LANGUAGE ATTITUDES OF ITALO-AUSTRALIAN AND GREEK-AUSTRALIAN BILINGUALS*

The purpose of this research was to investigate differences in the perception of speakers as a function of their language and sex. Forty-two Italo-Australian and 56 Greek-Australian young people listened to male and female speakers in each of their two languages, using Lambert et al's. (1960) guise method. Results indicated few differences in Italo-Australian subjects' ratings of speakers as a function of language, while Greek-Australian subjects, in general, rated Greek guises more positively than English guises. In addition, Italo-Australian subjects rated female subjects more positively than male speakers irrespective of language, but Greek-Australian subjects reversed this pattern.     

A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo-European and a Ural-Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?

StrØmnes, F. J. A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo-European and a Ural-Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 291–304.-A theory of information transmission by symbol systems is presented. The theory is related to results on imagery and verbal behaviour found in the literature, and a new experiment is briefly reported. It is argued that information transmission can exclusively take place by the transmission of geometric isomorphs. Some of the conditions which must be fulfilled by a sign system which can transmit geometric isomorphs are pointed out. A supporting experiment, which purports to show that the underlying geometric systems of Ural-Altaic (represented by Finnish) and Indo-European (represented by Swedish) are strikingly different, is reported.     

Proximate units in word production: Phonological encoding begins with syllables in Mandarin Chinese but with segments in English

In Mandarin Chinese, speakers benefit from fore-knowledge of what the first syllable but not of what the first phonemic segment of a disyllabic word will be (Chen, Chen, & Dell, 2002), contrasting with findings in English, Dutch, and other Indo-European languages, and challenging the generality of current theories of word production. In this article, we extend the evidence for the language difference by showing that failure to prepare onsets in Mandarin (Experiment 1) applies even to simple monosyllables (Experiments 2–4), and confirm the contrast with English for comparable materials (Experiments 5 and 6). We also provide new evidence that Mandarin speakers do reliably prepare tonally unspecified phonological syllables (Experiment 7). To account for these patterns, we propose a language general proximate units principle whereby intentional preparation for speech as well as phonological–lexical coordination are grounded at the first phonological level below the word at which explicit unit selection occurs. The language difference arises because syllables are proximate units in Mandarin Chinese, whereas segments are proximate in English and other Indo-European languages. The proximate units perspective reconciles the aspiration toward a language general account of word production with the reality of substantial cross-linguistic differences.     

Monolingual and bilingual children's social preferences for monolingual and bilingual speakers

Past research has shown that young monolingual children exhibit language‐based social biases: they prefer native language to foreign language speakers. The current research investigated how children's language preferences are influenced by their own bilingualism and by a speaker's bilingualism. Monolingual and bilingual 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds heard pairs of adults (a monolingual and a bilingual, or two monolinguals) and chose the person with whom they wanted to be friends. Whether they were from a largely monolingual or a largely bilingual community, monolingual children preferred monolingual to bilingual speakers, and native language to foreign language speakers. In contrast, bilingual children showed similar affiliation with monolingual and bilingual speakers, as well as for monolingual speakers using their dominant versus non‐dominant language. Exploratory analyses showed that individual bilinguals displayed idiosyncratic patterns of preference. These results reveal that language‐based preferences emerge from a complex interaction of factors, including preference for in‐group members, avoidance of out‐group members, and characteristics of the child as they relate to the status of the languages within the community. Moreover, these results have implications for bilingual children's social acceptance by their peers.     

The thrill of loving a dominant partner: Relationships between preference for a dominant mate,sensation seeking,and trait anxiety

This study investigates whether particular personality traits predict the desire to choose a dominant partner. Specifically examined are the traits of sensation seeking and trait anxiety as predictors of the preference for a dominant female/male partner. Sixty‐eight men and 104 women (N = 172) participated in an online survey. Individuals who avoid boredom and seek out exciting social activities have a stronger desire for a dominant partner. For female participants, we detected experience seeking and trait anxiety as additional factors associated with the preference for a dominant partner. Women higher in trait anxiety and lower in experience seeking have a higher preference for a dominant man. Gender differences are interpreted with regard to sexual selection theory and individual differences with respect to the theory of assortative mating.     

