Processing Code-Switches in the Presence of Others: An ERP Study

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Edith Kaan¹  Souad Kheder¹  Ann Kreidler²  Aleksandra Tomić¹  Jorge R. Valdés Kroff³ 

[1] Department of Linguistics, University of Florida, United States;School of Communication Science and Disorders, Florida State University, United States;Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Florida, United States

关键词: code-switching;    early frontal positivity;    LPC;    social factors;    bilingual language processing;    pro-active control;    language control;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01288

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Code-switching is highly socially constrained. For instance, code-switching is only felicitous when those present are fluent in both languages. This means that bilinguals need to dynamically adjust their language control and expectation of code-switching to the current social situation or context. The aim of the present EEG study was to investigate how and when language control in the comprehension of code-switches is affected by the assumed language knowledge of others in the context. Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences with and without code-switches together with another Spanish-English bilingual or with an English monolingual. Switches elicited an early fronto-central positivity. This effect was smaller overall when a bilingual was present at the start of the study. In addition, the late positive complex found for switches was smaller when a bilingual was present rather than a monolingual, but only for those participants who were sensitive to the other’s language knowledge in their off-line judgments. These findings suggest that the bilinguals in our study expected and activated both languages when initially paired with a bilingual and that they more easily accommodated code-switches, in the presence of a bilingual than in the presence of a monolingual. Our findings support the view that language control can be modulated by the perceived language knowledge of others present, and are compatible with a dynamic control model of bilingual language comprehension.

【 授权许可】

CC BY