Learning to pronounce a written word implies assigning a stress pattern to that word. This task can present a challenge for speakers of languages like Italian, in which stress information must often be computed from distributional properties of the language, especially for individuals learning Italian as a second language (L2). Here, we aimed to characterize the processes underlying the development of stress assignment in native English and native Chinese speakers learning L2 Italian. Both types of bilinguals produced evidence supporting a role of vocabulary size in modulating the type of distributional information used in stress assignment, with an early bias for Italian's dominant stress pattern being gradually replaced by use of associations between orthographic sequences and stress patterns in more advanced bilinguals. We also obtained some evidence for a transfer of stress assignment habits from the bilinguals’ native language to Italian, although only in English native speakers.

Bilingual speakers are less accurate and slower than monolinguals in word production. This bilingual cost has been demonstrated primarily for nouns. This study compared verb and noun retrieval to better understand bilingual lexical representation and test alternate hypotheses about bilingual cost. Picture naming speeds from highly proficient English–Spanish bilinguals showed a smaller bilingual cost for verbs compared to nouns. In Experiment 1, picture naming speeds were influenced by name agreement, age-of-acquisition and word length. Additionally, noun (but not verb) naming speed was predicted by word frequency. Experiment 2 examined two potential explanations for the smaller bilingual cost for verbs: verbs experience weaker cross-language interference (measured by translation speed) and smaller frequency effects. Both these predictions were confirmed, showing crucial differences between verbs and nouns and suggesting that cross-language facilitation rather than interference influences bilingual lexical retrieval, and that the frequency lag account of bilingual cost is more applicable to nouns than to verbs. We propose a Bilingual Integrated Grammatical Category model for highly proficient bilinguals to represent lexical category differences.

The present study aims to understand which factors contribute to different patterns of use of referring expressions by bilingual children, by considering the triangulation between language experience and proficiency, executive functions and cross-linguistic effects. We analyze reference use in Greek in the context of a narrative elicitation task as performed by 125 children of different language combinations, including Greek–Albanian, Greek–English and Greek–German. We calculate, for each child, an index of language experience that combines a proficiency measure with background questionnaire information. After identifying the occurrences of underinformative (underspecified) and overinformative (overspecified) referring expressions in the production of each child, we investigate to what extent each pattern of reference use is affected by language experience, cross-linguistic effects and executive functions. The study aims to shed some new light on the nature of overspecification and underspecification in bilingual reference production and, more in general, to model variation in reference use among bilingual children.

This study investigated how bilingual experience alters neural mechanisms supporting novel word learning. We hypothesised that novel words elicit increased semantic activation in the larger bilingual lexicon, potentially stimulating stronger memory integration than in monolinguals. English monolinguals and Spanish–English bilinguals were trained on two sets of written Swahili–English word pairs, one set on each of two consecutive days, and performed a recognition task in the MRI-scanner. Lexical integration was measured through visual primed lexical decision. Surprisingly, no group difference emerged in explicit word memory, and priming occurred only in the monolingual group. This difference in lexical integration may indicate an increased need for slow neocortical interleaving of old and new information in the denser bilingual lexicon. The fMRI data were consistent with increased use of cognitive control networks in monolinguals and of articulatory motor processes in bilinguals, providing further evidence for experience-induced neural changes: monolinguals and bilinguals reached largely comparable behavioural performance levels in novel word learning, but did so by recruiting partially overlapping but non-identical neural systems to acquire novel words.

The current study examined the impact of a speaker's gaze on novel-word learning in 4-5-year old monolingual (N = 23) and bilingual children (N = 24). Children were taught novel words when the speaker looked at the object both times while labeling it (consistent) and when the speaker looked at the object only the first time (inconsistent). During teaching, bilingual children differentiated between the target object (that matched the label) and non-target object (that did not match the label) earlier than the monolingual children on trials without eye-gaze information. However, during testing, monolingual children showed more robust retention of novel words than bilingual children in both conditions. Findings suggest that bilingualism shapes children's attention to eye-gaze during word learning, but that, ultimately, there is no bilingual advantage for utilizing this cue in the service of word retention.

