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The dynamics of bilingual lexical access

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2006

ALBERT COSTA
Affiliation:
GRNC, Parc Científic Universitat de Barcelona & Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Dept. de Psicologia Bàsica, Universitat de Barcelona
WIDO LA HEIJ
Affiliation:
Leiden University, Cognitive Psychology Unit
EDUARDO NAVARRETE
Affiliation:
GRNC, Parc Científic Universitat de Barcelona & Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Dept. de Psicologia Bàsica, Universitat de Barcelona

Abstract

In this article we discuss different views about how information flows through the lexical system in bilingual speech production. In the first part, we focus on some of the experimental evidence often quoted in favor of the parallel activation of the bilinguals' two languages from the semantic system in the course of language production. We argue that such evidence does not require us to embrace the existence of parallel activation of the two languages of a bilingual. In the second part of the article, we discuss the possibility that the language-not-in-use (or the non-response language) is activated via feedback from the sublexical representations and we devise some experimental procedures to assess the validity of such an assumption.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2006

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Footnotes

The preparation of this manuscript was supported by two grants from the Spanish Government (BSO2001 3492-C04-01 BFF2002-1601 10379-E) and by the McDonnell grant “Bridging Mind 1602 Brain and Behavior”, and by a grant from the NIH (DC04 542). Albert Costa was supported by the research program “Ramón y Cajal” from the Spanish government. The authors are grateful to Núria Sebastián-Gallés and Mikel Santesteban for their comments. Requests for reprints may be addressed to Albert Costa.