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This thesis investigates sociolinguistic variation among highly fluent Slovak-English bilingual women and also long-term immigrants residing in Edinburgh, Scotland. The present study adds to existing literature on urban migratory experiences (Block, 2008; Forsberg, Lundell and Bartning, 2015; Howley, 2015), comparing cross-cultural variation of immigrants' speech with their local peers (Drummond, 2010, 2012; Meyerhoff et al., 2009), by exploring linguistic and social constraints on language attitudes and accent acquisition among bilingual Slovak immigrants. Sociolinguistic interview data were obtained from 32 women, ages 22-46: 20 Slovak immigrants, 8 Edinburgh Scottish participants, and 6 bilingual Slovak teachers of English in Slovakia. By considering linguistic and social factors that influence Slovak immigrants' variation, in this thesis I ask not just whether and to what extent do local language communities shape immigrants' identity, but also how their identity affects their language attitudes and pronunciation. The thesis pays particular attention to how implicit and explicit language attitudes combine to establish what Block (2008) called a "multidimensional" identity in immigrants. Further investigation establishes a link between identity and production (Redinger and Llamas, 2014; Podesva et al., 2015) by drawing on the variationist sociolinguistic methodologies set out by Labov (1966, 2001, 2006). Implicit language attitudes were collected via a Verbal Guise Task (VGT), during which participants evaluated speakers of foreign and native English accents (Campbell- Kibler, 2006; McKenzie, 2015; McKenzie and Carrie, 2018). Explicit attitudes were collected via a questionnaire designed to elicit attitudes in a casual setting (Dörnyei and Csizér, 2012). The combination of methodologies revealed that immigrant participants in the study held complex attitudes and motivations in relation to their host country. The results for language attitudes suggested that long-term Slovak immigrants experienced shifts to their identity while residing in Scotland, with most adopting a transnational identity that made them amenable to local language communities while maintaining connections with their home country. Their identity represented a degree of integration with Scottish communities, but transnational immigrants often felt separate from both home and host countries as a result. The present study also explores connection between identity and production which is now well recognised (Kobiałka, 2016; Regan, 2016; Regan and Ni Chasaide, 2010; Bucholtz, 2011). Immigrant participants' pronunciations of FACE and GOAT vowel lexical sets (Wells, 1982) were evaluated in comparison to two language groups that represented different standards of pronunciation: native Scottish participants in Edinburgh, with more monophthongal pronunciations (Schützler, 2015); and English-Slovak bilinguals residing in Trnava, Slovakia, whose vowel productions were highly diphthongal and similar to Received Pronunciation (RP) constructions. Comparative study of pronunciations revealed that the immigrants' FACE and GOAT realisations were relatively more monophthongal than the non-immigrant Slovak group, yet more diphthongal than the native Scottish group - effectively making immigrant Slovaks' mean pronunciations separate and distinct from both native standard varieties. However, the immigrant's pronunciations varied widely, and data modelling revealed associations between key social factors and pronunciation. Settings of high formality, strong European and Slovak identities, and intentions to return to Slovakia were associated with relatively more diphthongal pronunciations. Decreased formality, strong Scottish identities, and lack of formal education before immigration were associated with relatively more monophthongal pronunciations. Key findings in the study reinforce observations of multi-cultural identities in longterm Slovak immigrants. Drawing on work that explores variation in language attitudes (Clark and Schleef, 2010) and production in migratory settings (Meyerhoff and Schleef, 2014), I argue that there is a tendency for immigrants to shape their multi-cultural identities in response to linguistic and social contexts. However, internal contexts such as self-definition were equally important in shaping identities, which in turn affected language attitudes and pronunciation.

The primary focus of this research was to investigate the emotion language and emotion narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals who have been living in the U.S. Previous research has shown that the emotion language and narratives of second language learners and native speakers of English are different. This study focused on late bilinguals who had learnt English in instructed settings in their home country, and came to the U.S. for M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. The study consisted of two parts. In the first part, the elicited personal narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals in English were compared to those elicited from native speakers of English with regard to both emotion and emotion-laden word production and narrative structure. The results showed that there were differences between the emotion language and narratives of the bilinguals and native speakers in their English narratives. In the second part of the study, personal narratives were elicited from Turkish-English late bilinguals in their first language, Turkish and their emotion language and narrative structure from their English narratives were compared to their narratives produced in Turkish. Similarly, the results showed that the emotion language and emotion narratives of bilinguals in English and Turkish were different. In conclusion, late bilinguals' emotion language and narratives are different in their first and second languages. Furthermore, they are different from the emotion language and narratives of native speakers.

