Investigation of Bilingual Disadvantage in Verb and Noun Retrieval in Mandarin-English Bilinguals
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1
University of Maryland, College Park, Hearing and Speech Sciences, United States
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2
University of Maryland, College Park, Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, United States
Introduction
Prior research has shown a bilingual disadvantage in spoken language, that is, less efficient performance compared to monolinguals. The bilingual disadvantage is found in lexical retrieval in L2 (Gollan et al., 2005) and in L1 (Ivanova and Costa, 2008). Evidence of the bilingual disadvantage for lexical retrieval was limited to nouns, and only a few bilingual studies have examined verbs, with contradicting findings. Compared to nouns, there is evidence for both a larger (Van Hell & de Groot, 1998) and a comparable verb disadvantage (Faroqi-Shah & Milman, 2015).
One account of the bilingual disadvantage, the weaker-links hypothesis, predicts that bilinguals will show a larger frequency effect than monolinguals (Gollan et al., 2008). Another account, that translation equivalents create a cross-language interference (Green, 1998), implies that highly translatable words will be slower to name. Neither account has been tested on verb naming.
The current study had two goals: to investigate how highly proficient Mandarin-English bilinguals retrieve verbs and nouns compared to monolingual English speakers, and to investigate how well the bilingual disadvantage can be explained by the weaker-links and cross-language interference accounts. The weaker-links hypothesis would be supported by a larger frequency effect for bilinguals (especially in L2) for both verbs and nouns. Support for the cross-language interference would be a larger bilingual disadvantage for words that are more easily translated between languages.
Methods
Participants were neurologically healthy monolingual English (N=21, mean age=22 years, mean education=16 years) and Mandarin-English bilingual speakers (N=21, mean age=23, mean education=16, mean self-evaluated English spoken proficiency = 4 on 6-point scale). Tasks included speeded picture naming (L1 and L2) and translation (L2 to L1) of high and low frequency object and action names. High and low translatability was determined based on translation speed.
Results & Discussion
Results are shown in Figure 1. As expected, there was a bilingual disadvantage, Mandarin-English bilinguals were slower (F(2,9907)=756.6, p< .01) and less accurate (F(2,120)=34.2, p< .01) than monolinguals, and a word category effect, as verbs were slower (F(1,9907)=1445.0, p< .01) and less accurate (F(1,120)=153.9, p< .01) than nouns. A significant group by word category interaction (F(2,9907)=22.1, p< .01) showed a smaller bilingual verb (L1: 177.2ms; L2: 295.6ms) than noun disadvantage (L1: 206.9ms; L2: 311.7ms). In support of the weaker links account, bilingual L2 showed a larger frequency effect than in monolinguals and bilingual L1 (F(2,120)=36.1, p< .01). High translatability words were named faster (F(1,3403)=50.1, p< .01) and more accurately than low translatability words (F(1,80)=36.3, p< .01), supporting cross-language facilitation rather than interference. Moreover, accuracy data showed that the translatability effect was significantly larger for verbs than for nouns (L1: t(40)=4.4, p<.01; L2: t(40)=3.7, p<.01), indicating that verbs and nouns differ in their cross-language interactions. To conclude, this study supports Gollan et al.’s (2005) account that bilingual lexical representation is quantitatively different from monolinguals because each language is used less frequently. Translation equivalents enhance (rather than compete) with naming in the target language, and verbs that are not easily translated receive the smallest boost from cross-language translations.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the MCM Fund for Student Research Excellence provided by the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. We thank undergraduate students working in the Aphasia Research Center who greatly assisted the data collection. We are also grateful to Dr. Jared Novick for discussions and insightful suggestions on this project.
References
Faroqi-Shah Y and Milman L (2015). Grammatical category mediates the bilingual disadvantage in word retrieval. Front.
Psychol. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 53rd Annual Meeting.
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., Cera, C., & Sandoval, T. C. (2008). More use almost always means a smaller frequency effect:
Aging, bilingualism, and the weaker links hypothesis. Journal of Memory and Language, 58(3), 787-814.
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., Fennema-Notestine, C., & Morris, S. K. (2005). Bilingualism affects picture naming but not
picture classification. Memory & Cognition, 33(7), 1220-1234.
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and cognition, 1(02),
67-81.
Ivanova, I., & Costa, A. (2008). Does bilingualism hamper lexical access in speech production?. Acta psychologica, 127(2),
277-288.
Van Hell, J. G., & De Groot, A. (1998). Conceptual representation in bilingual memory: Effects of concreteness and cognate
status in word association. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1(03), 193-211.
Keywords:
bilingualism,
word retrieval,
Frequency,
interference,
picture naming
Conference:
Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting , Baltimore, United States, 5 Nov - 7 Nov, 2017.
Presentation Type:
poster presentation
Topic:
Consider for student award
Citation:
Li
R,
Faroqi-Shah
Y and
Wang
M
(2019). Investigation of Bilingual Disadvantage in Verb and Noun Retrieval in Mandarin-English Bilinguals.
Conference Abstract:
Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00126
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Received:
26 Apr 2017;
Published Online:
25 Jan 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Ran Li, University of Maryland, College Park, Hearing and Speech Sciences, College Park, MD, 20740, United States, rli19920819@gmail.com