Although bilinguals benefit from semantic context while perceiving speech-in-noise in their native language (L1), the extent to which bilinguals benefit from semantic context in their second language (L2) is unclear. Here, 57 highly proficient English–French/French–English bilinguals, who varied in L2 age of acquisition, performed a speech-perception-in-noise task in both languages while event-related brain potentials were recorded. Participants listened to and repeated the final word of sentences high or low in semantic constraint, in quiet and with a multi-talker babble mask. Overall, our findings indicate that bilinguals do benefit from semantic context while perceiving speech-in-noise in both their languages. Simultaneous bilinguals showed evidence of processing semantic context similarly to monolinguals. Early sequential bilinguals recruited additional neural resources, suggesting more effective use of semantic context in L2, compared to late bilinguals. Semantic context use was not associated with bilingual language experience or working memory.

First-language research suggests that new words, after initial episodic-memory encoding, are consolidated and hence become lexically integrated. We asked here if lexical consolidation, about word forms and meanings, occurs in a second language. Italian–English sequential bilinguals learned novel English-like words (e.g., apricon, taught to mean “stapler”). fMRI analyses failed to reveal a predicted shift, after consolidation time, from hippocampal to temporal neocortical activity. In a pause-detection task, responses to existing phonological competitors of learned words (e.g., apricot for apricon) were slowed down if the words had been learned two days earlier (i.e., after consolidation time) but not if they had been learned the same day. In a lexical-decision task, new words primed responses to semantically-related existing words (e.g., apricon-paper) whether the words were learned that day or two days earlier. Consolidation appears to support integration of words into the bilingual lexicon, possibly more rapidly for meanings than for forms.

A bilingual exhibits a “semantic accent” when they comprehend or use a word in one language in a way that is influenced by its translation. Semantic accents are well-captured by feature-based models: however, few studies have specifically examined the processing of features that contribute to a semantic accent. Japanese–English bilinguals and monolinguals of each language completed three feature-based tasks focusing on culture-specific semantic features. Bilinguals exhibited semantic accents in L1 and L2 in that they had stronger associations than monolinguals between the features specific to one culture and words in the other language. Within bilinguals, culture-specific features were more strongly associated with the congruent language than the incongruent language. Finally, changes in the strengths of associations between culture-specific features and words depended more on L2 cultural immersion than L2 proficiency. Semantic accents lessened in L2 and increased in L1 after many years of exposure to the L2 culture.

Numerous studies have investigated the neural correlates of reading in two languages. However, reliable conclusions have not been established as to the relationship of the neural correlates underlying reading in the first (L1) and second (L2) language. Here, we conduct meta-analyses to address this issue. We found that compared to L1, the left inferior parietal lobule showed greater activation during L2 processing across all bilingual studies. We then divided the literature into two categories: bilingual participants who learned two languages with different writing systems and bilinguals who learned two languages with similar writing systems. We found that language differences in the neural correlates of reading were generally modulated by writing system similarity, except the region of the left inferior parietal lobule, which showed preferences for L2 reading in both types of bilinguals. These findings provide new insights into the brain mechanisms underlying reading in bilinguals.

Applied linguistic work claims that multilinguals’ non-native languages interfere with one another based on similarities in cognitive factors like proficiency or age of acquisition. Two experiments explored how trilinguals regulate control of native- and non-native-language words. Experiment 1 tested 46 Dutch–English–French trilinguals in a monitoring task. Participants decided if phonemes were present in the target language name of a picture, phonemes of non-target language translations resulted in longer response times and more false alarms compared to phonemes not present in any translation (Colomé, 2001). The second language (English) interfered more than the first (Dutch) when trilinguals monitored in their third language (French). In Experiment 2, 95 bilinguals learned an artificial language to explore the possibility that the language from which a bilingual learns a third language provides practice managing known-language interference. Language of instruction modulated results, suggesting that learning conditions may reduce interference effects previously attributed to cognitive factors.

