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Effects of Bilingualism and Trilingualism in L2 Production: Evidence from Errors and Self-Repairs in Early Balanced Bilingual and Trilingual Adults

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Abstract

Through analyzing response latencies, errors, and self-repairs in Mandarin, this investigation explores how monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual adults process their speech production differently using cognitive control mechanisms. In this study we conducted two experiments involving speech production in Mandarin. In the two experiments, 81 adults participated and were categorized into three groups: Mandarin monolingual, Hakka-Mandarin bilingual, and Hakka-Mandarin-Minnan trilingual. In Experiment 1 (unpreprogrammed task), each subject read 250 targets that were presented on a computer screen, one at a time, using E-prime; in Experiment 2 (preprogrammed task), each subject read 466 targets printed on A4 paper. Experiment 1 showed that bilinguals and trilinguals outperformed monolinguals in every aspect examined in this research, revealing the presence of bilingual and trilingual advantages in inhibitory control. Interestingly, in Experiment 2, we found a more complex pattern of results: a trilingual advantage in attentional control occurred during L2 production in terms of the number of errors and error correction; however, the bilingual group did not maintain this advantage in the task requiring attentional control. These experimental results revealed that the differences between the language groups became clearer when the inhibitory control demands increased and that compared with the trilingual advantage, the bilingual advantage in inhibitory control emerged in more limited contexts.

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Notes

  1. Hakka language in Taiwan includes Hailu Hakka and Sixian Hakka (Chung 2004; Luo 1990); in this study, the L1 of all of the subjects in the bilingual and trilingual groups is Sixian.

  2. Li (1992) reported that the native speakers of Mandarin in Taiwan could barely distinguish

    figure n

    from

    figure o

    or

    figure p

    from [in] because of the merger of coda -n and

    figure q

    in Mandarin in Taiwan.

  3. This kind of error was found only in Experiment 2 in the current study.

  4. Fat Live Band is a pseudo-live band name created for Experiment 2 in the present study.

  5. F.I.R. is a famous live band in Taiwan.

  6. One might suggest that in terms of automaticity, reading a word presented in orthography is one of the most automatic reactions for any literate speaker. However, in this paper, we mean that compared to the UCT, the PCT presented words or phrases at the same time, which allowed the speakers to preprogram how to pronounce the stimuli and how to allocate their attentional resources; in addition, it allowed them to retrieve from memory prefabricated chunks related to the current stimulus (see Example 9 shown in the Classification of Errors section as evidence). To this extent, completing the PCT involved more automatic processing compared to the UCT; that is, more test items in the PCT seemed to undergo more automatic processing than those in the UCT. Therefore, it should be noted that we do not mean to infer that the UCT never experienced automatic processing or the PCT never experienced controlled processing.

  7. Many studies on L2 production have demonstrated that when a bilingual is using either of two languages, the non-target language is still active and competes with the target language during language production (e.g., Costa and Santesteban 2004; Costa et al. 2006; Grainger and Beauvillain 1987; Green 1998; Kroll et al. 2006; Kroll and Dijkstra 2002; Levy et al. 2007). One of the indexes of activation of the non-target language is L1 transfer, which occurs during L2 production (Aoyama 2003; Flege and Wang 1989; Lai 2000; Liao 1998; Monahan 2001; Su 1996; Uffmann 2003). In the current study, the target language is Mandarin; for the bilingual and trilingual participants, Mandarin is their L2 and Hakka is their L1. As revealed in this study, bilinguals’ and trilinguals’ errors in Mandarin may carry traces of their L1. That is, some error cases involving L1 transfer were found in this study. Consider the following example, where a bilingual used the inappropriate L1 pronunciation

    figure al

    to replace the L2

    figure am

    :

    figure an

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  1. Kun Shan University, No. 949 Dawan Road, Yongkang District, Tainan City, 71003, Taiwan, ROC

    Hsiu-ling Hsu

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Hsu, Hl. Effects of Bilingualism and Trilingualism in L2 Production: Evidence from Errors and Self-Repairs in Early Balanced Bilingual and Trilingual Adults. J Psycholinguist Res 43, 357–379 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-013-9257-3

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