Using language switching paradigm to investigate bilingual language control

Details

• Time: 16:00-17:00
• Date: Wednesday, 23 March 2022
• Venue: Zhumu Online

Abstract

Empirical evidence in bilingual research show that bilinguals have non-selective access to their languages in both language production and comprehension, i.e., the language not in use is also activated. The simultaneous activation of both languages points to some sort of language control in place to ensure a correct selection of the target language. But it remains debated the underlying mechanism of such language control. A strong candidate is the inhibition control model proposed by Green (1998) and the language switching paradigm is often employed to investigate how and whether inhibition control is applied. One important measure in this paradigm is switch costs, which reflect the ease/difficulty of applying this control mechanism. However, both task- and participant-related factors can influence switch costs and consequently the interpretation of experiment results. In this talk, I review the language switching paradigm and highlight the inconsistencies across different studies with reference to their experiment design. In addition, I present some initial results of an ongoing project that compares digit vs. picture processing in language switching experiment, which suggest that digits are processed differently from pictures and the origin may lie in within-language word association links.

Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 213-29.

Speaker

Dr Hong Liu is an assistant professor in the department of Applied Linguistics at XJTLU. She holds a PhD in linguistics from Queen Mary, University of London. Her research interests lie in bi-/multilingualism and language acquisition. She investigates bi-/multilingualism from both social and cognitive dimensions, including:

-Bi-multilinguals’ cognitive processing in language production and perception from a psycholinguistics perspective
-Perception and attitudes towards bi-multilingualism at both individual and community level
-Language acquisition from a usage-based and network-based perspective

Dr Chaouch-Orozco obtained his PhD in Psycholinguistics at the University of Reading (UK). He is now a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Reading and will soon join the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Very broadly, his research interests focus on the ability to learn and use non-native languages and the potential factors (experiential, linguistic, and cultural) that may shape this capacity. In his doctoral studies, he investigated how language use impacted bilingual lexical-semantic representation and processing. His new project in Hong Kong will combine computational linguistics techniques and network graph theory to explore how culture influences the degree of semantic overlap between translation equivalents’ representations.