The purpose of this analysis was to define norms for grammatical morpheme development in Spanish for Spanish-English bilingual children ages 4;0-7;6. This study uses secondary data analysis based on two existing datasets. Participants included 334 Spanish-English bilingual children that were recruited from school districts in Texas, Utah, and Pennsylvania. Grammatical morpheme accuracy was determined by performance on the BESA (Bilingual English Spanish Assessment) (Peña, Gutiérrez-Clellen et al., in preparation). Mean length of utterance in words (MLUw) data was collected from language samples. The average percent accuracy of grammatical morphemes was calculated and analyzed as a function of MLUw in Spanish. Results show that the percentage of accurately produced morphemes has a general upward trend as MLUw increases. Clinical and research implications are discussed. / text

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier le développement du système lexico-sémantique chez les enfants monolingues et bilingues. La question posée est la suivante : quand et comment les significations des mots commencent à être reliées entre elles et à s'intégrer dans un système sémantique interconnecté. Dans un premier temps, trois études ont été menées chez des enfants monolingues français. L'Etude 1, a pour but d'observer si les mots sont organisés selon des liens taxonomiques (e.g., cochon - cheval). L'Etude 2 explore si l'effet d'amorçage sémantique est sous-tendu par des mécanismes cognitifs, comme les processus d'activation automatique et contrôlé. Puis enfin, l'Etude 3 observe si les mots sont organisés en fonction de leur distance de similarité sémantique (e.g., vache - mouton versus vache - cerf). Dans un deuxième temps, deux études ont été conduites chez des enfants apprenant deux langues simultanément. L'Etude 4 vise à déterminer si les mots sont taxonomiquement liés dans chacune des langues. L'Etude 5 explore si les mots présentés dans une langue activent leurs représentations sémantiques dans l'autre langue et vice versa. Dans le but de répondre à ces questions, le traitement lexico-sémantique a été étudié en utilisant deux techniques : l'eye-tracking et les potentiels évoqués (PEs). Ces deux techniques enregistrent lors de la présentation des mots des réponses comportementales (Etude 3) et neuronales (Etude 1, 2, 4 et 5) de haute résolution temporelle. Les Etudes 1 et 2 montrent que chez les monolingues les mots sont liés taxonomiquement à l'âge de 18 et 24 mois. Durant le développement du langage, les deux processus d'activation automatique et contrôlé sont impliqués dans le traitement des mots (Etude 2). L'Etude 3 montre qu'à 24 mois, les mots sont organisés dans le système lexico-sémantique en développement selon la distance des similarités sémantiques. L'Etude 4 montre que chez les enfants bilingues, le traitement sémantique ne diffère pas selon les deux langues, mais la topographie des PEs varie selon la langue traitée. L'Etude 5 montre que les mots présentés dans une langue activent leurs représentations sémantiques dans la deuxième langue et vice versa. Toutefois, la topographie des PEs est modulée selon la direction de traduction. Ces résultats suggèrent que l'acquisition de deux langues, bien qu'elle soit très précoce, requière deux ressources neuronales bien distinctes, sous-tendant ainsi le traitement lexico-sémantique des langues dominante et non-dominante. / The present doctoral research explored the developing lexical-semantic system in monolingual and bilingual toddlers. The question of how and when word meanings are first related to each other and become integrated into an interconnected semantic system was investigated. Three studies were conducted with monolingual French learning children which aimed at exploring how words are organized, that is, according to taxonomic relationships (e.g., pig - horse) and to semantic similarity distances between words (e.g., cow - sheep versus cow - deer), and whether cognitive mechanisms, such as automatic activation and controlled processes, underlie priming effects. An additional two studies conducted with children learning two languages simultaneously, aimed at determining, first, whether taxonomically related word meanings, in each of the two languages, are processed in a similar manner. The second goal was to explore whether words presented in one language activate words in another language, and vice versa. In an attempt to answer these questions, lexical-semantic processing was explored by two techniques: eye-tracking and event-related potentials (ERPs) techniques. Both techniques provide high temporal resolution measures of word processing but differ in terms of responses. Eye-movement measurements (Study III) reflect looking preferences in response to spoken words and their time-course, whereas ERPs reflect implicit brain responses and their activity patterns (Study I, II, IV, and V). Study I and II revealed that words are taxonomically organized at 18 and 24-month-olds. Both automatic and controlled processes were shown to be involved in word processing during language development (Study II). Study III revealed that at 24-month-olds, categorical and feature overlap between items underpin the developing lexical-semantic system. That is, lexical-items in each semantic category are organized according to graded similarity distances. Productive vocabulary skills influenced word recognition and were related to underlying cognitive mechanisms. Study IV revealed no differences in terms of semantic processing in the bilinguals¿ two languages, but the ERP distribution across the scalp varied according to the language being processed. Study V showed that words presented in one language activate their semantic representations in the second language and the other way around. The distribution of the ERPs depended, however, on the direction of translation. The results suggest that even early dual language experience yields distinct neural resources underlying lexical-semantic processing in the dominant and non-dominant languages during language acquisition.

