The effects of language similarity on bilinguals' speech production

Abstract

The authors carried out three experiments exploring the influence of language similarity on language selection mechanisms. In Experiment 1, The participants were asked to perform the task of language-switching between their two dissimilar but highly proficient languages (Tibetan-Mandarin) ,in which they had to name the pictures quickly and accurately by using the cued language in the picture-word interference paradigm. In Experiment 2 and 3, the partcipants finished the same tasks except that they switched the languages between a more-proficient language (Tibetan or Mandarin) and dissimilar and less proficient language (English). The results showed there was no asymmetrical switching cost between Tibetan and Mandarin; and there was asymmetrical switching cost between non-fluent and proficient languages; meanwhile, language similarity affected speech production for non-proficient bilinguals. The results suggested that language similarity may play a role in the lexical selection mechanisms used by highly proficient bilinguals.