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An Interaction Between the Effects of Bilingualism and Cross-linguistic Similarity in Balanced and Unbalanced Bilingual Adults’ L2 Mandarin Word-Reading Production

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Abstract

We conducted three experiments investigating in more detail the interaction between the two effects of bilingualism and L1–L2 similarity in the speech performance of balanced and unbalanced bilinguals. In Experiment 1, L1 Mandarin monolinguals and two groups of Hakka and Minnan balanced bilinguals (Hakka: more similar to Mandarin) performed a non-contextual single-character reading task in Mandarin, which required more inhibitory control. The two bilingual groups outperformed the monolinguals, regardless of their L1 background. However, the bilingual advantage was not found in a contextual multi-word task (Experiment 2), but instead the effect of cross-linguistic similarity emerged. Furthermore, in Experiment 3, the Hakka unbalanced bilinguals showed an advantage in the non-contextual task, while their Minnan counterparts did not, and the impact of L1–L2 similarity emerged in both tasks. These results unveiled the way the two effects dynamically interplayed depending on the task contexts and the relative degrees of using L1 and L2.

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Notes

  1. For the phonemic systems of Mandarin, Southern Min, and Hakka, please refer to related earlier studies for a detailed discussion (Chung 1996, 2003; Gong 2003; Lin 2001; Luo et al. 2003; Zheng 1987).

  2. This means that words can be read aloud by simply seeing the word forms (e.g., the visual word DESK) and uttering them (e.g., <desk> and /d/,/\(\varepsilon \)/,/s/,/k/) without having to think about their concepts or lemmas. In this view, the reading of words involves the direct activation of nodes for morphemes, phonemes, and syllable motor programs.

  3. Before the experiment, the participants were instructed to fill out a questionnaire to show the language(s) they spoke fluently, their proficiency of each language, their age at the acquisition of the language(s) spoken, the percentage of each language used daily, and the extent to which each language was used in different settings (e.g., at home or at work or talking with neighbors).

  4. Mandarin Chinese and Minnan are the two major languages in Taiwan; Hakka, Malayo-Polynesian, and other Chinese dialects are the minor languages. Since the Taiwan government announced that Mandarin was the official language, Mandarin has become the dominant language in education and in public domains.

  5. Mandarin Chinese, Hakka, and Minnan share the same writing system or script, so there are no differences in orthographic transparency between Mandarin Chinese and Hakka or Minnan.

  6. The C task presented multiple words in Mandarin in a list. In monolingual research, “context” refers to meaningful settings, that is, contextual information refines the meaning of target word(s), especially ambiguous word(s). In the current study, to contrast the notion of “non-context”, the opposite word “context” was used to mean “environment”, namely multiple Mandarin words created more of a Mandarin environment in Experiment 2 than the single Chinese characters in the NC task (Experiment 1).

  7. For example, now and then Minnan bilinguals slipped such L2 words as [tsow] “leave” and [pɘn-laj] “originally” as [tsaw] and [pun-laj]. The words [tsow] and [pɘn-laj] in Mandarin correspond to [tsaw] and [pun-laj] in Minnan. Hakka bilingual speakers wrongly produced [li-hun] “to divorce” in Mandarin as [li-fun], and the sound transferred from their L1 Hakka.

  8. In order to have a smooth conversation, bilinguals must direct their attention to the relevant language, monitor which language to produce and to speak to whom, and inhibit the irrelevant language from occurring during the course of the conversation, particularly in bilingual conversations.

  9. The unbalanced bilinguals’ L2 pronunciation, which carried traces of L1 sounds more often compared with that of the balanced bilinguals, is a consequence of the different usage ratios of L1 to L2 throughout their life, not a result of the difference in inherent language abilities between balanced and unbalanced bilinguals, per se.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Council under Grant NSC 102-2410-H-168-001 and the Ministry of Science and Technology (originally called National Science Council) under Grant MOST 103-2410-H-168-003.

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  1. Department of Applied Foreign Languages, National Penghu University of Science and Technology, No.300, Liuhe Rd., Magong City, Penghu County, 880, Taiwan, ROC

    Hsiu-Ling Hsu

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Appendix: All Participants’ Language History and Self-assessed Language Proficiency

Appendix: All Participants’ Language History and Self-assessed Language Proficiency

Table 1 shows the participants’ age range, mean age, and the onset of L2 acquisition in years, while L2 AOA refers to the mean age at which the participants began to learn L2 Mandarin, with the standard deviation shown in parentheses. Table 2 shows the participants’ self-assessed language proficiency based on their scores from a questionnaire that was completed before Experiment 1 and Experiment 3. The questionnaire, using a 5-point scale (from 1 = least proficient to 5 = most proficient), evaluated the participants’ proficiency levels of L1 and L2. The self-assessed figures are the average of the participants’ responses to three language skills (language comprehension, language production, and reading).

Table 1 Language history
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Table 2 Self-assessed language proficiency
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Hsu, HL. An Interaction Between the Effects of Bilingualism and Cross-linguistic Similarity in Balanced and Unbalanced Bilingual Adults’ L2 Mandarin Word-Reading Production. J Psycholinguist Res 46, 935–962 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-016-9472-9

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