Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T01:48:25.703Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cross-language effects in written word recognition: The case of bilingual deaf children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2011

ELLEN ORMEL ,
DAAN HERMANS ,
HARRY KNOORS  and
LUDO VERHOEVEN
ELLEN ORMEL*
Affiliation:
Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University NijmegenBehavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen
DAAN HERMANS
Affiliation:
Pontem, Royal Dutch Kentalis, Sint-MichielsgestelBehavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen
HARRY KNOORS
Affiliation:
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen Royal Dutch Kentalis, Sint-Michielsgestel
LUDO VERHOEVEN
Affiliation:
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen
*
Address for correspondence: Ellen Ormel, Department of Linguistics, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In recent years, multiple studies have shown that the languages of a bilingual interact during processing. We investigated sign activation as deaf children read words. In a word–picture verification task, we manipulated the underlying sign equivalents. We presented children with word–picture pairs for which the sign translation equivalents varied with respect to sign phonology overlap (i.e., handshape, movement, hand-palm orientation, and location) and sign iconicity (i.e., transparent depiction of meaning or not). For the deaf children, non-matching word–picture pairs with sign translation equivalents that had highly similar elements (i.e., strong sign phonological relations) showed relatively longer response latencies and more errors than non-matching word–picture pairs without sign phonological relations (inhibitory effects). In contrast, matching word–picture pairs with strongly iconic sign translation equivalents showed relatively shorter response latencies and fewer errors than pairs with weakly iconic translation equivalents (facilitatory effects). No such activation effects were found in the word–picture verification task for the hearing children. The results provide evidence for interactive cross-language processing in deaf children.

Keywords

deaf childrencross-language interactions
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 288 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank Marchien Hoffer for her contributions to this study. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Parts of the data for the present study have been presented at the 5th International Symposium on Bilingualism, 2005 and the 20th Annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing, 2007. This research was supported by Royal Dutch Kentalis.

