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Language switching in bilingual production: Empirical data and computational modelling*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2013

ROBERTO FILIPPI ,
THEMIS KARAMINIS  and
MICHAEL S. C. THOMAS
ROBERTO FILIPPI*
Affiliation:
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge & Developmental Neurocognition Lab, Birkbeck, University of London
THEMIS KARAMINIS
Affiliation:
Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE), Institute of Education, University of London & Developmental Neurocognition Lab, Birkbeck, University of London
MICHAEL S. C. THOMAS
Affiliation:
Developmental Neurocognition Lab, Birkbeck, University of London
*
Address for correspondence: Roberto Filippi, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK[email protected]
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Abstract

One key issue in bilingualism is how bilinguals control production, particularly to produce words in the less dominant language. Language switching is one method to investigate control processes. Language switching has been much studied in comprehension, e.g., in lexical decision task, but less so in production. Here we first present a study of language switching in Italian–English adult bilinguals in a naming task for visually presented words. We demonstrate an asymmetric pattern of time costs to switch language, where participants incurred a greater time cost to switch into naming in their dominant language (Italian). In addition, costs were greater where the stimuli were interlingual cognates or homographs than words existing in only one language, implicating lexical competition as a source of the cost. To clarify the operation of control processes, we then present two connectionist models of bilingual naming, based on the previous models of Seidenberg and McClelland (1989), Cohen, Dunbar and McClelland (1990), Gilbert and Shallice (2002), and Karaminis and Thomas (2010). Crucially, both models acquired their differential language dominance via an experience-dependent learning process. The models embody different assumptions about the language control processes that produce the switch cost. We consider which processing assumptions are sufficient to explain asymmetric language switch costs and word class effects on language switching in individual word reading, as well as generating novel predictions for future testing.

Keywords

bilingualismspeech productionswitchingcomputational modelling
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 294 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

This study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council studentship, ESRC grant RES-062-23-2721, and a Leverhulme Study Abroad Fellowship held at the University of Chicago. Our thanks to Prof. David W. Green and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

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