How Do Cognates Affect Switch Cost? A Picture Naming Study of European Portuguese-English Bilinguals

Authors: Minghui Zou

Abstract:

Recent studies in bilingual language production have examined language switching costs and cognate facilitation effects, respectively, but the question remains whether and how cognate status influences switching costs. Aiming to provide an answer, two picture naming tasks will be conducted in this proposed study by manipulating the conditions of how cognates and non-cognates are presented, i.e., separately in two testing blocks vs intermixed in one single testing block. Participants of each experiment will be 24 L1-European Portuguese L2-English unbalanced speakers. Stimuli will include 12 pictures of cognate nouns and 12 of non-cognate nouns. It is hypothesized that there will be cognate switch facilitation effects among unbalanced bilinguals in both of their languages when stimuli are presented either in two single testing blocks or one mixed testing block. Shorter reaction times and higher naming accuracy are expected to be found in cognate switch trials than in non-cognate switch trials.

Keywords: cognates, language switching costs, picture naming, European Portuguese, cognate facilitation