Lexical and conceptual representation in beginning and proficient bilinguals

Abstract

Two hypotheses about the association between the equivalent words in a bilingual's two languages are considered. The word association hypothesis proposes that a direct association is established between words in the two languages. During second-language acquisition, that association is used to understand and produce words in the second language by retrieving a word in the first language. The concept mediation hypothesis proposes that the only connection between the two languages is via an underlying, amodal conceptual system, one to which pictured objects also have access. The hypotheses make different predictions about the time to name pictures in the second language relative to the time to translate first-language words into the second language. Two experiments are reported, one with proficient Chinese—English bilinguals and the second with nonfluent English—French bilinguals (American high school students). Subjects read words aloud, named pictures, and translated words; one Chinese—English group categorized pictures and words. The results were consistent with the concept mediation hypothesis and contradicted predictions of the word association hypothesis. There was no evidence for a direct association between words in the two languages in either bilingual group.