Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz Recent documents in Ana I Schwartz en-us Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:19:21 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/13 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/13 Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:32:12 PDT This study investigated the role of verbal working memory on bilingual lexical disambiguation. Spanish-English bilinguals with low and high digit span read sentences in their second language ending in a cognate homonym (novel), noncognate homonym (fast), cognate (piano) or non-cognate (pencil). The dominant meanings of cognate homonyms were shared across languages while subordinate meanings were unique to the second language. Participants decided whether follow-up targets were related in meaning to the sentence. On critical trials sentences biased the subordinate meaning of the homonym and targets were related to the dominant meaning (novel - BOOK; fast - SPEED), forcing rejection of dominant meanings shared across the two languages. Performance patterns for both groups reflected cross-language activation of cognate meanings. The nature of these effects was facilitative for high-span participants whereas they were inhibitory in nature for low-span participants. Results are discussed in terms of theories of bilingual working memory and lexical disambiguation. Ana B. Areas Da Luz Fontes Bilingualism http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/12 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/12 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:59:21 PDT We examined whether bilinguals' conceptual representation of homonyms in one language are influenced by meanings in the other. 117 Spanish-English bilinguals generated sentences for 62 English homonyms that were also cognates with Spanish and which shared at least one meaning with Spanish (e.g., plane/plano). Production probabilities for each meaning were calculated. A stepwise multiple regression revealed that whether a meaning was shared with Spanish or not accounted for a significant portion of the variance, even after entering production probabilities from published monolingual norms. (Twilley et al., 1994). Homonyms classified as highly polarized based on monolingual responses became less polarized if the less frequent meaning was shared whereas non-polarized homonyms increased in polarization if the dominant meaning was shared. Results are discussed in terms of models of bilingual conceptual and lexical representation as well as theories of ambiguity resolution. Ana B. Areas Bilingualism http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/11 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/11 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:54:18 PDT The present study tested whether lexical disambiguation in sentence context is affected by cross-language lexical activation. In Experiment 1 Spanish-English bilinguals read English sentences biasing the subordinate meaning of homonyms that were either cognates or non-cognates. Participants' ability to reject follow-up target words related to the dominant meaning showed greatest inhibition when the homonym was a cognate and the dominant meaning was shared with Spanish. In Experiment 2 a separate group of bilinguals read sentences biasing the dominant meaning of the homonyms and were instructed to accept target words related to any meaning of the homonym. In this case cognate status of the homonym facilitated acceptance of targets related to the subordinate meaning when this was shared with Spanish. A monolingual control experiment showed no effects of cognate status on processing. Findings are discussed in terms of expanding current models of lexical disambiguation to account for bilingual processing. Ana I. Schwartz Bilingualism http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/10 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/10 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:49:52 PDT Peggy Van Meter Educational Practice http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/9 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/9 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:37:35 PDT Ana I. Schwartz Educational Practice http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/8 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/8 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:31:36 PDT Ana I. Schwartz Educational Practice http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/7 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/7 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:28:22 PDT Judith F. Kroll Bilingualism http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/6 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/6 Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:22:07 PDT Ana I. Schwartz Bilingualism http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/5 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/5 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:31:29 PDT Gretchen Sunderman Bilingualism http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/4 http://works.bepress.com/ana_schwartz/4 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:27:43 PDT The goal of the present study was to examine whether cross-language activation of a bilingual's native language influences the processing of lexical ambiguity within a second language. Highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals performed a semantic verification task in which sentence frames were followed by the presentation of the final word of the sentence (the prime word). Participants then decided whether a follow-up target word was related to the meaning of the sentence. On critical trials the sentences ended in a semantically ambiguous word that was either a cognate with Spanish (e.g., novel), or a noncognate control matched on frequency and length (e.g., fast). The preceding sentence context biased the subordinate meaning (e.g., "new"; "refrain from eating") and targets were related to the irrelevant, dominant meaning (e.g., "BOOK"; "SPEED"). Mean reaction times and error rates were greater when the prime words were ambiguous cognates than when they were ambiguous noncognates. This suggests that the semantic representations from the native language were coactivated and increased the lexical competition from the shared, dominant meaning. Implications for second language vocabulary acquisition and current models of reading are discussed. Ana I. Schwartz Bilingualism