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Abstract:
The present study examined the processing of mixed
language sentences in Spanish-English proficient bilingual adults
recruited from a US-Mexico border community where code-switching
is a common occurrence. In contrast to a previous study
involving visually presented language-mixed sentences (Altarriba,
Kroll, Sholl & Rayner, 1996), the present study used
auditorily presented stimuli. Of particular interest was
whether sentence comprehension would be influenced by whether the
guest word in a base language sentence is pronounced in the guest
language phonology (or code-switched, CS) vs. in the base
language phonology (or lexically borrowed, LB). A factorial
design was used to examine the relative influence of guest word
phonology, guest word frequency (high or low) and level of guest
word semantic predictability (high vs. low) on guest word
comprehension time (see example below). The following
questions were addressed:
1) Will guest word comprehension times be
influenced by whether or not guest words are phonetically
assimilated into the host language?
2) Will guest word comprehension be sensitive to
word frequency, and will frequency effects differ for
code-switched vs. borrowed words?
3) Will CS vs. LB word comprehension latencies be
differentially affected by level of semantic constraint?
4) How might language dominance influence
comprehension speed? Given that participants' dominant
language is English, will English words presented in Spanish be
comprehended faster than Spanish guest words presented in English
sentences?
Two studies were conducted. Both involved
digitized presentation of an identical set of 64 sentence stimuli
containing high or low frequency code-switched vs. borrowed guest
language target words (and filler words) embedded in a low or
high semantically constrained context. In Exp. 1 the base
language was Spanish while in Exp. 2 it was English. The
auditory moving-window technique (see Heredia & Stewart, in
press) was used and stimulus presentation was controlled by
PsyScope. Participants were to press a key upon hearing
word phrase segments to advance to the next segment. Per
experiment, response times between button presses to words
preceding and following the target words were used as an index of
target processing time. These were analyzed in a 2 (Target
type) x 2 (Constraint level) x 2 (Target frequency)
within-subjects analysis of variance.
Our findings indicate that, particularly for
Spanish base language sentences, guest word comprehension time
was affected by guest word phonology, especially for low
frequency words. Slower comprehension was observed for low
frequency phonologically integrated guest words, particularly in
sentences with high semantic constraint. Implications of
these findings for models of sentence processing are
addressed.
Example
(High vs. Low Constraint Context, target word in capitals,
translation in italics)
High Constraint Context
Erika entró al salon de clases buscando a la TEACHER ya
que necesitaba ayuda con su tarea.
Erika went into the classroom looking for the TEACHER because
she needed help with her homework.
Low Constraint Context
Erika no estaba segura de lo que hacía, y buscó a
la TEACHER para que le explicara la tarea.
Erika did not know what to do, so she went looking for the
TEACHER to ask her to explain the assignment.
References
Altarriba, A., Kroll. J., Sholl. A., & Rayner,
K. (1996)). The influence of lexical and conceptual
constraints on reading mixed-language sentences: Evidence from
eye fixations and naming times. Memory & Cognition, 24(4),
477-492.
Heredia, R., & Stewart, M. (in press).
Online methods in bilingual spoken language research. In R.
Heredia & J. Altarriba (Eds.), Bilingual Sentence
Processing. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
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