xviii, 210 p. : ill. (some col.) / The current dissertation investigated segmental and prosodic aspects of first- (L1) and second-language (L2) speech production. Forty Korean-speaking adults and children varying in L2 experience (6 months-inexperienced vs. 6 years-experienced) as well as twenty age-matched native English speaking adults and children participated. Experienced children born in the U.S. were first exposed to English much earlier than inexperienced children. Group differences were investigated for insight into the effect of differing language experience on speech production. For segmental aspects, spectral quality and duration of English and Korean vowels (Chapter II), the effect of English coda consonant voicing on vowel and consonant closure duration (Chapter III), and language-specific voice onset time (VOT) in English and Korean stops (Chapter IV) were examined. All Korean groups except the experienced children differed from the native English speakers in vowel spectral quality and coda voicing production. The experienced children showed native-like production of both English and Korean vowels and also used VOT to distinguish Korean aspirated and English voiceless stops. These results suggest that the experienced children have separate phonological representations for their two languages. For prosodic aspects, stressed and unstressed vowels in English multisyllabic words (Chapter V) and Korean four-syllable phrases (Chapter VI) were elicited. The results of stressed and unstressed vowel production revealed that the Korean adults were able to acquire English prosody in a native-like manner, except for reduced vowel quality. Contrary to the little L1-L2 interaction in prosody for adults, Korean experienced children's production suggested a strong influence of English acquisition on the development of Korean prosody in terms of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration patterns. Different degrees of L1-L2 interaction between Korean experienced children's production of segments and prosody are discussed from the developmental standpoint of simultaneous bilingual children's language shift from the mother tongue to English. In addition to children's greater plasticity of language acquisition, external (e.g., peer pressure, language input) and internal (e.g., ethnic self-identity) factors are likely to have created a language learning environment different from that of the Korean adults. As a result, the degree and direction of L1-L2 interaction varied by linguistic domains, depending on the age of the learner and the language experience. / Committee in charge: Susan Guion-Anderson, Chairperson; Melissa Redford, Member; Vsevolod Kapatsinski, Member; Kaori Idemaru, Outside Member

