This document summarizes research on bilingual lexical access in both word recognition and production. The key points are: 1) Bilingual lexical access is non-selective, meaning words in both languages are activated during reading and speaking tasks, even for unrelated words. 2) Several factors like language attributes, processing strategies, individual differences, and task properties can modulate the level of cross-language competition. 3) While word recognition activates lexical forms in both languages, word production activates conceptual representations, leading to different patterns of cross-language interaction. 4) More research is still needed to fully understand how and when the selection between languages occurs during bilingual reading and speaking.

1. A cognitive view of the Bilingual
Lexicon: Reading and Speaking
words in two languages
Judith F. Kroll, Bianca M. Sumutka,
and Ana I. Schwartz
Presented by Irem Tumer
April 10, 2014

2. Outline of the Presentation
1. Background
1.1. Lexical Access in Bilingual Word Recognition
1.2. Lexical Access in Bilingual Word Production
2. Cross language competition
2.1. Models of Bilingual Word Recognition and Production
2.2. Factors that modulate cross-language interactions in
Word Recognition
2.3. Factors that modulate cross-language interactions in
Word Production
3. Conclusions and Future Perspectives

3. L1 lexical processing
• Psycholinguistics studies have shown that
when we recognıze a word in our native
language, not only the target word but also
other words sharing similar lexical forms with
the target word are also activated.
• Cohort Model
• Parallel- Series Models
• Interactive Models
How does a speaker of two languages
select the words to produce?

4. “fiets”
Selective access: The intention to speak in one language
determines which word to become active. The two
languages are functionally separate
Dutch-English speaker

5. “bike” “fiets”
Dutch-English speaker
Non-selective access: Distinct language cues may
eventually allow access for candidates in the intended
language or inhibit those in the unintended language

6. 1.1. LEXICAL ACCESS IN BILINGUAL WORD
RECOGNITION
• Recent studies of bilingual word recognition
supports the non-selectivity account.
• Dijkstra, et al. - Dutch-English Bilinguals activate
lexical candidates in Dutch in their native
language even though they read the words in
English and vice versa.
• Surprise: They do this although the two languages
do not share the same alphabetic or orthographic
forms (e.g. Gollan, Forster & Frost, 1997)

7. • Does cross-language similarities effect the
word recognition?
• Cognates (e.g. bed in English - Dutch)
• Homographs/false friends (e.g. room means
cream in Dutch)

8. • Lexical Decision Tasks: Dijkstra et al, 1998
• Dutch- English bilinguals
1. When the task was purely in English (L2), the bilinguals were
as fast to judge homographs as unambiguous controls as
they were able to access English selectively.
2. When the English words were cognates, they were
significantly faster to judge them as words than the controls.
3. When the task included Dutch (L1) words as non-words,
there was inhibitory effect of homographs relative to
unambiguous controls.
4. General Lexical decision task to accept real words in both
languages: they were faster to judge homographs than controls.
RESULTS
• bilingual lexicon is non-selective
• When bilinguals read words in one of their languages, the
orthographic, phonologic and semantics features of words in
both languages become active

9. 1.2. LEXICAL ACCESS IN BILINGUAL
WORD PRODUCTION
• Similar non-selectivity rule has also been
demonstrated in language production.
• Intention of producing a word in target
language also activates related words in the
non-target language
• Because of the top-down nature of
production, the activated words in the non-
target language are semantically related.

10. Stroop task (1935): a classic
interference task

11. Single language version of Stroop tasks
• A picture is named in one language
• A distracting word is presented (spoken or written)
• -before
• -during
• -after the picture`s presentation
• The aim was to find out the stages of the word
production
• RESULT: semantically related distractors inhibit
whereas phonologically related ones facilitate the
production time.

