Suchergebnisse

This study asks whether early bilingual speakers who have already developed a language control mechanism to handle two languages control a dominant and a late acquired language in the same way as late bilingual speakers. We therefore, compared event-related potentials in a language switching task in two groups of participants switching between a dominant (L1) and a weak late acquired language (L3). Early bilingual late learners of an L3 showed a different ERP pattern (larger N2 mean amplitude) as late bilingual late learners of an L3. Even though the relative strength of languages was similar in both groups (a dominant and a weak late acquired language), they controlled their language output in a different manner. Moreover, the N2 was similar in two groups of early bilinguals tested in languages of different strength. We conclude that early bilingual learners of an L3 do not control languages in the same way as late bilingual L3 learners –who have not achieved native-like proficiency in their L2– do. This difference might explain some of the advantages early bilinguals have when learning new languages. ; This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Government/n(PSI2011-23033, Consolider Ingenio 2010 CSD2007-00012) and/nthe Catalan Government (Consolidado SGR 2009-1521). Clara/nD. Martin was supported by the Spanish Government (Grant/nJuan de la Cierva) and is now supported by the IKERBASQUE/nfoundation for science and the Basque Center on Cognition,/nBrain and Language. Mikel Santesteban was supported by the/nBasque Government (IT665-13). Carles Escera was awarded by/nthe ICREA Academia Distinguished Professorship.

Bilinguals have two languages that are activated in parallel. During speech production, one of these languages must be selected on the basis of some cue. The present study investigated whether the face of an interlocutor can serve as such a cue. Spanish-Catalan and Dutch-French bilinguals were first familiarized with certain faces, each of which was associated with only one language, during simulated Skype conversations. Afterward, these participants performed a language production task in which they generated words associated with the words produced by familiar and unfamiliar faces displayed on-screen. When responding to familiar faces, participants produced words faster if the faces were speaking the same language as in the previous Skype simulation than if the same faces were speaking a different language. Furthermore, this language priming effect disappeared when it became clear that the interlocutors were actually bilingual. These findings suggest that faces can prime a language, but their cuing effect disappears when it turns out that they are unreliable as language cues. ; This study was supported by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Ghent University, the Spanish Government (PSI2011-23033), the Catalan Government (GRNC-2014SGR1210), and the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework (FP7/2007-2013 Cooperation Grant Agreement 613465-AThEME).