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CATEGORY INTERFERENCE IN TRANSLATION AND PICTURE NAMING EVIDENCE FOR ASYMMETRIC CONNECTIONS BETWEEN BILINGUAL MEMORY REPRESENTATION
Researchers conduct three experiments to see if there is interference of L1 when items in L2 is being used in multilingual mind. Researchers want to further their understanding of the development of the organization of multilingual mind. Researchers want to investigate when we think in L2, do items in L1 interfere our mind organization?
CONCEPT
CONCEPT
L1
L2
images
L1
L2
images
L1 items interfere L2
L1
A
L2
L1
B
L2
EXPERIMENT 1
Assuption: if fluent bilinguals were conceptually mediating L2 words, then there should be proof of access to conceptual or semantic information in mind. Procedure: manipulate variables influencing the speed of conceptual access. How: participants named words, translated words, and named pictures in L1 and L2 under two different conditions 1) words and pictures lists were semantically categorized, 2) words and pictures lists were taken from different semantic categories. Kroll & Curley (1988) predicted fluent bilinguals beneffit from the semantic organization Result: semantic organization slows down the performance of both fluents and non-fluents participants Conclusion: there is concept interference rather than concept mediation
EXPERIMENT 2
The aims: to detirmin whether the additional activation should produce competition among close alternatives, and hence interference rather than facilitation Method: Stimulus material: series of pictures and words are put in catagories Procedure: subjects name picture sets and read aloud word sets Subjects: sixteen college students Results: Subjects perform faster when translate into L1 rather than into L2
CONCEPT
L1
L2
TESTS CONCLUDES
There are category interference effects when picture naming and bilingual translation are performed in semantically organized lists. Interference occurs when conceptual activation in a specific semantic field creates difficultt in selecting a single lexical entry for production. There is an symmentry between the two directions of translation that reflects differential reliance on lexical and conceptual activation during the translation process.
CONCEPT
L1
L2
Questions to answer
What codes are activated? When are these codes activated? What are the critical factors that affect lexical selection?
The connections between lexicon forms in L1 and L2 might be active early in L2 acquisition, by the time the bilingual achieved proficiency in L2, words in each language could access concepts directly.
RHM: developmental consequences of a shift from lexical to conceptual precessing with increasing L2 proficiency. Early in acquisition, the relience on lexical-level connections between words in the two languages provided a means for transfer. Lexical links were assumed to be stronger from L2 to L1 than reverse, and L1 is assumed to have stronger connection to concepts
According to the model, presentation of an input letter string leads to parallel activation of several possible words (the neighbourhood) irrespective of language.
Activated lexical candidates compete and suppress each others activation until one item surpasses its activation threshold and is recognized. The model explains why items in L2 develop more slowly than those in L1.
COMPREHENSION
When are these codes activated? Coactivation of lexical candidate from different languages occurs until relatively late in the word recognition process
Critical factors that affect lexical selection L2-proficiency, language intermixing, task demands, and instruction
Language intermixing refers to whether an experiment contains exclusively items that belong to one language or items from two languages
Effect of instruction
Language intermixing, rather than instruction-based expectancies, drives the bilingual participants performance.
It appears that: Lexical codes from different languages are activated in parallel on the basis of an input string. Selection of the lexical candidate that is identified appears to take place rather late in the recognition process. Several factors affect the ultimately arising result patterns, the most important of which are a participants L2 -proficiency level, the requirements of the task, and the blocked or mixed presentation of items from different languages.
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