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Sublexical modulation of simultaneous language activation in bilingual visual word recognition: The role of syllabic units

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2014

MARKUS CONRAD ,
CARLOS J. ÁLVAREZ ,
OLIVIA AFONSO  and
ARTHUR M. JACOBS
MARKUS CONRAD*
Affiliation:
Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany
CARLOS J. ÁLVAREZ
Affiliation:
Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
OLIVIA AFONSO
Affiliation:
Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
ARTHUR M. JACOBS
Affiliation:
Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany
*
Address for correspondence: Markus Conrad, Dpto. Psicología Cognitiva, Social y Organizacional, Facultad de Psicología, Campus de Guajara, Universidad de La Laguna 38205-S/C de Tenerife - Canary Islands, Spain Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

We addressed the question of whether syllabic units of the presented language would activate words containing these syllables in the nonpresented language. In two lexical decision experiments using Spanish and German words presented to two groups of late Spanish–German and German–Spanish bilinguals and to two monolingual control groups, target words’ syllable-frequency in the nonpresented language was manipulated. Inhibitory effects of syllable-frequency in the nonpresented language were found only when Spanish–German bilinguals read German L2 words– suggesting that L2 sublexical syllabic units activated L1 syllabic neighbors’ representations that would interfere with L2 target processing. On the contrary, no inhibitory effects but rather a facilitation tendency due to syllable-frequency from the nonpresented German language was obtained for both groups of bilinguals reading Spanish words. This dissociation concerning the spread of activation from sublexical units to lexical representations from bilinguals’ two languages is discussed in terms of structural differences between the two languages.

Keywords

visual word recognitionbilingualismsyllable frequency
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 696 - 712
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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