Getting your wires crossed: evidence for fast processing of L1 idioms in an L2

Carrol, Gareth; Conklin, Kathy

Abstract

Monolingual speakers show priming for idiomatic sequences (e.g. a pain in the neck) relative to matched controls (e.g. a pain in the foot); single word translation equivalents show cross-language activation (e.g. dog–chien) for bilinguals. If the lexicon is heteromorphic (Wray, 2002), larger units may show cross-language priming in the same way as single words. We used the initial words of English idioms (e.g. to spill the . . . beans) and transliterated Chinese idioms (e.g. draw a snake and add . . . feet) as primes for the final words in a lexical decision task with high proficiency Chinese–English bilinguals and English monolinguals. Bilinguals responded to targets significantly faster when they completed a Chinese idiom (e.g. feet) than when they were presented with a matched control word (e.g. hair). The results are discussed in terms of conceptual activation and lexical translation processes, and are also incorporated into a dual route model of formulaic and novel language processing.

Citation

Carrol, G., & Conklin, K. (2014). Getting your wires crossed: evidence for fast processing of L1 idioms in an L2. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(4), https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728913000795

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Mar 16, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 16, 2015
• Journal: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
• Print ISSN: 1366-7289
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-1841
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 4
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728913000795
• Keywords: Bilingualism, Dual route processing, Fast automatic translation, Formulaic language, Idioms
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/994206
• Publisher URL: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9342803&fileId=S1366728913000795