Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2011 Jul;37(4):952-65. doi: 10.1037/a0023217.
Many studies in bilingual visual word recognition have demonstrated that lexical access is not language selective. However, research on bilingual word recognition in the auditory modality has been scarce, and it has yielded mixed results with regard to the degree of this language nonselectivity. In the present study, we investigated whether listening to a second language (L2) is influenced by knowledge of the native language (L1) and, more important, whether listening to the L1 is also influenced by knowledge of an L2. Additionally, we investigated whether the listener's selectivity of lexical access is influenced by the speaker's L1 (and thus his or her accent). With this aim, Dutch-English bilinguals completed an English (Experiment 1) and a Dutch (Experiment 3) auditory lexical decision task. As a control, the English auditory lexical decision task was also completed by English monolinguals (Experiment 2). Targets were pronounced by a native Dutch speaker with English as the L2 (Experiments 1A, 2A, and 3A) or by a native English speaker with Dutch as the L2 (Experiments 1B, 2B, and 3B). In all experiments, Dutch-English bilinguals recognized interlingual homophones (e.g., lief [sweet]-leaf /li:f/) significantly slower than matched control words, whereas the English monolinguals showed no effect. These results indicate that (a) lexical access in bilingual auditory word recognition is not language selective in L2, nor in L1, and (b) language-specific subphonological cues do not annul cross-lingual interactions.
许多双语视觉词汇识别研究表明，词汇通达不受语言的选择性影响。然而，关于双语听觉词汇识别的研究却很少，并且其结果在语言非选择性的程度上存在差异。在本研究中，我们调查了在聆听第二语言（L2）时，母语（L1）知识是否会产生影响，更重要的是，在聆听母语时，第二语言知识是否也会产生影响。此外，我们还调查了听众的词汇通达选择性是否会受到说话者母语（因此也包括其口音）的影响。为此，荷兰-英语双语者完成了英语（实验 1）和荷兰语（实验 3）听觉词汇判断任务。作为对照，英语单语者也完成了英语听觉词汇判断任务（实验 2）。目标词由母语为荷兰语、英语为第二语言的说话者（实验 1A、2A 和 3A）或母语为英语、荷兰语为第二语言的说话者（实验 1B、2B 和 3B）发音。在所有实验中，荷兰-英语双语者识别跨语言同形词（例如 lief [sweet]-leaf /li:f/）的速度明显慢于匹配的控制词，而英语单语者则没有表现出这种影响。这些结果表明：（a）在双语听觉词汇识别中，词汇通达不受第二语言的语言选择性影响，也不受母语的语言选择性影响；（b）语言特异性的次语音线索不会消除跨语言的相互作用。
