The influence of semantic bias on triple non-identical cognates during reading

Evidence from trilinguals’ eye movements

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11655672
AutoresAgnieszka Lijewska (0000-0002-4155-9543, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume39
Fascículo4
Páginas1235-1263
Data de publicação2022-10-07
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSecond language Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0267-6583 • E-ISSN: 1477-0326
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/02676583221128525
OpenAlexW4303423777
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas61

The current study investigated how the processing of triple cognates (words sharing form and meaning across three languages) is modulated by the semantic bias of sentence context in a reading task. In the study, Polish–German–English trilinguals read English sentences while their eye movements were monitored. The sentences were either semantically biased (high-context) or neutral (low-context) towards target words. The targets were either Polish–German–English cognates whose cross-language form overlap was incomplete (e.g. DIAMENT–DIAMANT–DIAMOND) or English-only controls (e.g. KURCZAK–HÄHNCHEN–CHICKEN). The results revealed a significant effect of context in gaze durations and in total reading time. Importantly, no cognate facilitation effect was identified in any reading measure. The gaze duration data additionally revealed that English-only controls were read slower in low-context sentences than in high-context sentences but gaze durations for cognates were not affected by the sentence context. Thus, prior bilingual findings were only partially replicated in the current study with trilinguals. This suggests that bilingual models of language processing should be carefully adapted to trilinguals. The current data may also mean that non-identical cognates (even those shared across three languages) induce relatively small effects and large samples of participants and items may be needed to detect such effects across reading measures

Cognitive psychology · Context (archaeology · Context effect · Gaze · German · Linguistics · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Reading (process · Sentence · Word (group theory · Word recognition · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Second Language Acquisition and Learning