English compound and non-compound processing in bilingual and multilingual speakers Effects of dominance and sequential multilingualism

• Published in: Second Language Research Vol. 32; no. 4; pp. 503 - 535
• Main Authors: Alonso, Jorge González, Villegas, Julián, del Pilar García Mayo, María
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE 01.10.2016; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd; Sage Publications
• Subjects: Accuracy; Adults; Andre språkvitenskapelige fag: 039; Basque language; Bilingualism; compounds; dominance; English (Second Language); English language; Foreign Countries; Humaniora: 000; Humanities: 000; Inflection (Morphology); Language Dominance; Language Processing; Language Proficiency; Languages; Lexical decision task; Lexical processing; Linguistics: 010; Morphemes; Morphological processing; morphological representation; Morphology (Languages); Multilingualism; Native Language; Native Speakers; non-native processing; Nonparametric Statistics; Other subjects within linguistics: 039; Reaction Time; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Spain; Spanish; Spanish language; Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010; Transfer of Training; Trilingualism; VDP; VDP::Humaniora: 000::Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010::Andre språkvitenskapelige fag: 039; VDP::Humanities: 000::Linguistics: 010::Other subjects within linguistics: 039; Vocabulary; Spain; compounds; dominance; morphological representation; non-native processing; multilingualism
• ISSN: 0267-6583; 1477-0326; 1477-0326
• DOI: 10.1177/0267658316642819

This article reports on a study investigating the relative influence of the first language and dominant language (L1) on second language (L2) and third language (L3) morpho-lexical processing. A lexical decision task compared the responses to English NV-er compounds (e.g. taxi driver) and non-compounds provided by a group of native speakers and three groups of learners at various levels of English proficiency: L1 Spanish – L2 English sequential bilinguals and two groups of early Spanish–Basque bilinguals with English as their L3. Crucially, the two trilingual groups differed in their first and dominant language (i.e. L1 Spanish – L2 Basque vs. L1 Basque – L2 Spanish). Our materials exploit an (a)symmetry between these languages: while Basque and English pattern together in the basic structure of (productive) NV-er compounds, Spanish presents a construction that differs in directionality as well as inflection of the verbal element (V[3SG] + N). Results show between and within group differences in accuracy and response times that may be ascribable to two factors besides proficiency: the number of languages spoken by a given participant and their dominant language. An examination of response bias reveals an influence of the participants’ first and dominant language on the processing of NV-er compounds. Our data suggest that morphological information in the non-native lexicon may extend beyond morphemic structure and that, similarly to bilingualism, there are costs to sequential multilingualism in lexical retrieval.