The cognate facilitation effect: implications for models of lexical access

Do nonselected lexical nodes activate their phonological information? Catalan-Spanish bilinguals were asked to name (a) pictures whose names are cognates in the 2 languages (words that are phonologically similar in the 2 languages) and (b) pictures whose names are noncognates in the 2 languages. If nonselected lexical nodes are phonologically encoded, naming latencies should be shorter for cognate words, and because the cognate status of words is only meaningful for bilingual speakers, this difference should disappear when testing monolingual speakers. The results of Experiment 1 fully supported these predictions. In Experiment 2, the difference between cognate and noncognate words was larger when naming in the nondominant language than when naming in the dominant language. The results of the 2 experiments are interpreted as providing support to cascaded activation models of lexical access.     

On the universality of language dissolution: The case of a Turkish aphasic

The case of a Turkish aphasic suffering from motor aphasia is described. The transitional phonemic systems which could be observed in this patient in the course of speech rehabilitation are compared to the so-called “phonemic disintegration,” whereas the errors of his graphic performance are compared to the so-called “agrammatism” of Indo-European languages. It is found that there exists a strong parallelism between this agglutinative language and the inflecting Indo-European languages insofar as aphasic language dissolution is concerned.     

Semantic gender assignment regularities in German

Gender assignment relates to a native speaker's knowledge of the structure of the gender system of his/her language, allowing the speaker to select the appropriate gender for each noun. Whereas categorical assignment rules and exceptional gender assignment are well investigated, assignment regularities, i.e., tendencies in the gender distribution identified within the vocabulary of a language, are still controversial. The present study is an empirical contribution trying to shed light on the gender assignment system native German speakers have at their disposal. Participants presented with a category (e.g., predator) and a pair of gender-marked pseudo-words (e.g., der Trelle vs. die Stisse) preferentially selected the pseudo-word preceded by the gender-marked determiner "associated" with the category (e.g., masculine). This finding suggests that semantic regularities might be part of the gender assignment system of native speakers.     

Discriminating languages by speech-reading

The goal of this study was to explore the ability to discriminate languages using the visual correlates of speech (i.e., speech-reading). Participants were presented with silent video clips of an actor pronouncing two sentences (in Catalan and/or Spanish) and were asked to judge whether the sentences were in the same language or in different languages. Our results established that Spanish-Catalan bilingual speakers could discriminate running speech from their two languages on the basis of visual cues alone (Experiment 1). However, we found that this ability was critically restricted by linguistic experience, since Italian and English speakers who were unfamiliar with the test languages could not successfully discriminate the stimuli (Experiment 2). A test of Spanish monolingual speakers revealed that knowledge of only one of the two test languages was sufficient to achieve the discrimination, although at a lower level of accuracy than that seen in bilingual speakers (Experiment 3). Finally, we evaluated the ability to identify the language by speech-reading particularly distinctive words (Experiment 4). The results obtained are in accord with recent proposals arguing that the visual speech signal is rich in informational content, above and beyond what traditional accounts based solely on visemic confusion matrices would predict.     

Linguistic relativism and colour cognition

Native speakers of two languages (English and Ndonga) were compared on three colour cognition tasks (sorting, triads and visual search) in a test of the linguistic relativity hypothesis (Whorf, 1956). The colour lexicons of these two languages differ because Ndonga has no basic terms for ORANGE, PINK and PURPLE, and stimuli were chosen to exploit this difference. On the sorting task (sorting into similarity‐groups) for each language, nominally similar colours were grouped together more often than nominally dissimilar colours. On the triads task (choosing the most different of three colours), when the most nominally isolated colour differed for the two language‐groups, each group tended to choose their nominal isolate. On the search task (scanning for target colours among distractors), targets were either in a different English category than distractors (cross‐category), or some distractors were in the same English category as distractors (within‐category). The ‘cost’ in speed of having within‐category distractors was much greater for the English than for the Ndonga. Overall, these data suggest that a core universal component is modulated by a small relativist influence. The differences in the visual search task are consistent with language affecting pre‐attentive processes (an indirect language effect) as well as exerting on‐line influences (a direct effect).     

