9. The Comprehension of Words and Sentences in Two Languages
- Tej K. Bhatia,
- William C. Ritchie
Published Online: 3 OCT 2012
DOI: 10.1002/9781118332382.ch9
Copyright © 2013 Blackwell Publishing, Ltd
Book Title
The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Second Edition
Additional Information
How to Cite
Kroll, J. F. and Dussias, P. E. (2012) The Comprehension of Words and Sentences in Two Languages, in The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Second Edition (eds T. K. Bhatia and W. C. Ritchie), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781118332382.ch9
Editor Information
Syracuse University, USA
Publication History
- Published Online: 3 OCT 2012
- Published Print: 7 NOV 2012
Book Series:
ISBN Information
Print ISBN: 9781444334906
Online ISBN: 9781118332382
- Summary
- Chapter
- References
Keywords:
- bilingual word recognition;
- bilingualism;
- comprehension of words;
- cross-language activation;
- L2 learners;
- lexical processing;
- sentences;
- word recognition
Summary
This chapter reviews recent developments on the comprehension of words and sentences in two languages, which show that the lexicon and grammar have more in common than previously understood. It focuses primarily on comprehension in relatively proficient bilinguals, and reports the results of studies on second language (L2) learners where those results hold important theoretical implications for understanding bilingual performance. The chapter offers a brief review of bilingual word recognition, which focuses primarily on visual word recognition. It discusses the shallow structure hypothesis, a proposal formulated to account for presumed differences in native and nonnative syntactic processing. Recent neurophysiological evidence suggesting striking similarities between native speakers and L2 learners during the processing of syntactic violations and ambiguity resolution are also presented, followed by a brief review on the influence of the L2 on first language (L1) syntactic processing.