Cross-Dialectal Novel Word Learning and Borrowing

Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, pp. 734527

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to study the cognitive processes underlying cross-dialectal novel word borrowing and loanword establishment in a Standard-Chinese-to-Shanghainese (SC-SH) auditory lexical learning and borrowing experiment. To investigate these underlying cognitive processes, SC-SH bi-dialectals were compared with SC monolectals as well as bi-dialectals of SC and other Chinese dialects (OD) to investigate the influence of short-term and long-term linguistic experience. Both comprehension and production borrowings were tested. This study found that early and proficient bi-dialectism, even if it is not directly related to the recipient dialect of lexical borrowing, has a protective effect on the ability of cross-dialectal lexical borrowing in early adulthood. Bi-dialectals tend to add separate lexical representations for incidentally encountered dialectal variants, while monolectals tend to assimilate dialectal variants to standard forms. Bi-dialectals, but not monolectals, use etymologically related morphemes between the source and recipient dialects to create nonce-borrowing compounds. Dialectal variability facilitates lexical borrowingviaenriching instead of increasing the short-term lexical experience of learners. The long-term bi-dialectal experience of individuals, as well as their short-term exposure to each specific loanword, may collectively shape the route of lexical evolution of co-evolving linguistic varieties.

Authors 4

1. Junru Wu corresponding Aachen

   Leiden University · East China Normal University

   Affiliation as printed

   Laboratory of Language Cognition and Evolution, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

   Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden, Netherlands

2. Wei Zheng

   East China Normal University

   Affiliation as printed

   Laboratory of Language Cognition and Evolution, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

3. Mengru Han

   East China Normal University

   Affiliation as printed

   Laboratory of Language Cognition and Evolution, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

4. Niels Olaf Schiller Aachen Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, Netherlands

   Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden, Netherlands