Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:21:07.223Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Differences in word learning in children: Bilingualism or linguistic experience?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2020

Maria Borragan ,
Angela de Bruin ,
Viktoria Havas ,
Ruth de Diego-Balaguer ,
Mila Dimitrova Vulchanova ,
Valentin Vulchanov  and
Jon Andoni Duñabeitia Open the ORCID record for Jon Andoni Duñabeitia [Opens in a new window]
Maria Borragan
Affiliation:
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
Angela de Bruin
Affiliation:
University of York, York, UK
Viktoria Havas
Affiliation:
Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Ruth de Diego-Balaguer
Affiliation:
ICREA, Barcelona, Spain; University of Barcelona; Barcelona, Spain; and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain
Mila Dimitrova Vulchanova
Affiliation:
Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Valentin Vulchanov
Affiliation:
Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Jon Andoni Duñabeitia*
Affiliation:
Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain; and Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The current study examines how monolingual children and bilingual children with languages that are orthotactically similar and dissimilar learn novel words depending on their characteristics. We contrasted word learning for words that violate or respect the orthotactic legality of bilinguals’ languages investigating the impact of the similarity between those two languages. In Experiment 1, three groups of children around the age of 12 were tested: monolinguals, Spanish–Basque bilinguals (orthotactically dissimilar languages), and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals (orthotactically similar languages). After an initial word-learning phase, they were tested in a recognition task. While Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Catalan bilingual children recognized illegal words worse than legal words, Spanish–Basque bilingual children showed equal performance in learning illegal and legal patterns. In Experiment 2, a replication study was conducted with two new groups of Spanish–Basque children (one group with high Basque proficiency and one group with a lower proficiency) and results indicated that the effects were not driven by the proficiency in the second language, as a similar performance on legal and illegal patterns was observed in both groups. These findings suggest that word learning is not affected by bilingualism as such, but rather depends on the specific language combinations spoken by the bilinguals.

