The pre-activation of native language phonological information in a second language context:Evidence from the eye-tracking visual world paradigm
Pre-activation of phonological information is crucial for efficient language communication,particularly in situations where a foreign language is being used.However,previous research has come to inconsistent conclusions on whether phonological information can be pre-activated.While some studies have found evidence of phonological pre-activation in native language environments,no such evidence has been found in foreign language environments.Therefore,this study used an eye-tracking visual world paradigm to investigate whether phonological information can be pre-activated in a foreign language setting.The results indicated that Chinese second-language learners began fixating on pictures whose Chinese names overlapped with the Chinese translations of English target words approximately 500 ms before the onset of the target words.Additionally,this fixation bias was more pronounced among highly proficient learners.This finding suggests that non-native speakers not only activate phonological information in their native language but also pre-activate the corresponding phonological information in the native language.This result not only demonstrates,for the first time,that phonological information can be predicted in a foreign language context but also expands upon the non-selective view of bilingual word processing.
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