1. Jean-Marc LAVAUR, Xavier APARICIO, Lisa VANDEBERG & Ton DIJKSTRA
International Congress of Psychology
Berlin, Germany, July 2008

2. How many multilinguals in Europe?
23 official languages in the European Union
L1: dominant language (generally but not always the native language)
L2: English for most countries and speakers (but English could also be
found as a L3)
L3: very diverse, depending on different factors (geographical, cultural,
institutional, etc.)

3. Multilingualism and
Cognitive Psychology
 Important number of researches concerning Bilingualism
in Cognitive Psychology
 A large part of the researches concern the study of the
bilingual mental lexicon
 Next step: focus on multilingual communication and
lexical processing

4. The Multilingual Lexicon
The mental lexicon is a part of human memory (Dijkstra, 2005)
It contains all kinds of information we know concerning
languages and words:
-orthography
-phonology
-semantics
-syntax
-additional information: languages
(in multilinguals)

5. How to access
the multilingual lexicon?
Language selective access: organized by language
(Gerard & Scarborough, 1989)
LIRE
LIRE
DIRE French lexicon
FIRE
HIRE
English lexicon
Language non-selective access: organized by features
(Dijkstra, Van Jaarsveld & Ten Brinke, 1998)
LIRE
LIRE
DIRE
FIRE
HIRE
LIRA
ARIA
French/English/Spanish
shared lexicon
LIRA
ARIA Spanish lexicon

6. Model of the architecture of
the multilingual lexicon
Different units are involved in orthographic processing: BIA+ Model
(Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002)
L1/L2/
L3
Visual
input

7. Relations between words of
different languages
(Lavaur & Font, 1998)
-Strong orthographic and phonological overlap between
languages and words:
Example:
-Weak orthographic and phonological overlap between
languages and words:
Example:
Amour Amor
Meat Carne
Love
Viande

8. Cognates
Cognates are words for which the orthography, phonology
and meaning are similar/identical in different languages
(Bogaards, 1994)
Facilitatory or inhibitory effects depending, in part, on the
task context.
CLASSE CLASS CLASE

9. Noncognates
Identical/Similar semantics in the three languages, different
orthography and phonology in all the three languages.

10. Double Cognates
identical/similar semantics in the three languages,
identical /similar orthography in only two languages

11. Triple Cognates
identical / similar semantics and orthography and phonology
in all three languages

12. Objectives
 How does the memory of trilinguals work
when the L1 is not explicitely solicited, or the
influence is supposed to be limited to one of
the two other languages ?
 If the L1 has an influence, generalized to all
the languages, what consequences on the
working of trilingual memory?

13. Hypothesis 1:
Influence or no influence
of the native language
Lexical decision task:
If L1 has an influence, cognate words with French in English and/or Spanish
will be recognized faster than words with different forms in these languages
(noncognates)
Language decision task:
If L1 has an influence, cognate words with French in English and/or Spanish
will be processed more slowly than words with different forms in these languages
(noncognates)
 Cognate facilitation effect
 Cognate inhibition effect

14. Hypothesis 2:
Additional cognate effect
Lexical decision task:
words that have the same form in all languages
(triple cognates) will be recognized faster than
words with (partially) different forms (double cognates/noncognates)
Language decision task:
words that have the same form in all languages
(triple cognates) will be processed more slowly than
words with (partially) different forms (double cognates/noncognates)
 Additional facilitation effect
 Additional inhibition effect

15. *FALDA
Spanish
*SKIRT
English
The participant has to decide as quickly and accurately
as possible to which language the word belongs.

16. Population and material
 Population: 24 undergraduate trilinguals, native speakers of French, with
English as a second language and Spanish as a third language.
 Material: 70 French-English-Spanish translation equivalents X 3
language decisions
Specific
words
14
Cognates
L1-L2
14
Cognates
L1-L3
14
Cognates
L2-L3
14
Cognates
L1-L2-L3
14
 Procedure: each participant performs 3 language decision tasks,
respectively L1-L2, L1-L3 et L2-L3.

17. Results: interaction effects between
language and category
Specific words are globally processed faster
-Specific words processed faster in L1L2
and L2L3 decisions
-No effect in L1L3 decision due to specific
patterns between L1 and L3

18. Results: detailed interaction
effects between language and
category
Additional cognate effect

19. Discussion Experiment 1
 Language specific words are generally processed better than
cognates.
 Cognates have an influence on visual word processing.
 Native language has an influence on the processing of other
languages.
 Results supporting a non specific access to the mental lexicon.

20. *nouse
NO
*money
YES
The participant has to decide as quickly and accurately
as possible if the letterstring is an existing word or not.

21. Method Experiment 2
 Population: same participants as in experiment 1
 Material: 72 French-English-Spanish translation equivalents:
 Procedure: each participant performs the 2 lexical decision tasks,
respectively L2 et L3.
Specific
words
24
Cognates
L1-L2
24
Cognates
L1-L2-L3
24

22. English Lexical Decision
- No standard cognate effect for
L1-L2 cognates vs L2 control
words
- L1-L2-L3 cognates got a faster
response

23. Spanish Lexical Decision
 Cognate effect for
French-English-Spanish
cognates relative to
Spanish control words
 Triple cognates were not
recognized significantly
faster than double
cognates.

24. Discussion Experiment 2a:
English lexical decision
 In English LD, Cognate effect for L1-L2-L3 cognates
 Cognates in 3 languages were recognized faster than
L1-L2 cognates
 During recognition of words in a second language, even a
third non-native language (L3) exerts an influence on
recognition performance.

25. Discussion Experiment 2b:
Spanish lexical decision
 Cognate effect for L1-L3 cognates
 L1-L2-L3 cognate effect relative to Spanish specific
words.
 Triple cognates were not recognized significantly faster
than double cognates.

26. General Discussion
 Results are supporting a non-selective access to the mental lexicon.
 Specific words are processed faster than other kinds of words in
Language Decision, and more slowly in Lexical Decision.
 Shared patterns between languages have an influence on word
visual processing.
 Influence of native language on the two other languages’
processing.

27. Thanks for your
attention!
« In varietate concordia »