{"title":"Child heritage speakers’ reading skills in the majority language and exposure to the heritage language support morphosyntactic prediction in speech","authors":"Figen Karaca, Susanne Brouwer, Sharon Unsworth, Falk Huettig","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000331","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examined the morphosyntactic prediction ability of child heritage speakers and the role of reading skills and language experience in predictive processing. Using visual world eye-tracking, we focused on predictive use of case-marking cues in Turkish with monolingual (N = 49, <span>M</span><span>AGE</span> = 83 months) and heritage children, who were early bilinguals of Turkish and Dutch (N = 30, <span>M</span><span>AGE</span> = 90 months). We found quantitative differences in the magnitude of the prediction ability of monolingual and heritage children; however, their overall prediction ability was on par. The heritage speakers’ prediction ability was facilitated by their reading skills in Dutch, but not in Turkish, as well as by their heritage language exposure, but not by engagement in literacy activities. These findings emphasize the facilitatory role of reading skills and spoken language experience in predictive processing. This study is the first to show that in a developing bilingual mind, effects of reading on prediction can take place across modalities and across languages.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143873108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Feeling more in the language used among family and friends","authors":"Francesca Peressotti, Michele Miozzo","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000355","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many bilinguals speak both languages proficiently and habitually; however, the contexts in which the languages are used can vary. The present study examined the effects of context variation on emotions, comparing a national language used everywhere to a regional language spoken only among family and friends. We found a higher sensitivity to disgust (Experiment 1), a greater enjoyment of humor (Experiment 2) and stronger emotions in response to endearments, reprimands and insults (Experiment 3) with the regional language. The regional language induced stronger emotional responses, even though it was used less frequently than the national language. The effects of the regional language varied depending on the frequency of its use. We propose that these effects on emotions reflect the different opportunities to use the language among family and friends, contexts critical for the acquisition and regulation of emotions and in which emotions are expressed quite vividly.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143866318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Thalamus as a neural marker of cognitive reserve in bilinguals with frontotemporal dementia","authors":"Nithin Thanissery, Faheem Arshad, Sunil Kumar Khokhar, Raghavendra Kenchaiah, Vikram Singh, Subasree Ramakrishnan, Jitender Saini, Narayanan Srinivasan, Bapi Raju Surampudi, Suvarna Alladi","doi":"10.1017/s136672892500015x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s136672892500015x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Bilingualism delays the onset of dementia symptoms and contributes to cognitive reserve. However, the neural basis of this mechanism remains elusive. The few studies that have investigated neural mechanisms of cognitive reserve and bilingualism have focused on Alzheimer’s disease. This study investigated the neural basis of cognitive reserve among persons with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) using regional brain volumes. Sixty-eight persons with FTD (42 bilinguals and 26 monolinguals) were included. After propensity score matching for age, sex, education, FTD subtype and clinical severity, there were 26 bilinguals and 26 monolinguals. The results showed that bilinguals had reduced thalamic volume compared to monolinguals despite having similar cognitive performance. The results indicate that bilinguals were able to tolerate more severe atrophy compared to monolinguals while maintaining comparable cognitive abilities. Our study therefore suggests that bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve in persons with FTD.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143858225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reading comprehension of children acquiring a transparent language as L2: A study with the simple view of reading model","authors":"Chiara Valeria Marinelli, Marika Iaia, Pierluigi Zoccolotti, Daniele Romano, Daniela Traficante, Rosalinda Cassibba, Francesca Vizzi, Paola Angelelli","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000318","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Based on the simple view of reading (SVR), we investigated factors associated with reading comprehension in Second Language (L2) minority children learning a highly consistent orthography through a network analysis. Bilingual and monolingual children participated in the research. Consistent with prior findings, reading speed supported reading comprehension for L1 learners, whereas, for L2 learners, correct decoding carried greater weight than reading speed. In monolingual children, vocabulary and morphosyntactic comprehension contributed jointly and independently to reading comprehension success. However, only vocabulary facilitated reading comprehension in bilingual children, with morphosyntactic skills showing no influence. While monolinguals benefitted from a rich vocabulary and good morphosyntactic knowledge for reading speed and accuracy, in bilingual children, only L2 reading speed was affected by linguistic skills.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143827657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is interpreter advantage a gift or an effect of training? Cognitive changes and interpreting acquisition at the early stage of training","authors":"Xueni Zhang, Binghan Zheng, Rui Wang, Haoshen He","doi":"10.1017/s136672892500032x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s136672892500032x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is an intensive multitasking activity that requires coordination of a variety of linguistic and cognitive control mechanisms. Research has shown that interpreters perform better in tasks that require domain-general executive functions (EF), but the question remains whether such cognitive alternation is a result of interpreting experience or it reflects a selection bias that only cognitively capable people are recruited and trained to be interpreters. We examined the cognitive changes experienced by beginner-level students engaged in an intensive, two-week interpreting training programme. Our findings show that: (a) only cognitive flexibility was enhanced by training, together with improvement in SI performance; (b) the three EF subcomponents in their pre-existing forms negatively correlated with training gains; and (c) only pre-existing cognitive flexibility was positively associated with improvement in SI performance. Findings were discussed regarding the relationship between cognitive abilities and the early-stage acquisition of interpreting.