What makes a cognate? Implications for research on bilingualism

Bilingualism Language and Cognition, vol. 27, pp. 1023–1028

Abstract

Abstract Cognates are studied in many psychological studies of bilingual language processing. Despite their frequent use, there is no clear operationalized definition of what constitutes a cognate. We conducted a literature search in three major journals to better understand how cognate status is typically defined and operationalized. In these journals, we analyzed similarity of cognate and non-cognate stimuli. We found that approximately 60% of the reviewed studies operationalized cognate status empirically. Stimulus analyses revealed a similarity continuum between cognates and non-cognates without a consistent cut-off. Based on these results, we make recommendations for future research.

Authors 3

1. Tanja C. Roembke corresponding Aachen Cognitive and Experimental Psychology Institute of Psychology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Iring Koch Aachen Cognitive and Experimental Psychology Institute of Psychology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Andrea M. Philipp Aachen Cognitive and Experimental Psychology Institute of Psychology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany