Lexical access and competition in bilingual children: The role of proficiency and the lexical similarity of the two languages

Valentina Persici; Marilyn Vihman; Roberto Burro; Marinella Majorano

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2018.10.002

Lexical access and competition in bilingual children: The role of proficiency and the lexical similarity of the two languages

Valentina Persici, Marilyn Vihman, Roberto Burro, Marinella Majorano

Language and Linguistic Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Using a picture-auditory-word recognition task we examine how early child bilinguals access their languages and how the languages affect one another. Accuracy and response times in false friends and semantically related words are compared to control conditions within and across languages and grades. Study 1 tests the performance of school-age children with balanced vs. unbalanced knowledge of L1 Italian and L2 German. Study 2 compares unbalanced bilingual children with L1 Italian and L2 French or German to investigate the effect of lexical similarity in the children’s languages. The children were found to activate both languages upon receiving an auditory stimulus:
Performance in each language was affected by proficiency in the other, degree of between-language similarity, and length of experience with each language. The BLINCS model is invoked as a plausible framework for conceptualizing the nature of bilingual phono-lexical representation and its effect on word recognition.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	103-125
Number of pages	23
Journal	Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Volume	179
Early online date	23 Nov 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.10.002
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 23 Nov 2018

Bibliographical note

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10.1016/j.jecp.2018.10.002

Persici et al. final
© 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy.
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Cite this

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title = "Lexical access and competition in bilingual children: The role of proficiency and the lexical similarity of the two languages",

abstract = "Using a picture-auditory-word recognition task we examine how early child bilinguals access their languages and how the languages affect one another. Accuracy and response times in false friends and semantically related words are compared to control conditions within and across languages and grades. Study 1 tests the performance of school-age children with balanced vs. unbalanced knowledge of L1 Italian and L2 German. Study 2 compares unbalanced bilingual children with L1 Italian and L2 French or German to investigate the effect of lexical similarity in the children{\textquoteright}s languages. The children were found to activate both languages upon receiving an auditory stimulus:Performance in each language was affected by proficiency in the other, degree of between-language similarity, and length of experience with each language. The BLINCS model is invoked as a plausible framework for conceptualizing the nature of bilingual phono-lexical representation and its effect on word recognition.",

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