Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T14:59:50.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Bilingual Lexical Access

from Part I - Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2019

By
Eva van Assche ,
Marc Brysbaert  and
Wouter Duyck
Edited by
Roberto R. Heredia  and
Anna B. Cieślicka
Roberto R. Heredia
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
Anna B. Cieślicka
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
Get access

Summary

Bilingual ambiguity can arise when a word form is shared across languages but the meanings are different in each language (e.g., the word pie means foot in Spanish). The way bilinguals process this ambiguity informs us about general bilingual language processing. Do bilinguals activate both meanings of an ambiguous word or is only the meaning in the contextually relevant language activated? The current review presents studies that have explored cross-language ambiguity and the factors influencing bilingual ambiguity resolution. It examines how interactions of language context, frequency, task demands, and/or individual differences such as proficiency and executive control influence cross-language ambiguity effects. The review concludes that the bilingual language system is organized in an integrated lexicon that is accessed language-nonselectively but that it is important to take into account all of the possibly interacting factors.

Keywords

bilingual ambiguity resolutioncoactivationcognatescross-language ambiguity effectscross-language interference effectshomophonesinterlingual homographslanguage-nonselective accesslexical ambiguity
Type
Chapter
Information
Bilingual Lexical Ambiguity Resolution , pp. 42 - 68
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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.)

References

Further Reading

Degani, T., & Tokowicz, N. (2010). Semantic ambiguity resolution within and across languages: An integrative review. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 1266–1303.Google Scholar
De Groot, A. M. B. (2011). Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduction. New York: Psychology Press.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, 175–197.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & De Groot, A. M. B. (2005). Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
van Assche, E., Duyck, W., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2012). Bilingual word recognition in a sentence context. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 174.Google Scholar
van Hell, J. G., & Tanner, D. (2012). Second language proficiency and cross-language lexical activation. Language Learning, 62, 148–171.Google Scholar