12. Bilingual Version of Stroop Studies
coche• buur
• The results were also similar for bilingual studies.
• Word selection occurs after the competition of lexical
candidates and before specifying the phonology of that
word

13. Problem of Stroop Task
• Distractor word initiates bottom-up processing
(recognition)
• Whereas naming a picture (production)
requires top-down processing
• So the two processes interfere and we can not
reach firm conclusions

14. Cued picture naming Tasks
• Mixed conditions: Name the picture in English if you hear
the high tone and in Dutch if you hear the low tone.
• (tones were presented on one of three SOA with respect to the presentation of
the picture.)
• Force activation of both languages
• Blocked conditions: Name the picture in English
• (or Dutch) if you hear the high tone and say “no” if
• you hear the low tone
•
• Activation of the nontarget language is optional
 The aim was to compare the two conditions where you have
to activate one language and don`t have to activate both
languages.
 if non selective model is right, then activation of both
languages must have little effect on performance

15. Cognate and Non-cognate picture
naming tasks
• English-Dutch bilinguals- Kroll et al.
• Cognates: bed- bed
• Non-cognate: bike-fiets
• There was cognate facilitation effect in Mixed Condition cued
picture naming task for both L1 and L2.
• There was cognate facilitation effect in Blocked Condition only
for L2.
RESULTS: L1 is always active in L2 production but L2 is not active
in L1 production. Because in Blocked language production task,
L2 cognates did not facilitated L1 production.

16. 2. MODULATING CROSS-LANGUAGE
COMPETITION
• The lexicon in both languages become active
• However, this activation must be controlled
• In order to perform fluently in reading and
speaking
• Where does this selection occur?

17. 2.1. Models of bilingual word
recognition and production
• Bilingual Interactive Activation Model (BIA)
• Bottom up processing: (Dijkstra et al., 1998)
Visual input Letter Features Letters Word Language
(word recognition)
• Language Nodes control the selection of lexical
codes (phonologic or orthographic codes which are
activated in both languages) in the target language.
• Language nodes are sensitive to context and relative
dominance of the two languages

18. • Model of Spoken Language Production
• Poulisse and Bongaerts, 1994 &
Hermans,2000
• Top-down Processing
Conceptual level lemma level phonological level
• Language cue is sufficient to activate the
dominant language lemmas in the dominant
language (L1) but not enough when the target
language is L2 because there will be
competition.

19. 2.2. What factors affect language
selection?
1. Attributes of the Languages
2. Processing Strategies of the languages
3. Linguistic and non-linguistic context
4. Characteristics of bilingual individual
5. Properties of the task used

20. 1. Language attributes
• Is there any difference between Dutch-English and
Chinese-English bilinguals perception of words?
• No, even though the two languages are
orthographically different the cross-language
interaction persists.
• Masked Priming Experiment: Gollan et al., 1997
• Hebrew-English
• Cognates facilitate the word recognition.
• Why?
• Because of the shared phonological features

21. 2. Language-specific Processing
Strategies and Constraints
• Deep orthography- Shallow orthography
distinction means distinct lexical parsing
strategies. (e.g. syllable parsing, phological)
• So bilinguals should adjust their lexical parsing
strategies.
• It is a paradox for bilinguals to choose which
parsing strategy to employ especially when
the two languages require different parsing
strategies.

22. A study on Auditory parsing strategy
• Cutler et al., 1989
• Compared auditory parsing strategies of French-English
and English-French bilinguals
• French: clear syllable boundaries
• English: ambiguous syllable boundaries
• Participants were asked to listen to phonemes in French
words. Some phonemes were on syllable boundary, some
were not.
• French-English speakers were faster at identifying the
phonemes when it was in a syllable.
• Eng-Fr bilinguals appeared to not have acquired the syllable
parsing strategy even though they were highly proficient in Fr.

23. What are the consequences for
language selection?
• One account: Parsing would be a late process
in word recognition so it is effected by
decision mechanisms.
• The other account: if it was an early process, it
wouldn`t be affected by language specific
parsing strategies.
• Future Research should be on whether parsing
strategies influence language selection during
reading.

24. 3. Context
• In priming experiments, it has been found out
that there is semantic priming between
languages/words.
• Only a few studies investigated whether sentence
context overrides the cross-language interaction
between lexical codes.
• Altarriba, Kroll, Sholl & Rayner,1996
• Van Hell, 1998
• Elston-Guttler, 2000
• Schwartz, 2003

25. Finding
• In the highly constrained context of a
sentence, cross-language activity is reduced.
• But this finding is not firm.
• If this finding can be proven, the semantic
activation of a word may have more influence
on cross-language processes.
• And lexical word recognition becomes a top-
down process contrary to early lexical decision
experiments

26. 4. Characteristics of the bilingual
• Most of the research on bilingual word
recognition and production was conducted
with late bilinguals who acquired L2 after
early childhood.
• Even though they are highly proficient in L2,
their L1 is more dominant.
• L2 proficiency and cognitive abilities in
language processing are also important
factors.

