The Language Control Mechanism In Chinese/English Bilingual Lexical Production

Bilingual language control and production have always been key issues in psycholinguistic research.Due to the fact that two language systems are established in the bilingual's mind,bilingual language control(BLC)is more difficult and complicated than monolingual language control.Therefore,how does the bilingual language control mechanism operate to ensure the bilingual speaker's easy and fluent language switching and production in daily life? This question has drawn accumulated attention from researchers from home and abroad over the past decades.However,on many fundamental questions on the BLC mechanism,researchers have proposed different and sometimes even opposing theories,and so far no consensuses have been reached.For example,on the nature of the BLC mechanism,researchers have proposed the “inhibition account” and the “activation account”.The inhibition account claims that bilingual language control is achieved through inhibition of the non-target language while the activation account maintains that it is done by activation(over-activation)of the target language.Also,on the scope of the BLC mechanism,two opposing theoretical accounts have also been proposed,i.e.,the “global control account” and the “local control account”.The former claims that bilingual language control works on the entire non-target language,whereas the latter holds that only specific,task-relevant lexical items are under control during bilingual language production.Besides,research on the behavioral after-effects of language switching,the role of L2 proficiency in bilingual language control and the specific language pair of Chinese and English has been relatively inadequate so far.Therefore,on the basis of the theoretical advancements and empirical findings of previous researchers,the present study investigates the BLC mechanism of unbalanced Chinese/English bilinguals at the lexical level.Specifically,it explores the nature and scope of the BLC mechanism,the behavioral after-effects of language switching as well as the role of L2(English)proficiency in bilingual language control,which form the four research questions of the present study.The present study adopted the language switching paradigm with blocked picture-naming tasks(to measure reaction time)and invited a total of 40 Chinese/English bilinguals based in University of Cambridge(Britain)and Shanghai International Studies University(China)as the higher-L2-proficiency group and the lower-L2-proficiency group of the experiment(20 participants in each group,and the experiment was conducted in Britain and China).The E-prime software was used for presentation of stimuli(pictures)and the SPSS software was used for data analysis.The experimental results show that for unbalanced Chinese/English bilinguals,firstly,BLC at the lexical level is mainly realized through inhibition of the non-target language(Research Question 1);secondly,the scope of the BLC mechanism is global,i.e.,the whole non-target language is under inhibition rather than specific,task-relevant lexical items only(Research Question 2);thirdly,behavioral after-effects of language switching mainly lie in three aspects – repetition priming effects are stronger for L2 than for L1;translation priming effects are asymmetrical and only exist in the L1-L2 direction;language switching has negative effects on the target language and such effects are stronger for L2 than for L1(Research Question 3);lastly,L2 proficiency plays a significant role in the BLC mechanism: as a bilingual's L2 proficiency grows,the negative effects of language switching weaken while repetition priming and translation priming effects strengthen,which indicates that the bilingual's language control ability develops.As bilingual language control belongs to the domain of general cognitive control,this result has further confirmed that with the development of the bilingual's L2 proficiency,the bilingual cognitive advantage is also greater(Research Question 4).In a word,through detailed discussion on issues concerning the BLC mechanism of unbalanced Chinese/English bilinguals from four perspectives,the present study has extended current theories and methodology in BLC research and made up for the inadequacy of research on related topics.As bilingual language control belongs to the executive cognitive control in general,exploring the BLC mechanism could not only deepen our understanding of the interaction and effects of different languages,but also enrich our knowledge on the bilingual cognitive advantage and general cognitive control abilities,and broaden our vision in re-evaluating the function of foreign language education from a cognitive perspective.