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Coactivation in bilingual grammars: A computational account of code mixing*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2016

MATTHEW GOLDRICK ,
MICHAEL PUTNAM  and
LARA SCHWARZ
MATTHEW GOLDRICK*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
MICHAEL PUTNAM
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
LARA SCHWARZ
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
*
Address for correspondence: Matthew Goldrick, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 2016 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208USAmatt-goldrick@northwestern.edu
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Abstract

A large body of research into bilingualism has revealed that language processing is fundamentally non-selective; there is simultaneous, graded co-activation of mental representations from both of the speakers’ languages. An equally deep tradition of research into code switching/mixing has revealed the important role that grammatical principles play in determining the nature of bilingual speech. We propose to integrate these two traditions within the formalism of Gradient Symbolic Computation. This allows us to formalize the integration of grammatical principles with gradient mental representations. We apply this framework to code mixing constructions where an element of an intended utterance appears in both languages within a single utterance and discuss the directions it suggests for future research.

Keywords

code mixingGradient Symbolic Computationdoubling constructions

Information

Type
Keynote Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 19 , Issue 5 , November 2016 , pp. 857 - 876
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

We gratefully acknowledge Matt Carlson, María del Carmen Parafita Couto, Brian Hok-Shing Chan, Margaret Deuchar, Jane Grimshaw, Géraldine Legendre, John Lipski, Akira Omaki, Shana Poplack, Liliana Sánchez, Paul Smolensky, Colin Wilson, and Masaya Yoshida for helpful comments and discussion. This research was supported by NSF grant BCS1344269.

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