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Within-language attention control in second language processing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2005

MARLENE TAUBE-SCHIFFNORMAN  and
NORMAN SEGALOWITZ
MARLENE TAUBE-SCHIFFNORMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology Concordia University, Montréal Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance
NORMAN SEGALOWITZ
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology Concordia University, Montréal Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance
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Abstract

This study investigated attention control in tasks involving the processing of relational terms (more highly grammaticized linguistic stimuli: spatial prepositions) and non-relational terms (less highly grammaticized lexical stimuli: nouns) in a first (L1) and second language (L2). Participants were adult bilinguals with greater proficiency in their L1 (English) than in their L2 (French) as determined by self-report and performance on a speeded word classification task. Attention control was operationalized in terms of shift costs obtained in an alternating runs experimental design (Rogers and Monsell, 1995). As hypothesized from consideration of the attention-directing functions of language, participants displayed significantly greater shift costs (lower attention control) for relational terms when performing in the L2 as compared to the L1, but no difference in shift costs for non-relational terms between the two languages. The results are discussed from a cognitive linguistic perspective and in relation to second language proficiency development.

Type
Research articles
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , December 2005 , pp. 195 - 206
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2005

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Footnotes

This study was conducted by the first author as part of her doctoral dissertation research, under the supervision of the second author, and was supported by a research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the second author. The authors thank Guy Lacroix and Randall Halter for assistance with the stimulus materials, and Guy Lacroix, Karen Li, Natalie Phillips and Pavel Trofimovich for comments on earlier reports of this work.