Conceptual representation of verbs in bilinguals: semantic field effects and a second-language performance paradox.

Full Abstract

It is well known that bilinguals perform better in their first language (L1) than in their second lanaguage (L2) in a wide range of linguistic tasks. In recent studies, however, the authors have found that bilingual participants can demonstrate faster response times to L1 stimuli than to L2 stimuli in one classification task and the reverse in a different classification task. In the current study, they investigated the reasons for this "L2-better-than-L1" effect. English-French bilinguals performed one word relatedness and two categorization tasks with verbs of motion (e.g., run) and psychological verbs (e.g., admire) in both languages. In the word relatedness task, participants judged how closely related pairs of verbs from both categories were. In a speeded semantic categorization task, participants classified the verbs according to their semantic category (psychological or motion). In an arbitrary classification task, participants had to learn how verbs had been assigned to two arbitrary categories. Participants performed better in L1 in the semantic classification task but paradoxically better in L2 in the arbitrary classification task. To account for these effects, the authors used the ratings from the word relatedness task to plot three-dimensional "semantic fields" for the verbs. Cross-language field differences were found to be significantly related to the paradoxical performance and to fluency levels. The results have implications for understanding of how bilinguals represent verbs in the mental lexicon.Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

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Author information

Author/s: Segalowitz, Norman (N); de Almeida, Roberto G (RG);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology and Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. segalow(-atsign-)vax2.concordia.ca

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Brain and language (Brain Lang), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2002 Apr-Jun; vol 81 (issue 1-3) : pp 517-31

Dates: Created 2002/06/25; Completed 2002/07/25; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12081419, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Female
Humans
Language
Male

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