An Activation-based Sentence Processing Model of English

PACLIC 20 / Wuhan, China / 1-3 November, 200

Cross-linguistic activation in bilingual sentence processing: the role of word class meaning

This study investigates how categorial (word class) semantics influences cross-linguistic interactions when reading in L2. Previous homograph studies paid little attention to the possible influence of different word classes in the stimulus material on cross-linguistic activation. The present study examines the word recognition performance of Dutch-English bilinguals who performed a lexical decision task to word targets appearing in a sentence. To determine the influence of word class meaning, the critical words either showed a word class overlap (e. g. the homograph tree [ noun], which means "step" in Dutch) or not (e.g. big [ADJ], which is a noun in Dutch meaning "piglet"). In the condition of word class overlap, a facilitation effect was observed, suggesting that both languages were active. When there was no word class overlap, the facilitation effect disappeared. This result suggests that categorial meaning affects the word recognition process of bilinguals

Bilingual word recognition in a sentence context

This article provides an overview of bilingualism research on visual word recognition in isolation and in sentence context. Many studies investigating the processing of words out-of-context have shown that lexical representations from both languages are activated when reading in one language (language-nonselective lexical access). A newly developed research line asks whether language-nonselective access generalizes to word recognition in sentence contexts, providing a language cue and/or semantic constraint information for upcoming words. Recent studies suggest that the language of the preceding words is insufficient to restrict lexical access to words of the target language, even when reading in the native language. Eyetracking studies revealing the time course of word activation further showed that semantic constraint does not restrict language-nonselective access at early reading stages, but there is evidence that it has a relatively late effect. The theoretical implications for theories of bilingual word recognition are discussed in light of the Bilingual Interactive Activation + model (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002)

Lexical representation explains cortical entrainment during speech comprehension

Results from a recent neuroimaging study on spoken sentence comprehension have been interpreted as evidence for cortical entrainment to hierarchical syntactic structure. We present a simple computational model that predicts the power spectra from this study, even though the model's linguistic knowledge is restricted to the lexical level, and word-level representations are not combined into higher-level units (phrases or sentences). Hence, the cortical entrainment results can also be explained from the lexical properties of the stimuli, without recourse to hierarchical syntax.Comment: Submitted for publicatio