Search Results (6)

For decades, linguists have been working to formulate an objective means of distinguishing dialects from languages, but dialect recognition has largely remained a subjective enterprise. Only recently have some studies proposed a processing-based psycholinguistic approach toward dialect recognition. These studies argued that dialect words are stored as a co-dependent representation, not as an independent representation of the words of bilingual speakers. Based on these studies, we investigated the lexical selection and processing mechanisms of bilingual and bidialectal speakers of two understudied languages, Oromo and Amharic, using the picture–word interference paradigm. We found independent lexical representations for both the bilingual and the bidialectal groups, which implies the involvement of the same cognitive mechanisms in both language and dialect processing. Thus, we argue that bidialectal speakers have flexible lexical representation and selection mechanisms that are dependent on the speakers’ previous language experience. Here, we propose a dynamic lexical selection model that accommodates diverse dialect ecologies. Full article

Grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature has been well explored, and the gender congruency effect has been observed in many languages (e.g., Dutch, German, Croatian, Czech, etc.). Yet, so far, this effect has not been found in Romance languages such as Italian, French, and Spanish. It has been argued that the absence of the effect in Romance languages is due the fact that the gender-marking definite article is not exclusively dependent on the grammatical gender of the head noun, but also on its onset phonology (e.g., lo zucchero is ‘the sugar’ in Italian, not il zucchero, il being the default masculine determiner in Italian). For Spanish, this argument has also been made because feminine words starting with a stressed /a/ take the masculine article (e.g., el água is ‘the water’, not la água). However, the number of words belonging to that set is rather small in Spanish, and it may be questionable whether or not this feature can be taken as an argument for the absence of a gender congruency effect in Spanish. In this study, we investigated the gender congruency effect in native Spanish noun phrase production. We measured 30 native Spanish speakers’ naming latencies in four conditions via the picture–word interference paradigm by manipulating gender congruency (i.e., gender-congruent vs. gender-incongruent) and semantic relatedness (i.e., semantically related vs. semantically unrelated). The results revealed significantly longer naming latencies in gender-incongruent and semantically related conditions compared to gender-congruent and semantically unrelated conditions. This result suggests that grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature in Spanish is used to competitively select determiners in native Spanish speakers’ noun phrases. Our findings provide an important behavioral piece of evidence for the gender congruency effect in Romance languages. Full article

In previous picture naming tasks, semantically related distractor words (co-hyponyms to the target word) induce interference, which is usually taken as evidence for lexical competition. In an online picture-word-interference experiment, we showed that distractor words that share a feature with the target (here: their natural prototypical color), also induced interference. Pictures were not named with single words but with short descriptive sentences (“The heart is red”). Focus on the noun modulated the interference effect. In particular, when target and distractor were presented simultaneously, the interference effect was significantly reduced in the narrow focus condition, compared to broad focus. We discuss our findings for focus production against the findings on language comprehension reported in the literature, which mostly observed facilitatory effects of focus marking on the comprehension of focus alternatives. Full article

“Triggered switching” is the theory that code-switching happens more often with words connected to both languages, such as cognates. Corpus analyses have supported this theory; however, they do not allow testing for directional causality. Here, we test the triggering hypothesis through a picture-naming task, and examine whether cognates trigger code-switches, as well as more subtle interference effects resulting in disfluencies. Forty English-Spanish bilinguals completed a picture-cued sentence production task in three conditions: English-only, Spanish-only, and mixed. Half of the pictures represented Spanish-English cognates. Unsurprisingly, participants were more likely to code-switch when asked to use both their languages compared to only their dominant or non-dominant language. However, participants were not more likely to switch languages for cognate than for non-cognate trials. Participants tended to be more fluent on cognate trials in the dominant and the non-dominant condition, and on non-cognate trials in the mixed-language condition, although these effects were not significant. These findings suggest that both language context and cognate status are important to consider when testing both overt switches and disfluencies in bilingual speech production. Full article

Background: Disruption of spoken language in people with aphasia tends to interfere with the ability to write, which is referred to as dysgraphia. This study examined the effectiveness of the anagram and copy treatment (ACT), administered in English on a bilingual Malay/English patient with conduction aphasia (GM). ACT is the arrangement of component letters presented in scrambled order (i.e., an anagram) so that the patient could use the letters to form target words, followed by repeated copying of the word. Methods: A single-subject multiple-baseline design was used with sets of English words (both nouns and verbs) sequentially targeted for treatment. Prior to the treatment, a series of single word writing and reading baselines were conducted in two languages: English and Malay. The ACT treatment was done in English, the language reported as more dominant for reading by the patient. Probes assessing generalizations to untrained pictures were presented at 8th, 13th, and 18th sessions. Results: GM showed steady and incremental improvement in the writing of trained nouns and verbs, with generalizations to untrained English nouns and verbs. Conclusions: Single word writing treatment in a non-transparent language may improve dysgraphia among adults with bilingual aphasia through the administration of a structured and systematic treatment. Full article

In order to study the control effect of the rudder surface of the hypersonic vehicle and the coupling dynamic characteristics of the rudder surface deflection and the flight attitude, a technical platform for the deflection and motion coupling of the aircraft rudder surface was designed. The platform ejection mechanism can launch the model into the wind tunnel flow field according to the preset attitude, and model can free flight without support interference. The innovative design of the model internal rudder partial system can guarantee the model to deflect the rudder surface in the free flight process, simulate the real steering process of the aircraft. By changing spring with different springs, the speed of the rudder surface can be changed. The dual optical path and image acquisition technology can capture the motion picture before and after the deflection of the rudder surface from two angles. After the image is matched by model matching, the six degrees of freedom parameter of the model can be changed with the time curve before and after the deflection of the rudder surface, and the area of the six freedom degree curve of the different state model is compared. In other words, the specific influence of dynamic rudder rotation on the motion of the model is known. The wind tunnel test of the model in the hypersonic wind tunnel of the 500 mm is carried out using this platform. The test results are highly repeatable, and the test platform technology is mature and reliable. Full article