Language switching during production: The influence of preceding exposure to other bilinguals in different switching contexts.

Abstract

Language control has been argued to adapt dynamically to the language context bilinguals are communicating in (Green & Abutalebi, 2013). Previous research has suggested that the demands of the task and current context itself can influence a bilingual's language behaviour and potentially also their language control. Here, we examined how the preceding context, specifically the switching patterns of another bilingual in that context, can influence a bilingual's own language control during production. Across two experiments (Experiment 1: Mandarin-English bilinguals; Experiment 2: English-French bilinguals), participants completed a cued switching task preceded by exposure to another bilingual who was switching frequently or rarely. In Experiment 1, switching costs during production were reduced after exposure to a high-switching bilingual. In Experiment 2, switching costs were also reduced compared to exposure to a low-switching bilingual, but only after hearing within-sentence switches (and not after hearing between-sentence switches). This suggests language control can dynamically adapt to the immediately preceding language context, potentially by the linguistic context updating the speaker's expectations and triggering adaptations in their language control in a top-down manner. However, such adaptations do appear to depend on the nature of the preceding switching context.