References

Altarriba, J., & Gianico, J. L. (2003). Lexical ambiguity resolution across languages: A theoretical and empirical review. Experimental Psychology, 50, 159–170.Google Scholar
Ando, E., Jared, D., Nakayama, M., & Hino, Y. (2014). Cross-script phonological priming with Japanese Kanji primes and English targets. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26, 853–870.Google Scholar
Beauvillain, C., & Grainger, J. (1987). Accessing interlexical homographs: Some limitations of a language-selective access. Journal of Memory and Language, 26, 658–672.Google Scholar
Brysbaert, M., Lagrou, E., & Stevens, M. (2017). Visual word recognition in a second language: A test of the lexical entrenchment hypothesis with lexical decision times. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 530–548.Google Scholar
Brysbaert, M., & New, B. (2009). Moving beyond Kučera and Francis: A critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved frequency measure for American English. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 977–990.Google Scholar
Brysbaert, M., van Dyck, G., & van de Poel, M. (1999). Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Evidence from masked phonological priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25, 137–148.Google Scholar
Carrasco-Ortiz, H., Midgley, K. J., & Frenck-Mestre, C. (2012). Are phonological representations in bilinguals language specific? An ERP study on interlingual homophones. Psychophysiology, 49, 531–543.Google Scholar
Costa, A. (2005). Lexical access in bilingual production. In Kroll, J. F. & De Groot, A. M. B. (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 308–325). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Degani, T., & Tokowicz, N. (2010). Semantic ambiguity resolution within and across languages: An integrative review. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 1266–1303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Bruijn, E., Dijkstra, T., Chwilla, D. J., & Schriefers, H. J. (2001). Language context effects on interlingual homograph recognition: Evidence from event-related potentials and response times in semantic priming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 155–168.Google Scholar
De Groot, A. M. B. (2011). Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduction. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
De Groot, A. M. B., Delmaar, P., & Lupker, S. J. (2000). The processing of interlexical homographs in a bilingual and a monolingual task: Support for nonselective access to bilingual memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53, 397–428.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., De Bruijn, E., Schriefers, H., & Ten Brinke, S. (2000). More on interlingual homograph recognition: Language intermixing versus explicitness of instruction. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 69–78.Google 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.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., Timmermans, M., & Schriefers, H. (2000). On being blinded by your other language: Effects of task demands on interlingual homograph recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 42, 445–464.Google 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, 175–197.Google 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.Google Scholar
Doctor, E. A., & Klein, D. (1992). Phonological processing in bilingual word recognition. In Harris, R. J. (Ed.), Cognitive processing in bilinguals (pp. 237–252). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Drieghe, D., & Brysbaert, M. (2002). Strategic effects in associative priming with words, homophones, and pseudohomophones. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28, 951–961.Google Scholar
Duffy, S. A., Morris, R. K., & Rayner, K. (1988). Lexical ambiguity and fixation times in reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 429–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durlik, J., Szewczyk, J., Muszyński, M., & Wodniecka, Z. (2016). Interference and inhibition in bilingual language comprehension: Evidence from Polish-English interlingual homographs. PLoS ONE, 11 (3).Google Scholar
Duyck, W. (2005). Translation and associative priming with cross-lingual pseudohomophones: Evidence for nonselective phonological activation in bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 1340–1359.Google Scholar
Duyck, W., Vanderelst, D., Desmet, T., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2008). The frequency effects in second-language visual word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 15, 850–855.Google Scholar
Elston-Güttler, K. E., Gunter, T. C., & Kotz, S. A. (2005). Zooming into L2: Global language context and adjustment affect processing of interlingual homographs in sentences. Cognitive Brain Research, 25, 57–70.Google Scholar
Gerard, L. D., & Scarborough, D. L. (1989). Language-specific lexical access of homographs by bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 305–315.Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, M. A., & Robertson, R. R. W. (1995). Reading skill and suppression revisited. Psychological Science, 6, 165–169.Google Scholar
Grainger, J., Midgley, K., & Holcomb, P. J. (2010). Re-thinking the bilingual interactive-activation model from a developmental perspective (BIA-d). In Kail, M. & Hickmann, M. (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 267–284). New York: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosjean, F. (2001). The bilingual’s language modes. In Nicol, J. L. (Eds.), One mind, two languages: Bilingual language processing (pp. 1–22). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Haigh, C. A., & Jared, D. (2007). The activation of phonological representations by bilinguals while reading silently: Evidence from interlingual homophones. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 623–644.Google ScholarPubMed
Hogaboam, T. W., & Perfetti, C. A. (1975). Lexical ambiguity and sentence comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 265–274.Google Scholar
Hoversten, L. J., & Traxler, M. J. (2016). A time course analysis of interlingual homograph processing: Evidence from eye movements. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19, 347–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jared, D., & Kroll, J. F. (2001). Do bilinguals activate phonological representations from one or both of their languages when naming words? Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 2–31.Google Scholar
Jared, D., & Szucs, C. (2002). Phonological activation in bilinguals: Evidence from interlingual homograph naming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, 225–239.Google Scholar
Jouravlev, O., & Jared, D. (2014). Reading Russian-English homographs in sentence contexts: Evidence from ERPs. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 153–168.Google Scholar
Kerkhofs, R., Dijkstra, T., Chwilla, D. J., & De Bruijn, E. R. A. (2006). Testing a model for bilingual semantic priming with interlingual homographs: RT and N400 effects. Brain Research, 1068, 170–183.Google Scholar
