Abstract
Dong et al. (2005) proposed that when an individual learns a word in a second language (L2), they link the features from the translation in their first language (L1) to that word, and as they become proficient in L2, bilinguals drop L1-specific features and add L2-specific features to their L2 conceptual representations. The present study tested this proposal with Chinese–English bilinguals using an English semantic priming task with event related potentials (ERP). Primes were animal names (owl), and targets were either related in English (WISE), in Chinese (MISFORTUNE), or were unrelated. For English monolinguals, a priming effect was observed in the P250, N400, and LPC components only for pairs related in English (owl-WISE). For bilinguals, a priming effect was observed for pairs related in Chinese (owl-MISFORTUNE) in the N400 and LPC, indicating that the bilinguals link L2 words with L1-specific features. An LPC priming effect was also found in bilinguals for pairs related in English (owl-WISE), suggesting that the bilinguals have developed new connections between L2 words and L2-specific features.
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Reprinted from De Groot (1992)
Reprinted from Dong et al. (2005)
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from: https://osf.io/n8yhp/?view_only=dd8472dc5bb64d6484b14ce8935bc74c
Notes
1. At the request of a reviewer, we analyzed the N1 ERP component (100–170 ms) in bilinguals. There was a significant Relatedness x Feature interaction (p < .0.001) and post-hoc tests showed that the priming effect for English-specific feature targets were significant (p = 0.009), but not for Chinese-specific feature targets (p = 0.15). These analyses are entirely posthoc and should be considered exploratory only. The targets in the English-specific feature condition were the same in the related and unrelated conditions, and therefore, any N1 priming effect cannot be due to properties of the target but must instead be due to some relationship between the prime and target. The English monolinguals showed a large priming effect in later components and yet did not show an N1 priming effect, so it is unlikely to be a semantic effect.
Di Russo et al. (2002) identified four negative components in the 150–200 ms range, occipital-parietal N150, frontal-central N155, tempo-parietal N180, and occipital-parietal N200. The apparent N1 priming effect for bilinguals in the English specific feature condition in our study appeared in anterior electrodes, and therefore corresponds to the second of these components. This frontal N1 component has not been well studied. Vogel and Luck (2000) observed a larger anterior N1 (75–125 ms) in a task in which participants had to detect whether a particular letter or colour was present in a display compared to a condition in which they had to respond as soon as a stimulus was presented. However, the effect disappeared in a second experiment when the motor response was eliminated. The authors concluded that the anterior N1 that was observed in the first experiment was due to response preparatory processes. It is unclear why bilinguals would show a greater preparatory response for related than unrelated trials in the English-specific condition, but English monolinguals did not on the same stimuli. At this point, we have to conclude that this component needs to be replicated in future research and its function studied in more detail.
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This research was supported by a Discovery grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to Debra Jared.
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Pan, X., Jared, D. Cross-language activation of culture-specific features in Chinese–English bilinguals. J Cult Cogn Sci 5, 325–344 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-021-00081-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-021-00081-w