Language control is important for bilinguals to produce words in the right language. While most previous studies investigated language control using visual stimuli with vocal responses, language control regarding auditory stimuli and manual responses was rarely examined. In the present study, an alternating language switching paradigm was used to investigate language control mechanism under two input modalities (visual and auditory) and two output modalities (manual and vocal) by measuring switch costs in both error percentage and reaction time (RT) in forty-eight Cantonese–English early bilinguals. Results showed that higher switch costs in RT were found with auditory stimuli than visual stimuli, possibly due to shorter preparation time with auditory stimuli. In addition, switch costs in RT and error percentage could be obtained not only in speaking, but also in handwriting. Therefore, language control mechanisms, such as inhibition of the non-target language, may be shared between speaking and handwriting.

Previous research has demonstrated that individual differences in conflict management predict second-language (L2) reading skill. The current experiment tested the hypothesis that this relation reflects the need to manage conflict from cross-linguistic interactions (CLI). A novel model specifying the relation between L2 reading skill, CLI, and the predictors of such interactions was tested in 253 L2 English speaking adults, using structural equation modeling. In support of the hypothesis, the findings revealed that stronger CLI was related to poorer L2 reading skill. In addition, variability in non-linguistic conflict management, as measured by executive attention tasks, and relative language dominance reliably predicted CLI. Specifically, better conflict management and lower L1 dominance corresponded to fewer interactions. These results fill a crucial gap by demonstrating for the first time that the ability to manage CLI is critical to L2 reading, and that both cognitive skills and language experience contribute to variability in these interactions.

To become fluent in a second language, learners need to acquire a large vocabulary. However, the cognitive and affective mechanisms that support word learning, particularly among second language learners, are only beginning to be understood. Prior research has focused on intentional learning and small artificial lexicons. In the current study investigating the sources of individual variability in word learning and their underlying mechanisms, participants intentionally and incidentally learned a large vocabulary of Welsh words (i.e., emulating word learning in the wild) and completed a large battery of cognitive and affective measures. The results showed that, for both learning conditions, native language knowledge, auditory/phonological abilities and orthographic sensitivity all made unique contributions to word learning. Importantly, short-term/working memory played a significantly larger role in intentional learning. We discuss these results in the context of the mechanisms that support both native and non-native language learning.

Four hypotheses regarding the impact of discourse context on cross-language lexical activation were tested. Highly-proficient, Spanish–English bilinguals read all-English paragraphs containing non-identical and identical cognates or noncognate controls while their eye-movements were tracked. There were four paragraph conditions based on a full crossing of semantic bias from the topic sentence and sentence containing the critical word. In analyses in which cognate status was treated categorically there was an interaction between global bias and cognates status such that the observed inhibitory effects of cognate status were attenuated in global-neutral contexts. Follow-up analyses on the non-identical cognates in which orthographic overlap was treated continuously revealed a U-shaped function between orthographic overlap and processing time, which was more pronounced in global-neutral contexts. The overall pattern of findings is consistent with a combined operation of resonant-based and feature-restriction mechanisms of context effects.

In two experiments, we examined the hypothesis that bilingual speakers modulate their cognitive control settings dynamically in the presence of different interlocutors, and this can be captured through performance on a non-linguistic attention task. We introduced Malayalam–English bilinguals to interlocutors with varying L2 dominance through a pre-experiment familiarisation and interaction phase. Later, participants did the Flanker task while the interlocutors appeared before each trial. While in experiment one participants did the Flanker task with equal distribution of trials, in experiment two we manipulated the monitoring demands by changing the frequency of trials. Results showed that high-L2 proficient bilinguals had lower conflict effect on the Flanker task in the presence of balanced interlocutors in both the experiments. The results provide strong evidence of dynamic adaptation of control settings in bilinguals with regard to different passively present interlocutors. The results further extend the predictions of the adaptive control hypothesis with novel manipulation.

