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Structural priming in bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2017

ROGER P. G. VAN GOMPEL  and
MANABU ARAI
ROGER P. G. VAN GOMPEL*
Affiliation:
University of Dundee
MANABU ARAI
Affiliation:
Seijo University
*
Address for correspondence: Roger van Gompel, School of Social Sciences, Perth Road, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UKr.p.g.vangompel@dundee.ac.uk
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Abstract

In this review, we examine how structural priming has been used to investigate the representation of first and second language syntactic structures in bilinguals. Most experiments suggest that structures that are identical in the first and second language have a single, shared mental representation. The results from structures that are similar but not fully identical are less clear, but they may be explained by assuming that first and second language representations are merely connected rather than fully shared. Some research has also used structural priming to investigate the representation of cognate words. We will also consider whether cross-linguistic structural priming taps into long-term implicit learning effects. Finally, we discuss recent research that has investigated how second language syntactic representations develop as learners’ proficiency increases.

Keywords

Bilingualismsyntactic representationscross-linguistic structural primingshared-syntax modelcognates
Type
Review Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 448 - 455
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*We would like to thank Martin Pickering and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous version of this article. Roger van Gompel acknowledges support from ESRC award ES/P001866/1.

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