References

Baayen, R., Piepenbrock, R., & van Rijn, H. (1993). The CELEX Lexical Database. Technical report. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania, Linguistic Data Consortium.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Luk, G., & Kwan, E. (2005). Bilingualism, biliteracy, and learning to read: Interactions among languages and writing systems. Scientific studies of reading, 9 (1), 43–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bijeljac-Babic, R., Biardeau, A., & Grainger, J. (1997). Masked orthographic priming in bilingual word recognition. Memory and Cognition, 25, 447–457.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, L. E., & Grosjean, F. (1982). Sign recognition processes in American Sign Language: The effect of context. Language and Speech, 25 (4), 325–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damien, M. F., & Bowers, J. S. (2003). Locus of semantic interference in a word picture interference task. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 10 (1), 111–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., Grainger, J., & van Heuven, W. J. B. (1999). Recognition of cognates and interlingual homographs: The neglected role of phonology. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 496–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., & van Heuven, W. J. B. (2002). The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: From identification to decision. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5 (3), 175–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., van Heuven, W. J. B., & Grainger, J. (1998). Simulating cross-language competition with the bilingual interactive activation model. Psychologica Belgica, 38 (3/4), 177–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., van Jaarsveld, H., & ten Brinke, S. (1998). Interlingual homograph recognition: Effects of task demands and language intermixing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 51–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emmorey, K., & Corina, D. (1990). Lexical recognition in sign language: Effects of phonetic structure and morphology. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 71, 1227–1252.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, C. (2004). Literacy development in deaf students: Case studies in bilingual teaching and learning. American Annals of the Deaf, 149 (1), 17–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gaskell, M. G., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2002). Representation and competition in the perception of spoken words. Cognitive Psychology, 45, 220–266.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gerard, L. D., & Scarborough, D. L. (1989). Language-specific lexical access of homographs by bilingual. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 305–313.Google Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Forster, K. I., & Frost, R. (1997). Translation priming with different scripts: Masked priming with cognates in Hebrew–English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23 (5), 1122–1139.Google ScholarPubMed
Groot, A. M. B. de, Delmaar, P., & Lupker, S. J. (2000). The processing of interlexical homographs in translation recognition and lexical decision: Support for nonselective access to bilingual memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53 (A), 397–428.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grote, K. & Linz, E. (2003). The influence of sign language iconicity on semantic conceptualization. In Muller, W. G. & Fisher, O. (eds.), From sign to signing: Iconicity in language and literature 3, pp. 23–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanson, V. L., & Feldman, L. B. (1989). Language specificity in lexical organization: Evidence from deaf signers’ lexical organization of American Sign Language and English. Memory and Cognition, 17 (3), 292–301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hanson, V. L., & Feldman, L. B. (1991). What makes signs related? Sign Language Studies, 70, 35–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hell, J. G. van, & Dijkstra, T. (2002). Foreign language knowledge can influence native language performance in exclusively native context. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9 (4), 780–789.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heuven, W. J. B. van, Dijksta, T., & Grainger, J. (1998). Orthographic neighborhood effects in bilingual word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 458–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irausquin, R., & Mommers, C. (2001). Leesladder. Een programma voor kinderen met leesmoeilijkheden. [Reading ladder. A program for children with reading difficulties]: Tilburg: Zwijsen.Google Scholar
Kandil, M. A., & Jiang, N. (2004). The role of scripts in bilingual lexical organization: Evidence from switching cost. Georgia State Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 1, 1–14.Google Scholar
Keatley, C. W., Spinks, J. A., & de Gelder, B. (1994). Asymmetrical cross-language priming effects. Memory & Cognition, 22 (1), 70–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klatter–Folmer, J., van Hout, R., Kolen, E., & Verhoeven, L. (2006). Language development in deaf children's interactions with deaf and hearing adults: A longitudinal study. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11 (2), 238–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klima, E. S., & Bellugi, U. (1979). The signs of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Knoors, H. (2007). Educational responses to varying objectives of deaf parents of deaf children: A Dutch perspective. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 12 (2), 243–253.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kooij, E. van der (2002). Phonological categories in Sign Language of The Netherlands: The role of phonetic implementation and iconicity. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S. C., & Wodniecka, Z. (2006). Language selectivity is the exception, not the rule: Arguments against a fixed locus of language selection in bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 119–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemhöfer, K., Dijkstra, T., & Michel, M. (2004). Three languages, one ECHO: Cognate effects in trilingual word recognition. Language and Cognitive Processes, 19 (5), 585–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marian, V., & Spivey, M. (2003). Competing activation in bilingual language processing: Within- and between-language competition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 6 (2), 97–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markham, P. T., & Justice, E. M. (2004). Sign language iconicity and its influence on the ability to describe the function of objects. Journal of Communication Disorders, 37 (6), 535–546.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meier, R. (2002). Why different, why the same? Explaining effects and nn-effects of modality upon linguistic structure in sign and speech. In Meier, R., Cormier, K. & Quinto-Pozos, D. G. (eds.), Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages, 1–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morford, J. P., Wilkinson, E., Villwock, A., Piñar, P., & Kroll, J. F. (2011). When deaf signers read English: Do written words activate their sign translations? Cognition, 118, 286–292.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ormel, E. (2008). Visual word recognition in bilingual deaf children. Ph.D. dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Ormel, E., Hermans, D., Knoors, H., & Verhoeven, L. (2009). The role of sign phonology and iconicity during sign processing: The case of deaf children. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 14, 436–448.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Orlansky, M. D., & Bonvillian, J. D. (1984). The role of iconicity in early sign language acquisition. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 49, 287–292.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Padden, C., & Ramsey, C. (1998). Reading ability in signing deaf children. Topics in Language Disorders, 18 (4), 30–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pietrandrea, P. (2002). Iconicity and arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 2 (3), 296–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, W., Eschman, A., & Zuccolotto, A. (2002). E-Prime. Psychology software tools, Learning Research and Development Centre, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Schrooten, W., & Vermeer, A. (1994). Woorden in het basisonderwijs. 15.000 woorden aangeboden aan leerlingen (Studies in Meertaligheid 6). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.Google Scholar
Stokoe, W. C. (1980). Sign language structure. Annual Review of Anthropology, 9, 365–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thierry, G., & Wu, Y. J. (2004). Electrophysiological evidence for language interference in late bilingual. NeuroReport, 15 (10), 1555–1558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, R. L., Vinson, D. P., & Vigliocco, G. (2009). The link between form and meaning in American Sign Language: Lexical processing effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Language, Memory, and Cognition, 35 (2), 550–557.Google ScholarPubMed
Tolar, T. D., Lederberg, A. R., Gokhale, S., & Tomasello, M. (2007). The development of the ability to recognize the meaning of iconic signs. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 13 (2), 225–240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Treiman, R., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (1983). Silent reading: Insights from second-generation deaf readers. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 39–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, M., Koda, K., & Perfetti, C. A. (2003). Alphabetic and nonalphabetic L1 effects in English word identification: A comparison of Korean and Chinese English L2 learners. Cognition, 87, 129–149.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wijnendaele, I. van, & Brysbaert, M. (2002). Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Phonological priming form the second to the first language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28 (3), 619–627.Google Scholar
Wu, Y. J., & Thierry, G. (2010). Chinese–English bilinguals reading English hear Chinese. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30 (22), 7646–7651.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zwitserlood, P. (1996). Form priming. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11 (6), 589–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar