Cognate beginnings to bilingual lexical acquisition

Recent studies suggest that cognateness boosts bilingual lexical acquisition. This study proposes an account in which language co-activation accelerates accumulation of word-learning instances across languages. This account predicts a larger cognate facilitation for words in the lower-exposure langu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Garcia-Castro, Gonzalo, Avila-Varela, Daniela S., Castillejo, Ignacio, Sebastian-Galles, Nuria
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:rdupf_______::4fc58f9b803f0f73a6e6f5d770a91921
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10230/72937
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14170
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Bilingüisme
Terminologia
Llenguatge i llengües
Descripción
Sumario:Recent studies suggest that cognateness boosts bilingual lexical acquisition. This study proposes an account in which language co-activation accelerates accumulation of word-learning instances across languages. This account predicts a larger cognate facilitation for words in the lower-exposure language than in the higher-exposure language, as the former receive co-activation from their translations more frequently. Bayesian Item Response Theory was used to model acquisition trajectories for 604 Catalan-Spanish translations from a dataset of 366 12-32 month-old bilinguals (M = 22.23 months, 175 female, mainly White, collected 2020-2022). Results show a larger cognate facilitation for words in the lower-exposure language (d =.276), than for words in the higher-exposure language (d =.022), supporting a language exposure-moderated account for the effect of cognateness on lexical acquisition.