The incidence of false memories in native and non-native speakers

The current study consisted of four experiments that utilised a novel approach to investigating false memories. Each of the experiments in the current study investigated individuals with varying experience with different languages. Experiment 1 tested participants in both their native and secondary languages as well as monolingual English speakers, while Experiment 2 assessed native Spanish speakers using both English and Spanish associative lists. Experiment 3 examined the illusory memories in monolingual Spanish speakers in both English and Spanish, while Experiment 4 investigated false memories in monolingual English speakers in both English and Spanish. Results indicated that memory for list items and critical lures was greatest when the lists were presented in the participants' primary language. Results can be explained by either activation-based or fuzzy-trace theories.     

The incidence of false memories in native and non-native speakers

The current study consisted of four experiments that utilised a novel approach to investigating false memories. Each of the experiments in the current study investigated individuals with varying experience with different languages. Experiment 1 tested participants in both their native and secondary languages as well as monolingual English speakers, while Experiment 2 assessed native Spanish speakers using both English and Spanish associative lists. Experiment 3 examined the illusory memories in monolingual Spanish speakers in both English and Spanish, while Experiment 4 investigated false memories in monolingual English speakers in both English and Spanish. Results indicated that memory for list items and critical lures was greatest when the lists were presented in the participants' primary language. Results can be explained by either activation-based or fuzzy-trace theories.     

Will a category cue attract you? Motor output reveals dynamic competition across person construal

People use social categories to perceive others, extracting category cues to glean membership. Growing evidence for continuous dynamics in real-time cognition suggests, contrary to prevailing social psychological accounts, that person construal may involve dynamic competition between simultaneously active representations. To test this, the authors examined social categorization in real-time by streaming the x, y coordinates of hand movements as participants categorized typical and atypical faces by sex. Though judgments of atypical targets were largely accurate, online motor output exhibited a continuous spatial attraction toward the opposite sex category, indicating dynamic competition between multiple social category alternatives. The authors offer a dynamic continuity account of social categorization and provide converging evidence across categorizations of real male and female faces (containing a typical or an atypical sex-specifying cue) and categorizations of computer-generated male and female faces (with subtly morphed sex-typical or sex-atypical features). In 3 studies, online motor output revealed continuous dynamics underlying person construal, in which multiple simultaneously and partially active category representations gradually cascade into social categorical judgments. Such evidence is challenging for discrete stage-based accounts.     

Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science

English is the dominant language in the study of human cognition and behavior: the individuals studied by cognitive scientists, as well as most of the scientists themselves, are frequently English speakers. However, English differs from other languages in ways that have consequences for the whole of the cognitive sciences, reaching far beyond the study of language itself. Here, we review an emerging body of evidence that highlights how the particular characteristics of English and the linguistic habits of English speakers bias the field by both warping research programs (e.g., overemphasizing features and mechanisms present in English over others) and overgeneralizing observations from English speakers’ behaviors, brains, and cognition to our entire species. We propose mitigating strategies that could help avoid some of these pitfalls.     

Repetition priming within and between languages in verb generation: Evidence for shared verb concepts

Although translation equivalents for concrete nouns are known to have shared core conceptual representations in bilingual memory (Francis, 1999), the status of translation-equivalent verbs has not been systematically tested. Three repetition-priming experiments using a verb generation task were used to determine whether verbs have shared representations across languages and to identify the processes facilitated in repeated verb generation. In Experiment 1 fluent Spanish–English bilingual speakers exhibited repetition priming both within and between languages, but between-language priming was weaker. In Experiment 2 performance of non-bilingual English and Spanish speakers was equivalent to that of bilingual speakers responding in their dominant language. Experiment 3 used manipulations meant to isolate noun comprehension, verb concept selection, and verb production. The between-language priming in Experiments 1 and 3 indicates that verb concepts are shared across languages and that verb concept selection exhibits facilitation. Experiment 3 showed that the greater within-language priming was due primarily to facilitation of verb production processes.     

Repetition priming within and between languages in verb generation: evidence for shared verb concepts

Although translation equivalents for concrete nouns are known to have shared core conceptual representations in bilingual memory (Francis, 1999), the status of translation-equivalent verbs has not been systematically tested. Three repetition-priming experiments using a verb generation task were used to determine whether verbs have shared representations across languages and to identify the processes facilitated in repeated verb generation. In Experiment 1 fluent Spanish-English bilingual speakers exhibited repetition priming both within and between languages, but between-language priming was weaker. In Experiment 2 performance of non-bilingual English and Spanish speakers was equivalent to that of bilingual speakers responding in their dominant language. Experiment 3 used manipulations meant to isolate noun comprehension, verb concept selection, and verb production. The between-language priming in Experiments 1 and 3 indicates that verb concepts are shared across languages and that verb concept selection exhibits facilitation. Experiment 3 showed that the greater within-language priming was due primarily to facilitation of verb production processes.     

