TY - CHAP
T1 - The role of lexical tones in bilingual language processing
T2 - evidence from a typing task
AU - Wang, Xin
AU - Hui, Bronson
AU - Wang, Jie
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - This study reports evidence of Mandarin-English bilinguals activating the L1-Mandarin lexicon during L2-English spoken word recognition in an auditory written naming task. In this task, English spoken words were manipulated such that the supra-segmental information resembles the lexical tones in their counterparts in Mandarin (i.e., interlingual homophones, IH). Participants were asked to type the word they had heard onto a computer. Results show that the bilinguals responded slower to IHs than to non-IHs. It is argued that this effect was due to the Mandarin lexical activation driven by the toned English input, sharing both segments and tones with its Mandarin counterparts. Importantly, these results show that lexical tones are critical in bilingual lexical access even when processing a target language (e.g., English) that does not use tones in word recognition.
AB - This study reports evidence of Mandarin-English bilinguals activating the L1-Mandarin lexicon during L2-English spoken word recognition in an auditory written naming task. In this task, English spoken words were manipulated such that the supra-segmental information resembles the lexical tones in their counterparts in Mandarin (i.e., interlingual homophones, IH). Participants were asked to type the word they had heard onto a computer. Results show that the bilinguals responded slower to IHs than to non-IHs. It is argued that this effect was due to the Mandarin lexical activation driven by the toned English input, sharing both segments and tones with its Mandarin counterparts. Importantly, these results show that lexical tones are critical in bilingual lexical access even when processing a target language (e.g., English) that does not use tones in word recognition.
KW - bilingual lexical access
KW - spoken word recognition
KW - language (non)selectivity
KW - lexical tones
UR - https://www.routledge.com/our-products/open-access-books/publishing-oa-books/chapters
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85170195747
U2 - 10.4324/9781003251194-3
DO - 10.4324/9781003251194-3
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781032169675
SN - 9781032169682
T3 - Routledge Research In Language Education
SP - 23
EP - 39
BT - Typical and atypical language development in cultural and linguistic diversity
A2 - Han, Weifeng
A2 - Brebner, Chris
PB - Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
CY - Abingdon, Oxon
ER -