Bilingual language control across modalities

Benjamins current topics, pp. 39–65

Abstract

Abstract Bilingual language control has previously been tested separately in tasks of language comprehension and language production. Whereas these studies have suggested that local control processes are selectively recruited during mixed-language production, the present study investigated whether measures of global control show the same dependence on modality, or are shared across modalities. Thirty-eight Dutch-French bilingual young adults participated by completing two tasks of bilingual language control in both modalities. Global accuracy on mixed-language comprehension was related to mixing costs on bilingual verbal fluency, but only when compared to the L 2 -baseline. Global performance on mixed-language production was related to forward (L 1 -to-L 2 ) switch costs. Finally, a significant correlation was found between the mixing cost on verbal fluency and forward switch costs on the comprehension task. The results are interpreted as evidence for the involvement of monitoring processes in bilingual language control across modality. The results also highlight the relevance of language switch directionality.

Authors 4

1. Jill Surmont

   Vrije Universiteit Brussel

   Affiliation as printed

   Vrije Universiteit Brussel

2. Piet Van de Craen Aachen

   Leiden University · Vrije Universiteit Brussel · University of California, San Francisco

   Affiliation as printed

   Vrije Universiteit Brussel

   Leiden University Centre for Linguistics | University of California, San Francisco

3. Olga Kepinska Aachen

   Leiden University · Vrije Universiteit Brussel · University of California, San Francisco · Kyung Hee University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University Centre for Linguistics

   University of California, San Francisco

   Vrije Universiteit Brussel | Kyung Hee University

4. Maurits van den Noort

   Vrije Universiteit Brussel · Kyung Hee University

   Affiliation as printed

   Kyung Hee University

   Vrije Universiteit Brussel

   Vrije Universiteit Brussel | Kyung Hee University