From One Bilingual to the Next: An Iterated Learning Study on Language Evolution in Bilingual Societies.

Studies of language evolution in the lab have used the iterated learning paradigm to show how linguistic structure emerges through cultural transmission-repeated cycles of learning and use across generations of speakers . However, agent-based simulations suggest that prior biases crucially impact the outcome of cultural transmission. Here, we explored this notion through an iterated learning study of English-French bilingual adults (mostly sequential bilinguals dominant in English). Each participant learned two unstructured artificial languages in a counterbalanced fashion, one resembling English, another resembling French at the phono-orthographic level. The output of each participant was passed down to the next participant, forming diffusion chains of 10 generations per language. We hypothesized that artificial languages would become easier to learn and exhibit greater structure when they were aligned with participants' bilingual experience (i.e., English languages being easier to learn overall), or as a function of practice (i.e., languages learned second being easier to learn overall). Instead, we found that English-like languages became more structured over generations, but only when they were learned first. In contrast, French-like languages became more structured regardless of the order of learning, suggesting the presence of an asymmetric switch cost during artificial language learning. Moreover, individual differences in language usage modulated the amount of structure produced by the participants. Overall, these data suggest that bilingual experience impacts how novel languages are learned at an individual level, which can then scale up to cultural transmission of novel language at a group level.

Cross-language semantic parafoveal preview benefits in bilinguals.

The aim of this project was to identify factors contributing to cross-language semantic preview benefits. In Experiment 1, Russian-English bilinguals read English sentences with Russian words presented as parafoveal previews. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm was used to present sentences. Critical previews were cognate translations of the target word (CTAPT-START), noncognate translations (CPOK-TERM), or interlingual homograph translations (MOPE-SEA). A semantic preview benefit (i.e., shorter fixation durations for related than unrelated previews) was observed for cognate and interlingual homograph translations, but not for noncognate translations. In Experiment 2, English-French bilinguals read English sentences with French words used as parafoveal previews. Critical previews were interlingual homograph translations of the target word (PAIN-BREAD) or interlingual homograph translations with a diacritic added (PÁIN-BREAD). A robust semantic preview benefit was found only for interlingual homographs without diacritics, although both preview types produced a semantic preview benefit in the total fixation duration. Our findings suggest that semantically related previews need to have substantial orthographic overlap with words in the target language to produce cross-language semantic preview benefits in early eye fixation measures. In terms of the Bilingual Interactive Activation+ model, the preview word may need to activate the language node for the target language before its meaning is integrated with that of the target word. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).