Keywords

bilingual word processinglinguistic experienceorthotactic regularitiesword learning
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 42 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue: Individual Differences in Bilingualism , March 2021 , pp. 345 - 366
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, N., & Stewart, J. (2007). The MacArthur scale of subjective social status. San Francisco, CA: University of California at San Francisco.Google Scholar
Antón, E., Thierry, G., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2015). Mixing languages during learning? Testing the one subject-one language rule. PLOS ONE, 10, 1–20. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130069 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Au, T. K., & Glusman, M. (1990). The principle of mutual exclusivity in word learning: To honor or not to honor? Child Development, 61, 1474–1490.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bartolotti, J., & Marian, V. (2012). Language learning and control in monolinguals and bilinguals. Cognitive Science, 36, 1129–1147. doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01243.x CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Klein, R., Craik, F. I. M., & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19, 290–303. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.19.2.290 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Luk, G., & Kwan, E. (2005). Bilingualism, biliteracy, and learning to read: Interactions among languages and writing systems. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9, 43–61. doi: 10.1207/s1532799xssr0901_4 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casaponsa, A., Carreiras, M., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2014). Discriminating languages in bilingual contexts: The impact of orthographic markedness. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1–10. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00424 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Casaponsa, A., Carreiras, M., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2015). How do bilinguals identify the language of the words they read? Brain Research, 1624, 153–166. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2015.07.035 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Casaponsa, A., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2016). Lexical organization of language-ambiguous and language-specific words in bilinguals. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69, 589–604. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2015.1064977 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Casaponsa, A., Thierry, G., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2020). The role of orthotactics in language switching: An ERP investigation using masked language priming. Brain Sciences, 10, 22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colzato, L. S., Bajo, M. T., van den Wildenberg, W., Paolieri, D., Nieuwenhuis, S., La Hajj, W., & Hommel, B. (2008). How does bilingualism improve executive control? A comparison of active and reactive inhibition mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 34, 302–312. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.34.2.302 Google ScholarPubMed
Davis, C. J., & Perea, M. (2005). BuscaPalabras: A program for deriving orthographic and phonological neighborhood statistics and other psycholinguistic indices in Spanish. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 665–671. doi: 10.3758/BF03192738 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Bruin, A., Carreiras, M., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2017). The BEST dataset of language proficiency. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00522 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duñabeitia, J. A., Borragán, M., de Bruin, A., & Casaponsa, A. (2020). Changes in the sensitivity to language-specific orthographic patterns with age. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1691. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01691 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ellis, N. C., & Beaton, A. (1993). Psycholinguistic determinants of foreign language vocabulary learning. Language Learning, 43, 559–617. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1993.tb00627.x CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fennell, C. T., & Waxman, S. R. (2010). What paradox? Referential cues allow for infant use of phonetic detail in word learning. Child Development, 81, 1376–1383.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guasch, M., Boada, R., Ferré, P., & Sánchez-Casas, R. (2013). NIM: A web-based Swiss army knife to select stimuli for psycholinguistic studies. Behavior Research Methods, 45, 765–771. doi: 10.3758/s13428-012-0296-8 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hirosh, Z., & Degani, T. (2018). Direct and indirect effects of multilingualism on novel language learning: An integrative review. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 25, 892–916. doi: 10.3758/s13423-017-1315-7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izura, C., Cuetos, F., & Brysbaert, M. (2014). Lextale-Esp: A test to rapidly and efficiently assess the Spanish vocabulary size. Psicológica, 43, 559–617.Google Scholar
Kahn-Horwitz, J., Kuash, S., Ibrahim, R., & Schwartz, M. (2014). How do previously acquired languages affect acquisition of English as a foreign language: The case of Circassian. Written Language & Literacy, 17, 40–61. doi: 10.1075/bct.89.03kah CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahn-Horwitz, J., Schwartz, M., & Share, D. (2011). Acquiring the complex English orthography: A triliteracy advantage? Journal of Research in Reading, 34, 136–156. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2010.01485.x CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalashnikova, M., Mattock, K., & Monaghan, P. (2015). The effects of linguistic experience on the flexible use of mutual exclusivity in word learning. Bilingualism, 18, 626–638. doi: 10.1017/S1366728914000364 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kandhadai, P., Hall, G., & Werker, J. F. (2017). Second label learning in monolingual and bilingual infants. Developmental Science, 20, 2429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, A. S. (2004). KBIT: Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (Spanish version). Madrid: TEA Editions.Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M., Gross, M., & Buac, M. (2014). Effects of classroom bilingualism on task-shifting, verbal memory, and word learning in children. Developmental Science, 17, 564–583. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2011.08.021.Secreted CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaushanskay, M., & Marian, V. (2009a). Bilingualism reduces native-Language interference during novel-word learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 35, 829–835. doi: 10.1037/a0015275 Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M., & Marian, V. (2009b). The bilingual advantage in novel word learning. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 16, 705–710. doi: 10.3758/PBR.16.4.705 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaushanskaya, M., & Rechtzigel, K. (2012). Concreteness effects in bilingual and monolingual word learning. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 19, 935–941. doi: 10.3758/s13423-012-0271-5 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaushanskaya, M., Yoo, J., & van Hecke, S. (2013). Word learning in adults with second-language experience: Effects of phonological and referent familiarity. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 71, 233–236. doi: 10.1038/mp.2011.182.doi Google Scholar
Lemhöfer, K., & Broersma, M. (2012). Introducing LexTALE: A quick and valid Lexical Test for advanced learners of English. Behavior Research Methods, 44, 325–343. doi: 10.3758/s13428-011-0146-0 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lemhöfer, K., Koester, D., & Schreuder, R. (2011). When bicycle pump is harder to read than bicycle bell: Effects of parsing cues in first and second language compound reading. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 18, 364–370. doi: 10.3758/s13423-010-0044-y CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mady, C. (2014). Learning French as a second official language in Canada: Comparing monolingual and bilingual students at Grade 6. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 17, 330–344. doi: 10.1080/13670050.2013.767778 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mani, N., & Plunkett, K. (2008). Fourteen-month-olds pay attention to vowels in novel words. Developmental Science, 11, 53–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markman, E. M., & Wachtel, G. F. (1988). Children’s use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meanings of words. Cognitive Psychology, 20, 121–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nair, V. K. K., Biedermann, B., & Nickels, L. (2016). Consequences of late bilingualism for novel word learning: Evidence from Tamil–English bilingual speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 20, 473–487. doi: 10.1177/1367006914567005 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oganian, Y., Conrad, M., Aryani, A., Heekeren, H. R., & Spalek, K. (2016). Interplay of bigram frequency and orthographic neighborhood statistics in language membership decision. Bilingualism, 19, 578–596. doi: 10.1017/S1366728915000292 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paap, K. R., Johnson, H. A., & Sawi, O. (2015). Bilingual advantages in executive functioning either do not exist or are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances. Cortex, 69, 265–278. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2015.04.014 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perea, M., Urkia, M., Davis, C. J., Agirre, A., Laseka, E., & Carreiras, M. (2006). E-Hitz: A word frequency list and a program for deriving psycholinguistic statistics in an agglutinative language (Basque). Behavior Research Methods, 38, 610–615. doi: 10.3758/BF03193893 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available at http://www.R-project.org/ Google Scholar
Speciale, G., Ellis, N. C., & Bywater, T. (2004). Phonological sequence learning and short-term store capacity determine second language vocabulary acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 293–321. doi: 10.1017/s0142716404001146 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaid, J., & Frenck-Mestre, C. (2002). Do orthographic cues aid language recognition? A laterality study with French-English bilinguals. Brain and Language, 82, 47–53. doi: 10.1016/S0093-934X(02)00008-1 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Gelderen, A., Schoonen, R., de Glopper, K., Hulstijn, J., Snellings, P., Simis, A., & Stevenson, M. (2003). Roles of linguistic knowledge, metacognitive knowledge and processing speed in L3, L2 and L1 reading comprehension: A structural equation modeling approach. International Journal of Bilingualism, 7, 7–25. doi: 10.1177/13670069030070010201 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Kesteren, R., Dijkstra, T., & de Smedt, K. (2012). Markedness effects in Norwegian–English bilinguals: Task-dependent use of language-specific letters and digrams. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 2129–2154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherhead, D., & White, K. S. (2018). And then I saw her race: Race-based expectations affect infants’ word processing. Cognition, 177, 87–97. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.04.004 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Werker, J. F., & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2008). Bilingualism in infancy: First steps in perception and comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 144–151 doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2008.01.008 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yoshida, H., Tran, D. N., Benitez, V., & Kuwabara, M. (2011). Inhibition and adjective learning in bilingual and monolingual children. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 1–14. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00210 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed