When Two Languages Compete: Evidence for Cross-language Activation in Bilingual Production

When Two Languages Compete: Evidence for Cross-language Activation in Bilingual Production

Judith F. Kroll

Department of PsychologyPennsylvania State University

University Park, PA 16802 USA

Acknowledgments

• Teresa Bajo

• Susan Bobb

• Kate Cheng

• Ingrid Christoffels

• Dorothee Chwilla

• Albert Costa

• Annette De Groot

• Franziska Dietz

• Ton Dijkstra

• Giuli Dussias

• Chip Gerfen

• Tamar Gollan

• David Green

• Noriko Hoshino

• April Jacobs

• Niels Janssen

• Debra Jared

• Jared Linck

• Pedro Macizo

• Erica Michael

• Natasha Miller

• Maya Misra

• Scott Payne

Collaborators:

Research Support:

• National Science Foundation Grants, BCS-0111734 and BCS-0418071 • NIH Grant RO1MH62479• RGSO Grant, Penn State University• Language Science Research Group at Penn State University

• Pilar Piñar• Carmen Ruiz• Nuria Sagarra• Mikel Santesteban• Herbert Schriefers• Ana Schwartz• Bianca Sumutka• Gretchen Sunderman• Natasha Tokowicz• Janet Van Hell• Zofia Wodniecka

Cognitive research on bilingualism has increased dramatically in the past 10-15 years

Experimental psycholinguistics contributes one approach to understanding the nature of bilingual experience

Bilinguals provide a model for cognitive scientists interested in developing a universal account of how cognitive systems develop and interact with one another

In this talk I focus on behavioral research methods that complement linguistic analyses and neuroimaging to illustrate this approach

Amsterdam, Centraal Station

“bike” “fiets”

Dutch-English speaker

Talk Outline

Spoken production as a case to illustrate the logic of cognitive approaches to bilingualism

What evidence suggests that both languages are active when even a single word is spoken?

How deep into speech planning does that activation extend?

How is the activity of the two languages resolved?

Cues to language status

Inhibition

Questions for ongoing research

How does a speaker of two languages select the words to produce?

Selective access: The intention to speak in one language determines which candidates become active

The two languages are functionally separate

Non-selective access: Candidates in both languagesbecome active in parallel and may compete for selection

Distinct cues to language membership may eventually bias access for candidates in the

intended language or allow those in the unintended language to be inhibited

“fiets”

Selective access: Functional separation



Non-selective access: Parallel activation and later selection


Past bilingual production experiments converge on the conclusion of nonselective access but come to different conclusions regarding the locus of selection. Some argue that selection occurs at the level of the lemma or abstract lexical representation whereas other studies suggest that cross-language competition extends to the phonology

Nonselective to the lemma level Nonselective to the phonology

If highly proficient bilinguals cannot select the language they intend to speak in advance, then the problem becomes even more cognitively challenging for second language learners and unbalanced bilinguals for whom the first language is far more dominant and active than the second.






Inhibition


Psycholinguistic Tools: Three Laboratory Production Tasks

“fiets”

bike “fiets”

picture naming

word translation

fiets “fiets”word naming

Exploit a classic interference task:

GREEN: “green” GREEN: “red” XXXXX: “blue”

Stroop (1935): Name the color of the ink:

How does the language of the distractor word affect the presence of semantic interference? If production is language selective, then only distractors in the language to be spoken should produce interference.

coche

Variations of the Stroop Task

Interference in picture naming

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Magnitude of Semantic Interference

L1 L2

Language of Distractor

Data from Costa & Caramazza (2000) for Spanish-English bilinguals naming pictures in Spanish (L1) with distractors in Spanish (L1) and in English (L2)

Semantic interference does not depend on the language of the distractor!

**

Another approach: Effects of language mixture: If language production is fundamentally selective, then requiring both languages to be active should disrupt picture naming performance

Cued Picture Naming: Language of naming depends on an auditory cue(Kroll, Dijkstra, Janssen, & Schriefers, in preparation)

Mixed conditions: Name the picture in English ifyou hear the high tone and in Dutch if you hear thelow tone

Force activation of both languages

Blocked conditions: Name the picture in English(or Dutch) if you hear the high tone and say “no” ifyou hear the low tone

Activation of the nontarget language is optional

Logic of Cued Picture Naming:

L1 L2

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900

Mixed

Blocked

Overall Mixed vs. Blocked Naming Latencies

Language

Mean Naming Latency (ms)

Cost of Language Mixing in Cued Picture Naming: Dutch-English Bilinguals (Kroll et al., in preparation)

These results suggest that L1 is normally active during lexicalization into the L2. Requiring L1 to be active does not affect L2 picture namingperformance.

The cost to L1 resembles the effects of language switching on L1.

?

frog

kikker

Miller (2001): What happens to picture naming when the language of a probe word naming task is in the L1 or L2?

“frog”

“frog”

“kikker”

1.

2.

3.

L1 L2

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L1 Probe

L2 Probe

Language of Picture Naming

Mean Picture Naming Latency (ms)

Same basic result: Little effect on L2 when L1 is required tobe used; performance appears nonselective in both cases. For L1, there is a significant cost when L2 is required to be active






Inhibition


How far into speech planning does parallel activation extend?

An indication of the level at which the nontarget alternative is active

If the phonology of the target alternative is available, then we might predict facilitation in picture naming due to the overlap across languages

cognate statusof the picture’sname

630640650660670680690700710

Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Bilinguals Monolinguals

CognatesNoncognates

Simple picture naming in L2 and by monolinguals:Costa, Caramazza, & Sebastián-Gallés (2000)

Bilinguals: Catalan-Spanish speakers naming in Spanish (L2)Monolinguals: Native Spanish speakers naming in Spanish (L1)

cognate facilitation

Cognate facilitation suggests that the other language is active to the level of the phonology

Effect of Cognate Status in Cued Picture Naming: Dutch-English Bilinguals (Kroll et al., in preparation)

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60

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100Blocked L2 Cog

Mixed L2 Cog

Naming Pictures in L2 with Cognate Names in L1: Blocked vs. Mixed Conditions

SOA

Magnitude of Cognate Effect (ms)facilitation interference

For L2 there is very little consequence of whether language is mixed

Magnitude of cognate facilitation in naming pictures in the L2 under mixed and blocked language conditions.






Inhibition


The results for naming cognate pictures suggest that the activity of the nontarget language reaches the level of the phonology.

But can bilinguals exploit language cues in the nature of the event that initiates production to minimize cross-language influences?

More likely to be aa fiets than a bike?

Even more likely to bea fiets?

Definitely Dutch!

“fiets”

bike “fiets”

picture naming

word translation

Bringing the problem into the lab… Compare translation to picture naming: In translation there is a cue to the language present in the nature of the input

don’t speak English!

Miller & Kroll (2002): Translation Stroop: What happenswhen the distractor is in the language of the input?

English

Spanish

If there is a cue in the event that initiates speech planning, thena distractor in the input language should not influence production.

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Mean Translation

Latency (ms)

Output Input

Language of the Distractor

RelatedUnrelated

Stroop interference in translation only when the distractor appeared in the language of the word to be spoken, unlikethe Stroop interference observed for picture naming

A cue in the language input allowed production to proceed selectively!

Does the language of a sentence context function as a cue?

Schwartz (2003): Take words that have been shown to elicit activation of both languages and put them in full sentence context.

Cognates with identical/similar orthography but similar or different phonology:

English Spanish Cross-language phonology

piano piano Similar [+p]

base base Different [-p]500

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Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Type of Cognate

+P-P

Out of context: Facilitation for naming cognates in L2when the phonology converges from L1 to L2

RSVP: Method for naming words in sentence context

Follow along with sentence.

home Who

ran home?

+The

boy

ran

home

for

dinner.

(250ms/word)

Say red word out loud.

Answer questions when asked.

time

RSVP: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Schwartz (2003): Does the facilitation for naming cognatesdisappear in sentence context? If the sentence provides a cue tolanguage membership, then no cognate effects should be observed

Type of Sentence Example

High constraint The composer sat at the benchand began to play the piano asthe lights dimmed.

Low constraint As we walked through the roomwe noticed there was a largepiano by the window.

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Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Type of Cognate

+P-P

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660

680

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Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Type of Cognate

+P-P

Result: Sentence constraint butnot language per se eliminatesthe cognate effect

High

Low

Naming in the L2

What cues effectively reduce cross-language competition?

Language-specific information in the event that initiates speech planning (Miller & Kroll, 2002)

Convergence between language-specific information and meaning (Schwartz, 2003, Van Hell, 1998)

What cues do not reduce cross-language competition?

The language of a sentence context itself (Schwartz, 2003; Van Hell, 1998)

The intention to use one language only (Van Hell & Dijkstra, 2002)

Instructions (Dijkstra et al., 2000)

Cross-language script differences (Hoshino & Kroll, 2005)





Cues to language status Inhibition


Inhibition: Do bilinguals inhibit one language to speak the other?

Some recent research suggests not:

Costa & Santesteban (2004): Highly balanced Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Barcelona do not appear to require inhibition when switching betweenlanguages

Three laboratory approaches to examine how inhibition mayoperate when L2 speakers are immersed in the L2

Simulated immersion in the lab

Actual immersion in an L2 environment

Forced L2 immersion within the L1 environment

Kroll, Michael, & Sankaranarayanan (1998):

Attempted to simulate one aspect of an immersion environment in a training study in the laboratory by providing unique cues to the L2.

