Evidence for a bimodal bilingual disadvantage in letter fluency

• MARCEL R. GIEZEN ^[1] ; KAREN EMMOREY ^[2]
  1. [1] Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language

     Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language

     San Sebastián, España

     
  2. [2] San Diego State University

     San Diego State University

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 20, Nº 1, 2017, págs. 42-48
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Many bimodal bilinguals are immersed in a spoken language-dominant environment from an early age and, unlike unimodal bilinguals, do not necessarily divide their language use between languages. Nonetheless, early ASL–English bilinguals retrieved fewer words in a letter fluency task in their dominant language compared to monolingual English speakers with equal vocabulary level. This finding demonstrates that reduced vocabulary size and/or frequency of use cannot completely account for bilingual disadvantages in verbal fluency. Instead, retrieval difficulties likely reflect between-language interference. Furthermore, it suggests that the two languages of bilinguals compete for selection even when they are expressed with distinct articulators.