Week 4 multilingualism

Bilingual Lexicons

Mental storage and organization of words and their meanings in two languages.

Parsimony

The bilingual lexicon avoids redundancy by not storing the same meaning twice across two languages.

Translation Pairs

Word pairs in two languages that map onto the same or highly similar conceptual representations.

Proficiency and Independence

Influences the independence of the two lexicons in bilingual individuals.

Concrete Words

Words that have strong perceptual features, consistent across languages, making them easier to learn.

Abstract Words

Words that rely on cultural or linguistic context, often leading to semantic variability across languages.

Semantic Representation

Specific linguistic expression of a concept within a language, which encompasses nuances and idiomatic usage.

Conceptual Representation

The underlying idea or meaning that a word expresses, shared across languages.

Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM)

A model proposed by Kroll and Stewart (1994) that describes how bilinguals represent and process words in their two languages.

Lexical Links

Direct connections between word forms in the first language (L1) and the second language (L2).

Conceptual Links

Connections between words and their underlying meanings (concepts) across languages.

Asymmetry in Links

Early bilinguals rely on lexical connections; higher proficiency leads to stronger conceptual connections.

Translation-based Access

Accessing L2 words through their L1 equivalents, typical in low proficiency learners.

Conceptually Mediated Access

Accessing L2 words directly through conceptual understanding, typical in high proficiency learners.

Semantic Accents

How bilinguals interpret or use words influenced by their two languages; arises from parallel activation of both language systems.

Cognates

Words that share a common etymological origin and typically have similar forms and meanings across languages.

Non-Cognates

Words with unrelated origins that often have little or no overlap in form despite shared meaning.

Lexical Priming

A methodology in psycholinguistics to study how words and their representations are organized and accessed in the mind.

Final Position Effects

Words in the final position of a sentence tend to exhibit stronger priming effects during processing.