Keuleers, E., Lacey, P., Rastle, K., & Brysbaert, M. (2012). The British Lexicon Project: Lexical decision data for 28,730 monosyllabic and disyllabic English words. Behavior Research Methods, 44, 287–304.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & De Groot, A. M. B. (2005). Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches. New York: Oxford University Press.Google 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.Google Scholar
Kuperman, V., & van Dyke, J. A. (2013). Reassessing word frequency as a determinant of word recognition for skilled and unskilled readers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 39, 802–823.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: Brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 207, 203–205.Google Scholar
Lagrou, E., Hartsuiker, R., & Duyck, W. (2011). Knowledge of a second language influences auditory word recognition in the native language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37, 952–965.Google Scholar
Lagrou, E., Hartsuiker, R., & Duyck, W. (2013). Interlingual lexical competition in a spoken sentence context: Evidence from the visual world paradigm. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 20, 963–972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lalor, E., & Kirsner, K. (2001). The representation of “false cognates” in the bilingual lexicon. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 8, 552–559.Google Scholar
Lee, C. H., Nam, K., & Katz, L. (2005). Nonselective access of spelling-sound knowledge for Korean-English bilinguals. International Journal of Psychology, 40, 407–415.Google Scholar
Lemhöfer, K., & Dijkstra, T. (2004). Recognizing cognates and interlingual homographs: Effects of code similarity in language-specific and generalized lexical decision. Memory and Cognition, 32, 533–550.Google Scholar
Libben, M. R., & Titone, D. A. (2009). Bilingual lexical access in context: Evidence from eye movements during reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35, 381–390.Google ScholarPubMed
Lukatela, G., & Turvey, M. T. (1994a). Visual access is initially phonological: 1. Evidence from associative priming by words, homophones, and pseudohomophones. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 107–128.Google Scholar
Lukatela, G., & Turvey, M. T. (1994b). Visual access is initially phonological: 2. Evidence from phonological priming by homophones and pseudohomophones. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 331–353.Google Scholar
Macizo, P., Bajo, T., & Martín, M. C. (2010). Inhibitory processes in bilingual language comprehension: Evidence from Spanish-English interlexical homographs. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 232–244.Google Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, W. (1987). Functional parallelism in spoken word recognition. Cognition, 25, 71–102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mercier, J., Pivneva, I., & Titone, D. (2014). Individual differences in inhibitory control relate to bilingual spoken word processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition,17, 89–117.Google Scholar
Nakayama, M., Sears, C. R., Hino, Y., & Lupker, S. J. (2012). Cross-script phonological priming for Japanese-English bilinguals: Evidence for integrated phonological representations. Language and Cognitive Processes, 27, 1563–1583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paulmann, S., Elston-Güttler, K. E., Gunter, T. C., & Kotz, S. A. (2006). Is bilingual access influenced by language context? Neuroreport, 17, 727–731.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pexman, P. M., Lupker, S. J., & Jared, D. (2001). Homophone effects in lexical decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27, 139–156.Google Scholar
Pivneva, I., Mercier, J., & Titone, D. (2014). Executive control modulates cross-language lexical activation during L2 reading: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 787–796.Google ScholarPubMed
Poort, E. D., Warren, J. E., & Rodd, J. M. (2016). Recent experience with cognates and interlingual homographs in one language affect subsequent processing in another language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19, 206–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodd, J. M., Gaskell, M. G., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2002). Making sense of semantic ambiguity: Semantic competition in lexical access. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 245–266.Google Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., & Kroll, J. F. (2006). Bilingual lexical activation in sentence context. Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 197–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivey, M. J., & Marian, V. (1999). Cross talk between native and second languages: Parallel activation of an irrelevant lexicon. Psychological Science, 10, 281–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Titone, D., Libben, M., Mercier, J., Whitford, V., & Pivneva, I. (2011). Bilingual lexical access during L1 sentence reading: The effects of L2 knowledge, semantic constraint, and L1-L2 intermixing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37, 1412–1431.Google Scholar
van Assche, E., Drieghe, D., Duyck, W., Welvaert, M., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2011). The influence of semantic constraints on bilingual word recognition during sentence reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 64, 88–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Assche, E., Duyck, W., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2012). Bilingual word recognition in a sentence context. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 174.Google Scholar
van Hell, J. G., & De Groot, A. M. B. (2008). Sentence context modulates visual word recognition and translation in bilinguals. Acta Psychologica, 128, 431–451.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T. (2002). Foreign language knowledge can influence native language performance in exclusively native contexts. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 780–789.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Hell, J. G., & Tanner, D. (2012). Second language proficiency and cross-language lexical activation. Language Learning, 62, 148–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Heuven, W. J. B., Dijkstra, T., & Grainger, J. (1998). Orthographic neighborhood effects in bilingual word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 458–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Wijnendaele, I., & Brysbaert, M. (2002). Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Phonological priming from the second to the first language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28, 616–627.Google Scholar
Weber, A., & Cutler, A. (2004). Lexical competition in non-native spoken-word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 1–25.Google Scholar
Zhou, H., Chen, B., Yang, M., & Dunlap, S. (2010). Language nonselective access to phonological representations: Evidence from Chinese-English bilinguals. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 2051–2066.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×