27. How does L2 proficiency influence the
degree of cross-language competition?
Even highly proficient bilinguals continue to show
evidence of L1 influence when the language of the
task is L2.
-Sunderman (2002): English learners of Spanish
with differing prof levels.
-Finding: All learners, regardless of their prof level,
were sensitive to cross-language form relations and
to some degree to semantics of L2.
-Only low prof learners were sensitive words
related in form to translation equivalents of L2
words.

28. How does memory capacity modulate
cross-language competition?
• Micheal, Dijkstra & Kroll, 2002
• Replicated homograph interference study Of
Dijkstra, 1998.
• A memory span task in Dutch and a translation
production task were given to participants prior
to the experiment
• Finding: People with higher memory span were
faster to translate the words.
• However, there was no effect of memory span on
homograph interference

29. 5. Properties of the Task
• Non-selectivity activation`s effects can vary across
tasks
• Homograph Interference Studies
• Experiment 2: Dijkstra et al. 2000
- Participants were told they can see Dutch words as
distractors.
- In the first half dutch words were never presented=
No homograph interference
- In the second half Dutch words presented=
- Homograph interference
• So by manipulating the conditions we can obtain
results either consistent with selectivity or non-
selectivity.

30. 2.3. FACTORS THAT MODULATE CROSS-
LANGUAGE INTERACTIONS IN WORD
PRODUCTION
1. Language Attribute
2. Language specific processing strategies,
constraints , and context
3. Characteristics of the bilingual
4. Properties of the task

31. 1. Language Attributes
• Production is initiated by conceptually driven
processes. (top-down)
• The conceptual representation might be different in
both of bilinguals` languages. Then the conceptual
representation might be used to identify the
language to be selected. (contrary to non-selectivity
findings)
• Grammatical properties may effect lexical selection
(gender markers)
• There is little evidence to suggest that meanings are
distinct for bilingual`s both languages

32. 2. Language specific processing
strategies, constraints , and context
• Code switching studies can be conducted to understand the
locus of lexical selection.
• Language switching studies under lab conditions: Meuter &
Allport,1999
- Found out that there is a switch cost in naming numbers.
- It was greater when switching from L2 into more dominant
L1.
- Why? Inhibition of L1
- The context doesn`t eliminate the switching cost, so it
cannot be used to reduce activation of candidates in the
non-target language.

33. 3. Characteristics of the bilingual
• As your L2 proficiency increases, production of
L2 lexicalized concepts will be faster.
• However, even highly proficient bilinguals
activate lexical and phonological information
about L1, alternatives of L2 lexis.
• If this cross-linguistic competition continues
even after later stages of L2 learning, can
cognitive ability of the learner influence this
selection problem?

34. A Reading Span Task
• Kroll et al, 2000
• Compared the performance of a group of L2
learners who differed in reading span.
• The span task in L1 : ability to process and retain
info simultaneously .
• Word naming and then word translation task
• For translation of non-cognate words: higher
span learners were faster
• For translation of cognate word: lower span
learners were faster and used the lexical
transparency of cognates
• Finding: it is difficult to identify the locus of span
and cognate effect??????

35. 4. Properties of the task
• Picture naming tasks:
• Translation Tasks: serve as a language cue so
selection of language occurs earlier

36. Testing language cue hypothesis in
translation studies
• Miller & Kroll, 2002
• A word is presented for translation along with a
semantically or phonologically distractor
• 1st version: the distractor was in the language of output
(spoken)
• 2nd version: the distractor was in the language of input
(written)
• Findings: In the 1st version, there were semantic
interference and phonological facilitation
• In the 2nd version, there were no semantic or phonological
effect of the distractors on the production
• In the presence of appropriate language cue, bilinguals can
reduce the cross-language competition

37. 3. CONCLUSIONS
• In both word recognition and production there is
language non-selectivity so there is competition across
languages prior to selection.
• However, the nature of activated info differs for
recognition and production.
• Recognition: lexical forms
• Production: conceptual representations
• Some factors are important to determine how the
cross-language competition is modulated in bilinguals
mind. But there is no firm conclusions about them.
• Bilingualism research can also provides models for
cognition in general.