The grain size of orthographic representations prompted by a consistent orthography (like Spanish or Basque) increases if reading is simultaneously learned in another language with an inconsistent orthography (like French). Here, we aimed to identify item properties that trigger this grain-size accommodation in bilingual reading. Twenty-five French–Basque and 25 Spanish–Basque bilingual children attending Grade 3 read Basque words and pseudowords containing “complex” letter clusters mapping to one sound in French but several sounds in Basque or Spanish, and “simple” letter clusters mapping to the same sound structure in all three languages. Only French speaking children read “complex” Basque words faster than “simple” ones, suggesting that they accessed multi-letter “French” units to boost lexical processing. A negative complexity effect was found for pseudowords across groups. We discuss the existence of flexible cross-linguistic transfer in bilingual reading, proposing that the grain size of orthographic representations adjusts to item-specific characteristics during reading.

Most research showing that cognates are named faster than non-cognates has focused on isolated word production which might not realistically reflect cognitive demands in sentence production. Here, we explored whether cognates elicit interference by examining error rates during sentence production, and how this interference is resolved by language control mechanisms. Twenty highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals described visual scenes with sentence structures ‘NP1-verb-NP2’ (NP = noun-phrase). Half the nouns and half the verbs were cognates and two manipulations created high control demands. Both situations that demanded higher inhibitory control pushed the cognate effect from facilitation towards interference. These findings suggest that cognates, similar to phonologically similar words within a language, can induce not only facilitation but robust interference.

Bilingualism as it occurs in current societies is a complex, multidimensional and dynamic phenomenon, calling for new approaches to capture this concept. This study shows the feasibility of a person-centred approach by combining measures of the use of and proficiency in the first and second language from 110 young Turkish–Dutch children at two measurement waves, using two existing datasets. Latent Profile Analysis revealed four profiles, equivalent at age four and six: 1) Dominant L1 use, relatively low L1 and L2 proficiency, 2) Dual L1 and L2 use, around average L1 and L2 proficiency, 3) Dominant L1 use, relatively high L1 and L2 proficiency and 4) Dominant L2 use, relatively high L2 proficiency. Latent Transition Analysis indicated that children changed in profiles over time. Regression analyses showed that profiles were differently related to the family's socioeconomic status and children's nonverbal intelligence at age four. No relations were found at age six.

The current study explores how multilingual speakers with three typologically different languages (satellite-framed, verb-framed and equipollent-framed) encode and gauge event similarity in the domain of caused motion. Specifically, it addresses whether, and to what extent, the acquisition of an L2-English and an L3-Japanese reconstructs the lexicalization and conceptualization patterns established in the L1-Cantonese when the target language is actively involved in the decision-making process. Results show that multilingual speakers demonstrated an ongoing process of cognitive restructuring towards the target language (L3) in both linguistic encoding (event structures and semantic representations) and non-linguistic conceptualization (reaction time). And the degree of the restructuring is modulated by the amount of language contact with the L2 and L3. The study suggests that learning a language means internalizing a new way of thinking and provides positive evidence for L3-biased cognitive restructuring within the framework of thinking-for-speaking.

This study examined the extent to which language-switching practice enhanced L2 learners’ L2 grammatical processing by improving language selection abilities. Thirty-six English-speaking learners of French completed the same language-switching practice of L1 and L2 sentences, but received different types of pre-practice explicit information (EI) designed to address L2 learning difficulties resulting from crosslinguistic influence: one group (n = 17) received EI about English–French differences for viewpoint aspect, and a second group (n = 19) received EI about viewpoint aspect in French only. This design investigated the extent to which pre-practice linguistic knowledge moderated the effectiveness of the language-switching practice. Longitudinal analyses showed that increasing amounts of practice improved language selection abilities (increased accuracy, reduced reaction time costs), but only for learners who received EI about L1-L2 differences. These findings that language-switching was moderated by type of pre-practice EI have important implications for theories of L2 learning and instruction.