Monolíngues? Uma investigação sobre o reconhecimento de palavras cognatas português-inglês / Monolinguals? An Investigation on the Recognition of Cognate Words From Portuguese-English

Resumo: Palavras cognatas são conhecidas por dividirem semelhanças formais e semânticas entre duas ou mais línguas, possivelmente dividindo representações no léxico mental. Nesse sentido, as palavras cognatas possuem diferentes graus de semelhança, como por exemplo pares do português-inglês: cognatos perfeitos “banana”, cognatos de alto grau “momento-moment” e cognatas de baixo grau “noite-night”. Focalizando a relação formal e independentemente do conhecimento bilíngue, como as palavras cognatas do português-inglês são reconhecidas por monolíngues? O presente artigo tem o objetivo de investigar o reconhecimento de palavras cognatas do português-inglês por monolíngues através do grau de semelhança ortográfica. Para tanto, aplicamos um experimento de julgamento de aceitabilidade entre pares de palavras cognatas. Com o objetivo de se pesquisar o grau de similaridade, utilizou-se a Distância de Levenshtein Normalizada entre as palavras cognatas. Os resultados apontaram uma correlação significativa entre o julgamento de aceitabilidade e este coeficiente. Portanto, os resultados indicaram que mesmo participantes não-bilíngues são capazes de reconhecer a granularidade da semelhança ortográfica. Ainda, de forma exploratória, foi possível determinar o coeficiente a partir do qual as palavras podem ser consideradas pares cognatos. Enfim, espera-se que o presente estudo permita uma melhor compreensão das palavras cognatas assim como provoque uma reflexão do monolinguismo. Palavras-chave: Cognatas; distância de Levenshtein; julgamento de aceitabilidade; bilinguismo.Abstract: Cognate words are known to share formal and semantic similarities between two or more languages, possibly dividing representations in the mental lexicon. In this sense, cognate words have different degrees of similarity, as for example PortugueseEnglish pairs: perfect cognates “banana”, high degree cognates “momento-moment” and low degree cognates “noite-night”. Focusing on the formal relationship and regardless of bilingual knowledge, how are cognate words in Portuguese-English recognized by monolinguals? This article aims to investigate the recognition of cognate words in Portuguese-English by monolinguals through the degree of orthographic similarity. For that, we applied an acceptability judgment experiment between cognate word pairs. In order to investigate the degree of similarity, the Normalized Levenshtein Distance was used between cognate words. The results showed a significant correlation between the acceptability judgment and this coefficient. Therefore, the results indicated that even non-bilingual participants are able to recognize the granularity of orthographic similarity. Still, in an exploratory way, it was possible to determine the coefficient from which words can be considered cognate pairs. Therefore, it is hoped that the present study allows a better understanding of cognate words as well as provoking a reflection of monolinguals.Keywords: cognate; Levenshtein distance; acceptability judgement task; bilingualism.

Words in the CLOUD: How orthographic similarity and bilingual experience facilitate foreign vocabulary learning

Learning a foreign language as an adult is a rewarding but challenging endeavor that entails accruing a massive vocabulary. The literature independently highlights that orthographic similarity and bilingual experience could facilitate foreign vocabulary acquisition. Here, we explored the combined effects of orthographic similarity and bilingual experience on foreign vocabulary learning using behavioral and computational approaches. Experiment 1 compared Spanish monolingual, Spanish-English, and Spanish-Basque bilingual participants when learning an artificial vocabulary with varying orthographic similarity to Spanish. The results indicated that similar words were easier to recognize and produce than dissimilar words, and both bilingual groups outperformed the monolingual group in learning the vocabulary, irrespective of orthographic similarity. In Experiment 2, we developed a neural network model that implemented a unified, distributed, and dynamic view of the orthographic lexicon to explain how these effects could emerge from exposure to bilingual input. We simulated adults’ orthographic lexicons by pre-training this architecture on monolingual and bilingual input. We then tested the monolingual and bilingual versions’ capacity to learn the novel words used in the behavioral task. The simulations reproduced the orthographic similarity effects and showed an overall advantage of experience with bilingual input, as observed in the behavioral results. The present study unifies the seemingly disparate effects of orthographic similarity and bilingual experience under a common computational framework, whereby distributed representations of orthographic word forms are stored in a unified space and dynamically modified by learning experiences.

Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of phonological and orthographic similarity on L2 word recognition across modalities in bilinguals

Language perception studies on bilinguals often show that words that share form and meaning across languages (cognates) are easier to process than words that share only meaning. This facilitatory phenomenon is known as the cognate effect. Most previous studies have shown this effect visually, whereas the auditory modality as well as the interplay between type of similarity and modality remain largely unexplored. In this study, highly proficient late Spanish–English bilinguals carried out a lexical decision task in their second language, both visually and auditorily. Words had high or low phonological and orthographic similarity, fully crossed. We also included orthographically identical words (perfect cognates). Our results suggest that similarity in the same modality (i.e., orthographic similarity in the visual modality and phonological similarity in the auditory modality) leads to improved signal detection, whereas similarity across modalities hinders it. We provide support for the idea that perfect cognates are a special category within cognates. Results suggest a need for a conceptual and practical separation between types of similarity in cognate studies. The theoretical implication is that the representations of items are active in both modalities of the non-target language during language processing, which needs to be incorporated to our current processing models.

