Prediction at the Discourse Level in Spanish–English Bilinguals: An Eye-Tracking Study

In two experiments, we examine English monolinguals’ and Spanish-English bilinguals’ ability to predict an upcoming pronoun referent based on the Implicit Causality (IC) bias of the verb. In an eye-tracking experiment, the monolingual data show anticipation of the upcoming referent for NP1-bias verbs. For bilinguals, the same effect is found, showing that bilinguals are not slower than monolinguals at processing the information associated with the IC of the verb. In an off-line experiment, both groups showed knowledge of IC bias information for the verbs used in the eye-tracking experiment. Based on the findings of the two experiments, we show that highly proficient bilinguals have similar online and off-line predictions based on IC verb information than monolingual speakers

Late Bilinguals Are Sensitive to Unique Aspects of Second Language Processing: Evidence from Clitic Pronouns Word-Order.

In two self-paced reading experiments we asked whether late, highly proficient, English-Spanish bilinguals are able to process language-specific morpho-syntactic information in their second language (L2). The processing of Spanish clitic pronouns' word order was tested in two sentential constructions. Experiment 1 showed that English-Spanish bilinguals performed similarly to Spanish-English bilinguals and revealed sensitivity to word order violations for a grammatical structure unique to the L2. Experiment 2 replicated the pattern observed for native speakers in Experiment 1 with a group of monolingual Spanish speakers, demonstrating the stability of processing clitic pronouns in the native language. Taken together, the results show that late bilinguals can process aspects of grammar that are encoded in L2-specific linguistic constructions even when the structure is relatively subtle and not affected for native speakers by the presence of a second language

Revisiting Masculine and Feminine Grammatical Gender in Spanish: Linguistic, Psycholinguistic, and Neurolinguistic Evidence

Research on grammatical gender processing has generally assumed that grammatical gender can be treated as a uniform construct, resulting in a body of literature in which different gender classes are collapsed into single analysis. The present work reviews linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic research on grammatical gender from different methodologies and across different profiles of Spanish speakers. Specifically, we examine distributional asymmetries between masculine and feminine grammatical gender, the resulting biases in gender assignment, and the consequences of these assignment strategies on gender expectancy and processing. We discuss the implications of the findings for the design of future gender processing studies and, more broadly, for our understanding of the potential differences in the processing reflexes of grammatical gender classes within and across languages

Printed in the United States of America

This study investigates whether proficient second language (L2) speakers of Spanish and English use the same parsing strategies as monolinguals when reading temporarily ambiguous sentences containing a complex noun phrase followed by a relative clause, such as Peter fell in love with the daughter of the psychologist who studied in California. Research with monolingual Spanish and English speakers (e.g.

Morphological development in Spanish-American telecollaboration

The present study examines the linguistic consequences of computer-mediated communication between foreign language (L2) learners of Spanish and native Spanish speakers.In particular, it investigates whether the benefits attributed to intercultural computer-mediated interactions are transferable to face-to-face communication by examining whether e-mail and chat-room interactions that took place over a period of three months resulted in increased linguistic gains. L2 learners of Spanish were assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. Participants in the experimental group engaged in computermediated interactions with native speakers of Spanish residing in Almería, Spain. The learners in the control group interacted electronically with other learners of Spanish of similar proficiency. Linguistic gains were assessed by examining the transcriptions of OPI interviews that were conducted immediately before the learners began the computer-mediated communication sessions and after the last session ended three months later. The results reveal that learners in the experimental group showed increased linguistic control in the use of overt-null subjects in Spanish as well as greater communicative fluency, relative to learners in the control group. These findings suggest the beneficial role of telecollaborative interactions between native speakers and nonnative speakers with respect to linguistic competence

