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Unbalanced Trilinguals’ Cognate Processing in L2 in Isolation and in Sentence Context

Language and Cognitive Science / 2023,7(1): 1−25 / 2023-08-16 512 536

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• Authors: Lingyun      Tian²,      Lin      Fan¹      and      Fei      Xu³     
• Information:

  1.Research Institute of Foreign Languages, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China;
  2.School of Foreign Languages, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin, China; National Research Centre for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China;
  3.School of Humanities and Foreign Languages, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, China

• Keywords: Chinese; English; German; word class; lexical processing
• Abstract: While studies on bilinguals’ cognate processing have commonly examined the cognate facilitative effectas well as its influencingfactors, research on trilinguals’ processing of cognates has been insufficientand the results of existing studies have been inconsistent. The study presented here aimed to investigate how L2–L3 cognates can influenceunbalanced trilinguals’ L2 word recognition both in isolation and in sentence context and examined how word classes could modulate the effect.In a lexical decision task, unbalanced Chinese–English–German trilinguals were required to read cognate and noncognate nouns and verbs in isolation. No cognate effectwas observed. In an eye-monitored sentence-reading task, participants were asked to read the target cognates and noncognates embedded in low-semantic-constraint sentence contexts. A cognate inhibition effectwas observed in nouns, but only in gaze duration, an early-stage measure. Moreover, an uncommon noun processing disadvantage over verbs was observed in both experiments. Results were discussed in relation to language-learning experiences, language-membership ambiguity, and the concreteness effect.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.35534/lcs.0701001
• Cite:

  Lingyun Tian，Lin Fan，Fei Xu．Unbalanced Trilinguals’ Cognate Processing in L2 in Isolation and in Sentence Context［J］．Language and Cognitive Science，2022，7（1）：1−25．