What’s helpful about immersion?

Suppression of L1

Unique cues to L2

Teach American college students who know no Dutch or German 40 new Dutch words by associating them to their English translations or to pictures of the objects to which they refer.

Simulated immersion in the laboratory

CARROT wortel

Step 1: see Step 2: see

Study Phase - Word ConditionStudy Phase - Word Condition

wortel

Step 1: see Step 2: see

Study Phase - Picture ConditionStudy Phase - Picture Condition

Step 3: say "wortel"

Step 3: say "wortel"

Training conditions for monolingual English speakers:

The twist: The pictures were sometimes shown in anoncanonical orientation

The noncanonicalorientation may:

1. Provide a unique cue to the L2 word

and/or

2. Inhibit the processof retrieving the L1 name

?

At test: Translate words from English to Dutch or namepictures in Dutch. There is typically a cost to namingpictures of noncanonical objects. The question here is whether that cost will be observed for learners who acquired the new L2 concepts by associating them to thenoncanonical objects.

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Cost of NoncanonicalPictures (ms)

Canonicality Effect

Word Training,Picture TestPicture Training,Picture TestPicture Training,Word Test

What is the cost of noncanonicality at test?

This is the remarkable result: Faster to later translate from Englishto Dutch if trained on the noncanonical pictures!

[noncanonical-normal orientation]

Real L2 immersion during study abroad: Linck & Kroll (2005)

Native English speakers at intermediate levels of Spanishspending a semester abroad in Salamanca compared to acontrol group of classroom learners with comparable L2 study

Performed a translation recognition task (De Groot, 1992;Sunderman, 2002) in which they had to decide whether aword in English was the correct translation of a word in Spanish.

hombreman

? “yes”

Using materials from Sunderman (2002), the criticaldistractors in the experiment consisted of word pairsthat were not the correct translation:

mano-man: lexical form related

hambre-man: translation related

mujer-man: semantically related

casa-man: unrelated

Critical items:

Control items:

[Interference = Critical RT - Control RT]

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Magnitude of Interference

(ms)

LexicalForm

Translation Semantic

Distractor Type

ControlsImmersed

Results: Control learners show interference for all distractortypes but immersed learners show only semantic interference

In the immersion environment the L1 appears to be suppressed!

Forced immersion in an L1 environment: Jacobs, Gerfen, & Kroll (2005)

Native English speakers at intermediate levels of Spanish in a summerdomestic immersion program or in classroom study only.

The two groups appear similar in overall proficiency in Spanish as the L2:

Self-assessed proficiency in L1 and L2 (10 pt. Scale):

Classroom: L1 = 9.6 L2 = 6.3 Immersed: L1 = 9.3 L2 = 6.1

Percent correct rejections in Spanish lexical decision (is the string ofletters a real word in Spanish?)

Classroom: 65.9% Immersed: 68.7%

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Learners Learners Immersed

Mean Naming Latency (ms)

CognatesControls

Two groups performed a Spanish word naming experiment with cognates and lexically/phonetically matched controls

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Mean VOT (ms)CognatesControls

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Mean Duration (ms)CognatesControls

Naming Latencies VOT Articulatory Duration

Immersed learners are faster to name Spanish words and like proficient English speakers of Spanish, speak Spanish words as more Spanish-like than the classroom learners and show effects of cross-language cognate

status in planning but not executing L2 speech.

Again, in this immersion environment it appears that L1 is suppressed!

Conclusions

The results of these studies support recent claims that lexical access is language nonselective in spoken production.

There is significant activation of the L1 when speaking L2 for even highly proficient bilinguals. That activation may produce cross-language competition.

The ability to negotiate that competition may come in part from cues that reliably signal L2 and in part from the ability to inhibit irrelevant information.

This work holds promise for developing a principled account of the factors that constrain cross-language activation to allow fluent performance in a single language but also code switching between languages.


How do language-specific factors influence the degree of cross-language activity?

What are the implications of bilingual research for cross linguistic analyses?

How is the L1 affected by proficiency in the L2? At the level of the lexicon, the phonology, and the syntax?

How do the grammatical constraints that characterize code- switching modulate cross-language activity?

What are the consequences of age and context of acquisition and language maintenance?

What are the cognitive consequences of cross-language competition?

What is the neural basis of bilingual performance?

Back to Amsterdam…

Things could be worse in New York!

Thank you!

When Two Languages Compete: Evidence for Cross-language Activation in Bilingual Production

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