The processing of subject pronouns in highly proficient L2 speakers of English

Studies on second language (L2) anaphora resolution have mainly focused on learners of null-subject languages, demonstrating that L2 speakers show residual indeterminacy in the L2 referential choice, even at the highest levels of proficiency. On the other hand, studies on anaphora resolution in L2 learners of non-null-subject languages have shown conflicting results, indicating that L2 speakers may process referential expressions in the L2 like native speakers. Using a visual word paradigm task, we test the online processing of pronouns in highly proficient L2 speakers of English whose L1 is Spanish, and compare their performance to a group of native English speakers. The native speakers’ data show rapid use of the first mention bias (i.e., interpreting a pronoun towards the first-mentioned referent) and gender information upon encountering a gender ambiguous or unambiguous pronoun. For the L2 participants, we find similar underlying processes of pronoun resolution in comparison to native speakers. The results do not reveal a processing cost for L2 speakers of a non-null-subject language during anaphora resolution. Overall, our study demonstrates that L2 speakers of a non-null-subject language (English) can achieve native-like processing of the default referential form signaling topic continuity (i.e., the overt pronoun; Sorace 2011)

The Benefits of Multilingualism to the Personal and Professional Development of Residents of the US

In the past two decades, new research on multilingualism has changed our understanding of the consequences of learning and using two or more languages for cognition, for the brain, and for success and well-being across the entire lifespan. Far from the stereotype that exposure to multiple languages in infancy complicates language and cognitive development, the new findings suggest that individuals benefit from that exposure, with greater openness to other languages and to new learning itself. At the other end of the lifespan, in old age, the active use of two or more languages appears to provide protection against cognitive decline. That protection is seen in healthy aging and most dramatically in compensating for the symptoms of pathology in those who develop dementia or are recovering from stroke. In this article we briefly review the most exciting of these new research developments and consider their implications

Comparing Single-Word Insertions and Multi-Word Alternations in Bilingual Speech: Insights from Pupillometry

Prominent sociolinguistic theories of language mixing have posited that single-word insertions of one language into the other are the result of a distinct process than multi-word alternations between two languages given that the former overwhelmingly surface morphosyntactically integrated into the surrounding language. To date, this distinction has not been tested in comprehension. The present study makes use of pupillometry to examine the online processing of single-word insertions and multi-word alternations by highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals in Puerto Rico. Participants heard sentences containing target noun/adjective pairs (1) in unilingual Spanish, (2) where the Spanish noun was replaced with its English translation equivalent, followed by a Spanish post-nominal adjective, and (3) where both the noun and adjective appeared in English with the adjective occurring in the English pre-nominal position. Both types of language mixing elicit larger pupillary responses when compared to unilingual Spanish speech, though the magnitude of this difference depends on the grammatical gender of the target noun. Importantly, single-word insertions and multi-word alternations did not differ from one another. Taken together, these findings suggest that morphosyntactic integration is not the defining feature of single-word insertions, at least in comprehension, and that the comprehension system is tuned to the distributional properties of bilingual speech

The Neural Correlates of Conflict Detection and Resolution During Multiword Lexical Selection: Evidence from Bilinguals and Monolinguals

Previous studies have identified the Event Related Potential (ERP) components of conflict detection and resolution mechanisms in tasks requiring lexical selection at the individual word level. We investigated the brain potentials associated with these mechanisms in a lexical selection task based on multiword units made up of verb–noun combinations (e.g., eat breakfast, skip school). Native and non-native English speakers were asked to select a familiarized target verb–noun sequence (eat breakfast) between two choices. Trials were low-conflict, with only one plausible candidate (e.g., eat – shoot – breakfast) or high-conflict, with two plausible verbs (e.g., eat – skip – breakfast). Following the presentation of the noun, native English speakers showed a biphasic process of selection, with a conflict-detection centro-parietal negativity between 500 and 600 ms (Ninc), followed by a right frontal effect (RFE) between 600 and 800 ms preceding responses. Late Spanish–English bilinguals showed a similar but more sustained and more widespread effect. Additionally, brain activity was only significantly correlated with performance in native speakers. Results suggest largely similar basic mechanisms, but also that different resources and strategies are engaged by non-native speakers when resolving conflict in the weaker language, with a greater focus on individual words than on multiword units