limiting insights into naturalistic reading.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate bilingual coactivation during natural monolingual sentence reading.
• To determine if semantic knowledge from a second language (L2) influences native language (L1) reading.
• To explore the automaticity and selectivity of bilingual word processing.

Main Methods:

• Comparing native Chinese speakers with and without Japanese as a second language.
• Utilizing a parafoveal preview priming paradigm during monolingual Chinese sentence reading.
• Analyzing translation-related priming effects between Chinese word pairs sharing a Japanese translation.

Main Results:

• Unrelated Chinese word pairs with a common Japanese translation exhibited priming effects.
• This translation-related preview effect was present only in late Chinese-Japanese bilinguals.
• Monolingual Chinese readers did not show this priming effect, indicating language experience modulates activation.

Conclusions:

• Bilingual semantic coactivation can occur automatically and unconsciously during native language reading.
• Second language (L2) lexical activation influences native language (L1) processing, even without explicit L2 word presentation.
• This study demonstrates a novel L2-to-L1 influence in a naturalistic reading context.