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Language switch costs in sentence comprehension depend on language dominance: Evidence from self-paced reading*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2014

SYBRINE BULTENA ,
TON DIJKSTRA  and
JANET G. VAN HELL
SYBRINE BULTENA*
Affiliation:
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen
TON DIJKSTRA
Affiliation:
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen
JANET G. VAN HELL
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University & Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen
*
Address for correspondence: Sybrine Bultena, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands[email protected]
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Abstract

This study investigated two prominent issues in the comprehension of language switches. First, how does language switching direction affect switch costs in sentence context? Second, are switch costs modulated by L2 proficiency and cross-linguistic activation? We conducted a self-paced reading task involving sentences that switched between participants’ L1 Dutch and L2 English. The cognate status of the main verb was manipulated to examine the influence of co-activation on intra-sentential switch costs. The reading times indicated the influence of switch direction: a cost was observed for switches into L2 but not for switches into L1, and the magnitude of the costs was correlated with L2 proficiency, indicating that switch costs in language comprehension depend on language dominance. Verb cognates did not yield a cognate facilitation effect nor did they influence the magnitude of switch costs in either direction. The results are interpreted in terms of an activation account explaining lexical comprehension based on L2 proficiency.

Keywords

language switchingcognateverbsentence processingL2 proficiency
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 453 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

The authors would like to thank Tjerk Molenaar for his help in collecting the data and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

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