Automatic and strategic components of bilingual lexical alignment.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Bilingualism Research
• Sociolinguistics

Background:

• Second-language (L2) speakers often strategically reuse words from their interlocutors.
• Bilingual communities present unique contexts for language use and alignment.
• Proficiency levels may influence the degree and nature of lexical-referential alignment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate lexical-referential alignment in lower-proficiency bilinguals from a bilingual community.
• To determine if alignment is more pronounced in lower-proficiency speakers compared to higher-proficiency speakers.
• To differentiate between strategic and automatic components of alignment.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments involving Spanish-English bilinguals naming and matching pictures in Spanish.
• Confederates used dispreferred but acceptable names for critical pictures.
• Experiment 2 manipulated the task to reduce strategic alignment incentives.

Main Results:

• Bilinguals showed an alignment effect, using dispreferred names more after hearing them.
• Lower-proficiency speakers exhibited greater alignment than higher-proficiency speakers in Experiment 1.
• Alignment was reduced in Experiment 2, with a more significant reduction in lower-proficiency speakers.

Conclusions:

• Strategic lexical-referential alignment is more likely in lower-proficiency bilinguals, even in bilingual communities.
• The study successfully isolated measurable strategic and automatic components of alignment.
• Proficiency plays a key role in the strategic use of interlocutor language.