Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2023 Feb;76(2):284-293. doi: 10.1177/17470218221091753. Epub 2022 May 7.
Late second language (L2) learners show translation priming from the first language (L1) to the second language (L1-L2), while L2-L1 effects are inconsistent. Late L2 learners also acquire the L2 after the L1 and are typically less dominant in the L2. As such, the relative contribution of language dominance and order of acquisition is confounded in these results. Here, Cantonese heritage and native speakers are tested in an auditory translation priming paradigm. As heritage speakers first learn Cantonese (L1) but later become dominant in English (L2), this profile allows for the potential dissociation of dominance and order of acquisition in translation priming. If order of acquisition is the primary factor, stronger priming is expected in the L1-L2 (Cantonese-English) direction; however, if dominance plays a stronger role, priming is expected in the L2-L1 (English-Cantonese) direction. Native speakers showed stronger L1-L2 priming, consistent with previous findings, while heritage speakers showed priming in both directions, and marginally larger L2-L1 priming. Treating language dominance as a continuous variable revealed that L1-L2 priming correlated with increased Cantonese dominance, while L2-L1 priming marginally correlated with increased English dominance. Collectively, these results suggest that both language dominance and order of acquisition help explain translation priming findings and bilingual lexical processing, generally. Overall, they invite a rethinking of the role of both variables in bilingual lexical access for speakers with different language dominance profiles.
晚期第二语言（L2）学习者表现出从第一语言（L1）到第二语言（L1-L2）的翻译启动效应，而 L2-L1 效应则不一致。晚期 L2 学习者也是在 L1 之后才学习 L2 的，并且在 L2 中通常不占优势。因此，在这些结果中，语言优势和习得顺序的相对贡献是混淆的。在这里，粤语母语者和英语母语者在听觉翻译启动范式中接受了测试。由于粤语母语者首先学习粤语（L1），但后来在英语（L2）中占据主导地位，这种情况使得在翻译启动中优势和习得顺序的潜在分离成为可能。如果习得顺序是主要因素，那么在 L1-L2（粤语-英语）方向上预计会有更强的启动效应；然而，如果优势发挥更强的作用，则在 L2-L1（英语-粤语）方向上预计会有更强的启动效应。英语母语者表现出更强的 L1-L2 启动效应，这与之前的发现一致，而粤语母语者则在两个方向上都表现出启动效应，并且 L2-L1 启动效应略大。将语言优势视为连续变量表明，L1-L2 启动效应与粤语优势的增加相关，而 L2-L1 启动效应则与英语优势的增加略有相关。总的来说，这些结果表明，语言优势和习得顺序都有助于解释翻译启动效应发现和双语词汇处理，通常情况下。总体而言，它们促使人们重新思考不同语言优势的双语者在双语词汇通达中这两个变量的作用。
