The structure of the trilingual lexicon

Abstract

Two experiments were performed with trilingual subjects, for whom Arabic was the first language and Hebrew and English were then acquired. The first experiment employed a tnhgual Stroop colour naming test to measure the different interference effects among the three languages. In the second experiment, a trilingual picture—word naming paradigm was used to compare picture naming and translations in the three languages. The results of the two experiments indicate a coordinate relationship between Hebrew and English, and a compound relationship between eacb of these two languages and Arabic. The pattern of these relationships gives support to the suggestion that the relationship between the representations of the different languages should be seen from a developmental perspective.     

Receptive vocabulary and semantic knowledge in children with SLI and children with Down syndrome

Receptive vocabulary and associated semantic knowledge were compared within and between groups of children with specific language impairment (SLI), children with Down syndrome (DS), and typically developing children. To overcome the potential confounding effects of speech or language difficulties on verbal tests of semantic knowledge, a novel task was devised based on picture-based semantic association tests used to assess adult patients with semantic dementia. Receptive vocabulary, measured by word-picture matching, of children with SLI was weak relative to chronological age and to nonverbal mental age but their semantic knowledge, probed across the same lexical items, did not differ significantly from that of vocabulary-matched typically developing children. By contrast, although receptive vocabulary of children with DS was a relative strength compared to nonverbal cognitive abilities (p < .0001), DS was associated with a significant deficit in semantic knowledge (p < .0001) indicative of dissociation between word-picture matching vocabulary and depth of semantic knowledge. Overall, these data challenge the integrity of semantic-conceptual development in DS and imply that contemporary theories of semantic cognition should also seek to incorporate evidence from atypical conceptual development.     

Complicating marginalisation: the case of Mormon and nonreligious college students in a predominantly Mormon context

There is now compelling evidence that both nonreligious individuals and members of minority religions report feeling marginalised in the United States. However, to date, no one has explored whether a shift from minority status to majority status influences perceptions of marginalisation. In this paper, we explore whether Mormons, members of a minority religion in the USA who perceive marginalisation nationally, contribute to the marginalisation of other minority religious/nonreligious groups when they are the numerical majority. Using data from a survey fielded at a predominantly Mormon university in a predominantly Mormon community in the American West, our data suggest that nonreligious students in a predominantly Mormon context report significantly higher levels of perceived marginalisation. Our findings illustrate that minority status is an important determinant of perceived marginalisation and that numerical minority or majority status should be taken into consideration when examining perceptions of marginalisation.