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Characterizing the Bilingual Disadvantage in Noun Phrase Production

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Abstract

Up to now, evidence on bilingual disadvantages in language production comes from tasks requiring single word retrieval. The present study aimed to assess whether there is a bilingual disadvantage in multiword utterances, and to determine the extent to which such effect is present in onset latencies, articulatory durations, or both. To do so, we tested two groups of Spanish speakers (monolinguals and early highly proficient bilinguals using their first and dominant language) each in two different production tasks: bare noun and noun phrase production. Onset latencies were longer for bilinguals relative to monolinguals in both production tasks. Regarding articulatory durations, we observed a clear bilingual disadvantage in noun phrase production and a strong tendency in bare noun production. These findings generalize the bilingual disadvantage in speech production to various performance measures (onset latency and articulatory duration of production) and beyond single words.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament de Tecnologies de la Informació i les Comunicacions, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C/Roc Boronat 138, 08018, Barcelona, Spain

    Jasmin Sadat, Clara D. Martin & Albert Costa

  2. Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, CNRS, Université de Provence, Centre St Charles, 3 place Victor Hugo (Bâtiment 9, Case D), 13331, Marseille, France

    Jasmin Sadat & F. Xavier Alario

  3. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

    Albert Costa

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  1. Jasmin Sadat
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  2. Clara D. Martin
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  3. F. Xavier Alario
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  4. Albert Costa
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Correspondence to Jasmin Sadat.

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Sadat, J., Martin, C.D., Alario, F.X. et al. Characterizing the Bilingual Disadvantage in Noun Phrase Production. J Psycholinguist Res 41, 159–179 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-011-9183-1

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