Blind Speakers Show Language‐Specific Patterns in Co‐Speech Gesture but Not Silent Gesture

Sighted speakers of different languages vary systematically in how they package and order components of a motion event in speech. These differences influence how semantic elements are organized in gesture, but only when those gestures are produced with speech (co‐speech gesture), not without speech (silent gesture). We ask whether the cross‐linguistic similarity in silent gesture is driven by the visuospatial structure of the event. We compared 40 congenitally blind adult native speakers of English or Turkish (20/language) to 80 sighted adult speakers (40/language; half with, half without blindfolds) as they described three‐dimensional motion scenes. We found an effect of language on co‐speech gesture, not on silent gesture—blind speakers of both languages organized their silent gestures as sighted speakers do. Humans may have a natural semantic organization that they impose on events when conveying them in gesture without language—an organization that relies on neither visuospatial cues nor language structure.     

Face-based categorization, context-based categorization, and distortions in the recollection of gender ambiguous faces

In three studies, we examined the impact of face-based and context-based categorization in the recollection of gender ambiguous faces. Gender ambiguous faces were created by morphing male and female source faces. In Study 1, the recollection of moderately ambiguous faces (i.e., 70% male-30% female faces and 70% female-30% male faces) was accentuated towards face distracters that were more typical of the spontaneous (i.e., face-based) categorization of these faces. In Study 2, the recollection of extremely ambiguous faces (50% male-50% female faces) was accentuated towards face distracters that were more typical of the gender category suggested by context cues attached to these faces prior to the face presentation. Study 3 relied on the same design as Study 2, but this time context cues were provided after face encoding. In line with predictions, no accentuation effect emerged under the latter conditions. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Two languages, two personalities? Examining language effects on the expression of personality in a bilingual context

The issue of whether personality changes as a function of language is controversial. The present research tested the cultural accommodation hypothesis by examining the impact of language use on personality as perceived by the self and by others. In Study 1, Hong Kong Chinese-English bilinguals responded to personality inventories in Chinese or English on perceived traits for themselves, typical native speakers of Chinese, and typical native speakers of English. Study 2 adopted a repeated measures design and collected data at three time points from written measures and actual conversations to examine whether bilinguals exhibited different patterns of personality, each associated with one of their two languages and the ethnicity of their interlocutors. Self-reports and behavioral observations confirmed the effects of perceived cultural norms, language priming, and interlocutor ethnicity on various personality dimensions. It is suggested that use of a second language accesses the perceived cultural norms of the group most associated with that language, especially its prototypic trait profiles, thus activating behavioral expressions of personality that are appropriate in the corresponding linguistic-social context.     

Is Literary Arabic a Second Language for Native Arab Speakers?: Evidence from Semantic Priming Study

The mother tongue of the absolute majority of native Arabic speakers is Spoken Arabic (SA), which is a local dialect that does not have a written form. For reading and writing, as well as for formal communication Literary Arabic (LA) is used. For the literate Arabs, these two languages are extensively inter-twined in every day life. Consequently, it is possible that, despite the difference between them, LA is not processed like a regular second language by the cognitive system of the native Arabic speakers but rather as an enhancement of the spoken lexicon. In the present study we examined this possibility comparing semantic priming effects in auditory lexical decision within SA (L1), with the effects found across languages with LA or in Hebrew (L2). Hebrew is doubtlessly a second language for native Arabic speakers. In this study we have manipulated semantic priming. In Experiment 1 the targets were in Spoken Arabic and the primes in any of the three languages. The semantic priming effect was twice as large within L1 as between languages and there was no difference between Hebrew and LA. In Experiment 2, all primes were in SA whereas the targets were in any of the three languages. The priming effects in that experiment were doubled relative to the previous experiment, but the inter-language relationships were the same. For both language pairings, the semantic priming was larger when the primes were presented in SA (and the targets in either Hebrew or LA) than when the primes were presented in one of the second languages and the targets in SA. The conclusion is that, despite the intensive daily use adult native Arabic speakers make of SA and LA, and despite their shared origin, the two languages retain their status as first and second languages in the cognitive system.