Limitations of the cognate effect: How second language proficiency and stimulus frequency modulate adolescent learners’ word recognition

Gastmann, Freya ; Poarch, Gregory J. und Schimke, Sarah (2025): Limitations of the cognate effect: How second language proficiency and stimulus frequency modulate adolescent learners’ word recognition. In: Applied Psycholinguistics, Bd. 46, e44

Abstract

To examine cross-linguistic influences during bilingual lexical processing, a word type frequently used is cognates (i.e., translation equivalents with an overlap in form and meaning, such as English-German tomato-Tomate). Cognates have been found to be processed faster and more accurately than translation equivalents without such overlap (i.e., noncognates, such as English-German potato-Kartoffel). This cognate facilitation effect (CFE) is considered evidence for language co-activation in bilinguals and has been studied mostly in children and adults. The aim of the current study was to examine this effect in a more heterogeneous group of adolescent L2 learners and explore its potential modulation by L2 proficiency and stimulus frequency. For this purpose, 68 L1 German low-intermediate learners of L2 English participated in an English lexical decision task on cognate and noncognate words. Notably, CFEs could not be replicated in this group of learners. However, further analysis revealed that word recognition was modulated by both participants’ L2 English proficiency and target word frequency. The results of the present study add to the literature on modulating factors of the CFE, expand them to a population of early second language learners, and underline the need for future research on factors influencing cross-linguistic activation.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Department 1 > Germanistik > Sprachwissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 400 Sprache > 410 Linguistik
• ISSN: 1469-1817
• Sprache: Englisch
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 436221639