Lexical access in spoken word production by bilinguals: evidence from the semantic competitor priming paradigm

Abstract

The competitive nature of the lexical selection process during spoken word production is well established in monolinguals. In this paper we explore the implication of this process for spoken word production in bilinguals. A cross-language semantic competitor priming effect was demonstrated, which shows that cross-language lexical competition is a feature of the word production system of the unbalanced English–French bilinguals who participated in the experiment. Experimental evidence was also found which suggests that a selected language bias effected through inhibition of the unwanted language plays an important role in resolving the cross-language lexical competition during bilingual word production in a selected language. The data further suggest that the dominance of the unwanted language relative to the selected language determines the presence/absence or “strength” of inhibition through which the selected language bias is effected. These findings are also interpreted in terms of a recent language-specific lexical selection account of bilingual lexical access.