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"217 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143819205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What is proficiency? Characterizing spoken language proficiency in older Spanish-English bilinguals","authors":"Dalia L. Garcia, Tamar H. Gollan","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000343","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We conducted a detailed linguistic analysis of Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) from older Spanish-English bilinguals (<span>n</span> = 28) to determine which cognitive, linguistic, and demographic factors predict proficiency. In the dominant language, older age was associated with lower proficiency scores, but aging effects were not significant after accounting for cognitive functioning scores. In the nondominant language, bilinguals with larger vocabulary scores, fewer speech errors, and higher education levels obtained higher proficiency scores. Multiple linguistic submeasures from the OPIs were highly correlated across languages (e.g., fast speakers spoke fast in both languages), but these same measures exhibited significant language dominance effects (e.g., bilinguals spoke faster in the dominant than in the nondominant language). These results suggest it is critical to control for cognitive functioning when examining aging effects on language production, reveal powerful individual differences that affect how people talk regardless of language, and validate the use of the OPI to measure bilingual proficiency.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143819206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding accentedness in heritage language English speakers: Key predictors","authors":"Sidney Gordon, Natalia Meir","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000288","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Adult heritage language (HL) speakers often exhibit subtle phonetic-phonological variations (“accentedness”) that diverge from the patterns of the language spoken at home. Perception of accentedness may also be influenced by the listener’s linguistic background. This study investigated perceived accentedness in 80 English speech samples from four groups of monolingual English and bilingual English-Hebrew speakers for whom English was either L1 or HL. These samples were evaluated by three rater groups: monolinguals, English-dominant bilinguals, and Hebrew-dominant bilinguals. Our findings confirmed the presence of slight accentedness in HL-English speakers and, to a lesser extent, in immigrants who acquired Hebrew as a second language. While rater background generally had minimal impact, English- and Hebrew-dominant bilinguals differed in their evaluations of the less-accented groups. Individual factors such as lexical proficiency and early language input influenced the HL-English speakers’ accentedness levels. The results are discussed in relation to the Critical Period Hypothesis and its implications.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143797829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Man Wang, Shuai Liu, Jiahuan Zhang, Niels O. Schiller
{"title":"The effect of proficiency on phonological encoding in L2 speech production","authors":"Man Wang, Shuai Liu, Jiahuan Zhang, Niels O. Schiller","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000276","url":null,"abstract":"During speech production, bilinguals need to encode target words phonologically before articulation, and the encoding units differ across languages. It remains an open question whether bilinguals employ the encoding unit in their L1 or L2 for phonological encoding. The present study examined the primary unit of phonological encoding in L2 speech production by Mandarin Chinese-English bilinguals with high and low L2 proficiency using the picture-word interference paradigm. Results revealed segmental priming effects with one or two segments and syllabic overlap at varied stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), for both groups in their L2 speech production. Additionally, the results demonstrated increasing effects with more overlapping segments for both groups, and the facilitation effects decreased as SOA increased. These results indicate that bilinguals encode English words with the segment as a primary planning unit regardless of their L2 proficiency. The time course of segmental encoding in L2 production is also discussed.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143757970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neuro-cognitive correlates of lexical borrowing during sentence comprehension of bi-dialectal speakers","authors":"Junru Wu, Mengru Han, Niels O. Schiller","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000264","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study explores lexical borrowing and loanword nativization from a neuro-cognitive perspective testing bi-dialectal speakers of Standard Chinese and Shanghainese Chinese. We created holistic and morpheme-based cross-dialectal loanwords for auditory sentence processing and compared them with Shanghainese-specific words, code-switches, and pre-existing etymologically related words. Participants rated their acceptance of each word, indicating Shanghainese-specific lexical nativeness. GAM analysis of EEG signals revealed that reduced acceptance correlated with frontal positive shifts in ERPs. Holistic loanwords triggered P300-like shifts associated with form-mismatch, whereas morpheme-based loanwords produced LPC-like shifts, suggesting sentence-level re-analysis, and N400-like early frontal negative shifts, indicating lexical integration challenges. Our results indicate that both lexical acceptance and adaptation strategies are pivotal in the cognitive integration of loanwords, revealing distinct neuropsychological stages and pathways in loanword nativization.</p>","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143723530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frequency over semantic richness: word recognition in non-native English speakers","authors":"Agata Dymarska","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925000239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925000239","url":null,"abstract":"Recognition of a word and its meaning benefits from the sensorimotor information about concepts. However, this phenomenon has been underexplored in second-language (L2) speakers who may rely on more “shallow” representations. Using a megastudy dataset, I investigated how sensorimotor strength affects first-language (L1) and L2 word recognition performance. Bayesian hierarchical regressions revealed that variables associated with physical sensations (interoceptive strength, motor action) and communication experience (head or mouth movement, auditory strength) produced strong effects in both groups. On the other hand, variables associated with concrete objects (visual, haptic experience) and with taste/smell (olfactory, gustatory experience) influenced L1 word recognition performance to a larger extent than in L2. In L2, reliance on semantic information during word recognition was reduced, with stronger effects of lexical variables compared to L1. The findings provide implications for understanding L2 processing mechanisms and demonstrate the usefulness of megastudy datasets in investigating L2 conceptual representations.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"183 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143712988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}