This study investigated the extent to which phonological and orthographic overlap between the two languages of bilinguals predicts word processing abilities in their dominant and non-dominant languages. Forty-four English-dominant L1 English-L2 Spanish speakers and Spanish-dominant Spanish heritage speakers performed a lexical decision task while reading words in English and Spanish. We calculated orthographic and phonological similarity of cognate and noncognate words using the Levenshtein distance measure. Results showed that both bilingual groups benefited from orthographic similarity when reading Spanish and English words, whereas a facilitative effect was restricted to Spanish words that shared phonology across languages. These findings suggest a different contribution of phonological and orthographic similarity in bilingual word recognition, independently of language dominance.

Objectives/Research Questions: This study investigates whether bilinguals activate lexical knowledge from both their dominant first language (L1; Spanish) and their less-dominant second language (L2; English) during novel third language (L3; Slovak) word learning. Moreover, it examines the extent to which L2 activation in L3 lexical learning depends on the level of L2 proficiency. Methodology: Stimuli included 120 auditory Slovak words with substantial phonological overlap with either English or Spanish (homophones) or with neither language (control words), and their written Spanish translations. Two groups of participants (with high and low-proficiency in L2 English) completed paired-associate learning, correct/incorrect translation recognition and backward translation tasks on Slovak–Spanish translation equivalents to examine the facilitation effect of homophones with either Spanish or English. Data and Analysis: Response times, accuracy scores and correct translation counts were collected from 35 Spanish–English bilinguals and analyzed by means of repeated measures analyses of variance. Findings/Conclusions: The phonological similarity of novel L3 words with participants’ L2 words showed similar facilitation effects as phonological similarity with L1 words. This implies an involuntary activation of bilinguals’ less-dominant L2, even when not overtly present in the L3 lexical learning task. Moreover, the low-proficiency group experienced a higher facilitation for L1 than for L2 homophones, but overall lower facilitation in L3 lexical learning than the high-proficiency group. These findings suggest that bilinguals can activate lexical knowledge from both of their languages during novel L3 word learning, but the activation of the less-dominant L2 depends on participants’ L2 proficiency. Originality: We investigated how Spanish–English bilinguals incorporate vocabulary from an understudied language (i.e. Slovak) into their lexical system to test the language non-selective hypothesis in a multilingual lexical context. Significance: Our research contributes to the study of the degree of language dominance and its implications for L3 lexical learning and parallel activation of multilinguals’ languages.

This study investigated the influence of phonological word representations from both first language (L1) and second language (L2) on third language (L3) lexical learning in L1-dominant Spanish–English bilinguals. More specifically, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine whether L1 Spanish and L2 English phonology modulates bilinguals’ brain response to newly learned L3 Slovak words, some of which had substantial phonological overlap with either L1 or L2 words (interlingual homophones) in comparison to matched control words with little or no phonological overlap. ERPs were recorded from a group of 20 Spanish–English bilinguals in response to 120 auditory Slovak words, both before and after a three-day-long learning period during which they associated the L3 Slovak novel words with their L1 Spanish translations. Behaviorally, both L1 Spanish and L2 English homophony facilitated the learning of L3 Slovak words in a similar manner. In contrast, the electrophysiological results of the post-training ERPs, but not the pre-training ERPs, showed an N100 effect for L2 English interlingual homophones and opposite N400 effects for L1 Spanish and L2 English interlingual homophones in comparison to control words. These findings suggest different neurocognitive mechanisms in the use of L1 and L2 phonological information when learning novel words in an L3.

Este trabajo evalúa si el concepto de hablantes de herencia (HH) —bilingües de lengua materna minoritaria y lengua dominante mayoritaria— es adecuado para describir la realidad lingüística de los bilingües indígenas en México, ámbito en el que no ha sido explorado cabalmente. Para este fin, se estudia el caso particular de los hablantes de hñäñho, otomí de Santiago Mexquititlán, que migraron y residen en distintas ciudades del país. En cinco trabajos académicos —realizados en los últimos veinte años— se identificaron rasgos prototípicos de HH en dicha población (uso del hñäñho como lengua familiar, grados de bilingüismo, competencia en la lengua mayoritaria, cambio de dominancia lingüística, entre otros), pero también aquellos aparentemente específicos del contexto bilingüe indígena mexicano (conflicto social, cultural y lingüístico, discriminación, mestizaje, castellanización), determinados por factores culturales, históricos y sociopolíticos. Con base en esta revisión, se propone el término hablantes de herencia indígena mexicana (HHIM), reconceptualización de la noción básica de HH, que busca reflejar la complejidad sociolingüística de dichos hablantes en la realidad mexicana.