Innovation in Language Learning

One of the main areas of psycholinguistic research has been relations between languages in the mind of bilingual speakers. This study examines the interaction between speaker’s lexical and conceptual stores by focusing on the effect of cross-linguistic priming. It aims to determine whether widening of semantic context of the words’ usage in one of the speaker’s languages effects the semantic space of the corresponding words in the speaker’s other language.
For the purpose of this study semantic differential technique, a method for measuring connotative meaning of the words was used.  Participants were 120 Croatian L1 speakers of higher intermediate L2 proficiency level, all students of the University of Zagreb.
The experimental design consisted of six different situations in which subjects evaluated the meaning of a set of words or their translation equivalents in either their L1 or L2.  In the first two situations subjects evaluated meaning of stimuli words in L1 or L2 after being exposed to primes in respective languages. In the third and fourth situation cross-language priming was performed. Priming was absent in two control situations. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed and differences in semantic profiles of the examined words in the two languages and in different situations were assesed by 2-way ANOVA.
The obtained results are discussed with reference to hierarchical models of bilingual memory as well as Paradis' model of neurolinguistic organisation of bilingualism, in particular  with regards to idea of  mental representations as sets of conceptual features determined not only by speaker’s proficiency in a language but also by a number of factors among which are speaker’s own experiences. The obtained results show a high degree of correspondence between speakers’ evaluations of L1 and L2 words and support the notion of concept mediation between speaker’s languages, particularly at relatively high L2 proficiency levels.  The idea of concept level mediation between speaker’s languages is also supported by the finding that priming effect was present in all primed situations irrespective of the language in which priming was performed.

Keywords: bilingual speakers, cross-linguistic priming, concept mediation;