Everyday Language Exposure Shapes Prediction of Specific Words in Listening Comprehension: A Visual World Eye-Tracking Study

We investigated the effects of everyday language exposure on the prediction of orthographic and phonological forms of a highly predictable word during listening comprehension. Native Japanese speakers in Tokyo (Experiment 1) and Berlin (Experiment 2) listened to sentences that contained a predictable word and viewed four objects. The critical object represented the target word (e.g., /sakana/; fish), an orthographic competitor (e.g., /tuno/; horn), a phonological competitor (e.g., /sakura/; cherry blossom), or an unrelated word (e.g., /hon/; book). The three other objects were distractors. The Tokyo group fixated the target and the orthographic competitor over the unrelated objects before the target word was mentioned, suggesting that they pre-activated the orthographic form of the target word. The Berlin group showed a weaker bias toward the target than the Tokyo group, and they showed a tendency to fixate the orthographic competitor only when the orthographic similarity was very high. Thus, prediction effects were weaker in the Berlin group than in the Tokyo group. We found no evidence for the prediction of phonological information. The obtained group differences support probabilistic models of prediction, which regard the built-up language experience as a basis of prediction.

Inhibitory and Facilitatory Effects of Phonological and Orthographic Similarity on Bilingual Word Recognition

Language perception studies on bilinguals often show that words that share form and meaning across languages (cognates) are easier to process than words that share only meaning. This facilitatory phenomenon is known as the cognate effect. Most previous studies have shown this effect visually, whereas the auditory modality as well as the interplay between type of similarity and modality remain largely unexplored. In this study, highly proficient late Spanish-English bilinguals carried out a lexical decision task in their second language, both visually and auditorily. Words had high or low phonological and orthographic similarity, fully crossed. We also included orthographically identical words (perfect cognates). Our results suggest that similarity in the same modality (i.e., orthographic similarity in the visual modality and phonological similarity in the auditory modality) leads to improved signal detection, whereas similarity across modalities hinders it. We provide support for the idea that perfect cognates are a special category within cognates. Results suggest a need for a conceptual and practical separation between types of similarity in cognate studies. The theoretical implication is that the representations of items are active in both modalities of the non-target language during language processing, which needs to be incorporated to our current processing models.

Word length negatively predicts recognition memory performance

We examined how word length affects performance in three recognition memory experiments to resolve discrepant results in the literature for which there are theoretical implications. Shorter and longer words were equated on frequency, orthographic similarity, age of acquisition, and imageability. In Experiments 1 and 2, orthographic length (i.e., the number of letters in a word) was negatively related to hits minus false alarms. In Experiment 3, recognition performance did not differ between one- and two-syllable words that were equated on orthographic length. These results are compatible with single-process item-noise models that represent orthography in terms of features and in which memory representation strength is a product of the probabilities that the individual features have been stored. Longer words are associated with noisier representations than shorter words.

Predictors of second language English lexical recognition

In this study we analyze a large database of lexical decision times for English content words made by speakers of English as an additional language residing in the United States. Our first goal was to test whether the use of statistical measures better able to model variation associated with participants and items would replicate findings of a previous analysis of this data (Berger, Crossley, & Skalicky, 2019). Our second goal was to determine whether variables related to experiences using and learning English would interact with linguistic features of the target words. Results from our statistical analysis suggest affirmative answers to both of these questions. First, our results included significant effects for linguistic features related to contextual diversity and contextual distinctiveness, providing a replication of findings from the original study in that words appearing in more textual and lexical contexts were responded to quicker. Second, a measure of length of English learning and a measure of daily English use interacted with a measure of orthographic similarity. Our study provides further evidence regarding how a large, crowdsourced database can be used to obtain a better understanding of second language lexical recognition behavior and provides suggestions for further research.

Predictors of second language English lexical recognition: Further insights from a large database of second language lexical decision times

In this study we analyze a large database of lexical decision times for English content words made by speakers of English as an additional language residing in the United States. Our first goal was to test whether the use of statistical measures better able to model variation associated with participants and items would replicate findings of a previous analysis of this data (Berger, Crossley, & Skalicky, 2019). Our second goal was to determine whether variables related to experiences using and learning English would interact with linguistic features of the target words. Results from our statistical analysis suggest affirmative answers to both of these questions. First, our results included significant effects for linguistic features related to contextual diversity and contextual distinctiveness, providing a replication of findings from the original study in that words appearing in more textual and lexical contexts were responded to quicker. Second, a measure of length of English learning and a measure of daily English use interacted with a measure of orthographic similarity. Our study provides further evidence regarding how a large, crowdsourced database can be used to obtain a better understanding of second language lexical recognition behavior and provides suggestions for further research.