Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T22:39:16.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reading Russian–English homographs in sentence contexts: Evidence from ERPs*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2013

OLESSIA JOURAVLEV  and
DEBRA JARED
OLESSIA JOURAVLEV
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
DEBRA JARED*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
*
Address for correspondence: Debra Jared, Department of Psychology, Social Sciences Centre, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, CanadaN6A 5C2[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The current study investigated whether Russian–English bilinguals activate knowledge of Russian when reading English sentences. Russian and English share only a few letters, but there are some interlingual homographs (e.g., POT, which means “mouth” in Russian). Critical sentences were written such that the Russian meaning of the homographs fit the context. Sentences presented to participants contained either the English translation of the Russian meaning of a homograph, an interlingual homograph, or a control word (e.g., TO SEE TOM'S THROAT, THE DOCTOR ASKED TOM TO OPEN HIS MOUTH/POT/NET WIDELY). Bilinguals showed a reduction in the N400 component of the event-related potential (ERP) signal for interlingual homographs compared to control words, whereas the N400 of monolingual English speakers was of a similar magnitude in the two conditions. The finding provides evidence that bilinguals automatically activate representations in both of their languages when reading in one language, even when the combination of a language-specific script and the preceding language context indicates that the other language is not relevant.

Keywords

bilingualcross-languagecross-scriptinterlingual homographsRussian–EnglishERP
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 153 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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

*

This research was supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grant to DJ and by an Academic Development Fund grant from the University of Western Ontario. We would like to thank Marc Joanisse, Wouter Duyck, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous drafts of the manuscript.

References

Altarriba, J., Carlo, M. S., & Kroll, J. F. (1992, March). Language dominance and the processing of cross-language ambiguity. Poster presented at the Fifth Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, New York.Google Scholar
Altarriba, J., & Gianico, J. L. (2003). Lexical ambiguity resolution across languages: A theoretical and empirical review. Experimental Psychology, 50, 159–170.Google Scholar
Arêas da Luz Fontes, A. B., & Schwartz, A. I. (2010). On a different plane: Cross-language effects on the conceptual representations of within-language homonyms. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25, 508–532.Google Scholar
Arêas da Luz Fontes, A. B., & Schwartz, A. I. (2011). Working memory influences on cross-language activation during bilingual lexical disambiguation. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 360–370.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R., & Gulikers, L. (1995). The CELEX Lexical Database (CD-ROM). Philadelphia, PA: Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Baten, K., Hofman, F., & Loeys, T. (2011). Cross-linguistic activation in bilingual sentence processing: The role of word class meaning. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 351–359.Google Scholar
Brysbaert, M., Van Dijk, 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
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. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53, 397–428.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T. (2005). Bilingual visual word recognition and lexical access. In Kroll, J. F. & de Groot, A. M. B. (eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistics approaches, pp. 179–201. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., Miwa, K., Brummelhuis, B., Sappelli, M., & Baayen, H. (2010). How cross-language similarity and task demands affect cognate recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 62, 284–301.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., & Van Heuven, W. (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
Dimitropoulou, M., Duñabeitia, J. A., & Carreiras, M. (2011). Phonology by itself: Masked phonological priming effects with and without orthographic overlap. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 23, 185–203.Google Scholar
Duyck, W., Van Assche, E., Drieghe, D., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2007). Visual word recognition by bilinguals in a sentence context: Evidence for nonselective lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 663–679.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
Friederici, A. D. (1995). The time course of syntactic activation during language processing: A model based on neuropsychological and neurophysiological data. Brain and Language, 50, 259–281.Google Scholar
Friesen, D. C., & Jared, D. (2012). Cross-language phonological activation of meaning: Evidence from category verification. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 145–156.Google Scholar
Gollan, T., Forster, K. I., & Frost, R. (1997). Translation priming with different scripts: Masked priming with cognates and noncognates in Hebrew–English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23, 1122–1139.Google Scholar
Hagoort, P. (2003). Interplay between syntax and semantics during sentence comprehension: ERP effects of combining syntactic and semantic violations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 883–899.Google Scholar
Jared, D., & Kroll, J. F. (2001). Do bilinguals activate phonological representations in one or both of their languages when naming words? Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 2–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jared, D., & Szucs, C. (2002). Phonological activation in bilinguals: Evidence from interlingual homograph naming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, 225–239.Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M., & Marian, V. (2007). Non-target language recognition and interference in bilinguals: Evidence from eye tracking and picture naming. Language Learning, 57, 119–163.Google Scholar
Kerkhofs, R., Dijkstra, A., Chwilla, D., & De Bruijn, E. (2006). Testing a model for bilingual semantic priming with interlingual homographs: RT and ERP effects. Brain Research, 1068, 170–183.Google Scholar
Kim, J., & Davis, C. (2003). Task effects in masked cross-script translation and phonological priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 49, 484–499.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2011). Thirty years and counting: Finding meaning in the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP). Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 621–647.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lemhöfer, K., & Dijkstra, A. (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 Scholar
Lukatela, G., Savic, M., Gligorijevic, B., Ognjenovic, P., & Turvey, M. (1978). Bi-alphabetic lexical decision. Language and Speech, 21, 142–165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lyashevskaya, O., & Sharov, S. (2009). The frequency dictionary of modern Russian language. Moscow: Azbukovnik.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.Google Scholar
Osterhout, L., & Nicol, J. (1999). On the distinctiveness, independence, and time course of the brain responses to syntactic and semantic anomalies. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14, 283–317.Google Scholar
Paulmann, S., Elston-Güttler, K. E., Gunter, T. C., & Kotz, S. (2006). Is bilingual lexical access influenced by language context? NeuroReport, 17, 727–731.Google Scholar
Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Shoben, E. J. (1985). The influence of sentence constraint on the scope of facilitation for upcoming words. Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 232–252.Google Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., & Kroll, J. F. (2006). Bilingual lexical activation in sentence context. Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 197–212.Google Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., & Van Hell, J. G. (2012). Bilingual visual word recognition in sentence context. In Adelman, J. (ed.), Visual word recognition (vol. II): Meaning, context, individuals and development, pp. 131–150. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Smits, E., Martensen, H., Dijkstra, T., & Sandra, D. (2006). Naming interlingual homographs: Variable competition and the role of the decision system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, 225–239.Google Scholar
Thierry, G., & Wu, Y. J (2007). Brain potentials reveal unconscious translation during foreign-language comprehension. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 12530–12535.Google Scholar
Titone, D., Libben, M., Mercier, J., Whitford, V., & Pivneva, I. (2011). Bilingual lexical access during L1 sentence reading: Effects of 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.Google Scholar
Van Assche, E., Duyck, W., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Diependaele, K. (2009). Does bilingualism change native-language reading? Cognate effects in a sentence context. Psychological Science, 20, 923–927.Google Scholar
Van Hell, J. G., & De Groot, A. M. B. (1998). Conceptual representation in bilingual memory: Effects of concreteness and cognate status in word association. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 193–211.Google Scholar
Van Hell, J. G., & De Groot, A. M. B. (2008). Sentence context affects lexical decision and word translation. Acta Psychologica, 128, 431–451.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
Zhou, H., Chen, B., Yang, M., & Dunlap, S. (2010). Language nonselective access to phonological representations: Evidence from Chinese–English bilinguals. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 2051–2066.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: PDF

JARED, D. Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download JARED, D. Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 160.5 KB