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier le développement du système lexico-sémantique chez les enfants monolingues et bilingues. La question posée est la suivante : quand et comment les significations des mots commencent à être reliées entre elles et à s'intégrer dans un système sémantique interconnecté. Dans un premier temps, trois études ont été menées chez des enfants monolingues français. L'Etude 1, a pour but d'observer si les mots sont organisés selon des liens taxonomiques (e.g., cochon - cheval). L'Etude 2 explore si l'effet d'amorçage sémantique est sous-tendu par des mécanismes cognitifs, comme les processus d'activation automatique et contrôlé. Puis enfin, l'Etude 3 observe si les mots sont organisés en fonction de leur distance de similarité sémantique (e.g., vache - mouton versus vache - cerf). Dans un deuxième temps, deux études ont été conduites chez des enfants apprenant deux langues simultanément. L'Etude 4 vise à déterminer si les mots sont taxonomiquement liés dans chacune des langues. L'Etude 5 explore si les mots présentés dans une langue activent leurs représentations sémantiques dans l'autre langue et vice versa. Dans le but de répondre à ces questions, le traitement lexico-sémantique a été étudié en utilisant deux techniques : l'eye-tracking et les potentiels évoqués (PEs). Ces deux techniques enregistrent lors de la présentation des mots des réponses comportementales (Etude 3) et neuronales (Etude 1, 2, 4 et 5) de haute résolution temporelle. Les Etudes 1 et 2 montrent que chez les monolingues les mots sont liés taxonomiquement à l'âge de 18 et 24 mois. Durant le développement du langage, les deux processus d'activation automatique et contrôlé sont impliqués dans le traitement des mots (Etude 2). L'Etude 3 montre qu'à 24 mois, les mots sont organisés dans le système lexico-sémantique en développement selon la distance des similarités sémantiques. L'Etude 4 montre que chez les enfants bilingues, le traitement sémantique ne diffère pas selon les deux langues, mais la topographie des PEs varie selon la langue traitée. L'Etude 5 montre que les mots présentés dans une langue activent leurs représentations sémantiques dans la deuxième langue et vice versa. Toutefois, la topographie des PEs est modulée selon la direction de traduction. Ces résultats suggèrent que l'acquisition de deux langues, bien qu'elle soit très précoce, requière deux ressources neuronales bien distinctes, sous-tendant ainsi le traitement lexico-sémantique des langues dominante et non-dominante. / The present doctoral research explored the developing lexical-semantic system in monolingual and bilingual toddlers. The question of how and when word meanings are first related to each other and become integrated into an interconnected semantic system was investigated. Three studies were conducted with monolingual French learning children which aimed at exploring how words are organized, that is, according to taxonomic relationships (e.g., pig - horse) and to semantic similarity distances between words (e.g., cow - sheep versus cow - deer), and whether cognitive mechanisms, such as automatic activation and controlled processes, underlie priming effects. An additional two studies conducted with children learning two languages simultaneously, aimed at determining, first, whether taxonomically related word meanings, in each of the two languages, are processed in a similar manner. The second goal was to explore whether words presented in one language activate words in another language, and vice versa. In an attempt to answer these questions, lexical-semantic processing was explored by two techniques: eye-tracking and event-related potentials (ERPs) techniques. Both techniques provide high temporal resolution measures of word processing but differ in terms of responses. Eye-movement measurements (Study III) reflect looking preferences in response to spoken words and their time-course, whereas ERPs reflect implicit brain responses and their activity patterns (Study I, II, IV, and V). Study I and II revealed that words are taxonomically organized at 18 and 24-month-olds. Both automatic and controlled processes were shown to be involved in word processing during language development (Study II). Study III revealed that at 24-month-olds, categorical and feature overlap between items underpin the developing lexical-semantic system. That is, lexical-items in each semantic category are organized according to graded similarity distances. Productive vocabulary skills influenced word recognition and were related to underlying cognitive mechanisms. Study IV revealed no differences in terms of semantic processing in the bilinguals¿ two languages, but the ERP distribution across the scalp varied according to the language being processed. Study V showed that words presented in one language activate their semantic representations in the second language and the other way around. The distribution of the ERPs depended, however, on the direction of translation. The results suggest that even early dual language experience yields distinct neural resources underlying lexical-semantic processing in the dominant and non-dominant languages during language acquisition.

The last decades have witnessed the resurgence of research on linguistic relativity, which provides empirical evidence of possible language effects on thought across various perceptual domains. This study investigated the linguistic relativity hypothesis in the abstract domain of time by looking at how L1 Chinese - L2 English bilinguals conceptualize time in two-dimensional space. English primarily relies on horizontal spatial items to talk about time (e.g., back to youth); in addition to horizontal spatial metaphors (e.g., ‘front year’), Chinese speakers also commonly use vertical metaphors to describe time (e.g., ‘up week’). If language has an effect on thought, then spatial-temporal metaphors should shape people’s temporal cognition. In this study, we examined whether spatial-temporal metaphors impact online processing of time and long-term habitual thinking about time. Experiment 1 showed that bilinguals could automatically access the timeline which corresponded to the immediate linguistic context. In Experiment 2, a majority of bilinguals demonstrated salient vertical bias for temporal reasoning, whereas a small number of participants relied on the horizontal axis to represent time. The dominant thinking patterns for time documented here (65% prefer a vertical representation of time; 35% horizontal) run counter to the fact that horizontal metaphors are twice as common in Chinese as vertical metaphors. Further, it was found that bilinguals who used English more frequently were more likely to have a less vertical bias, which suggested a role of L2 experience in conceptual representations. Taken together, the evidence in this study showed that spatial-temporal metaphors have both short-term and long-term effects on mental representations of time, but also that space-time mappings do not depend solely on linguistic factors.

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier le développement du système lexico-sémantique chez les enfants monolingues et bilingues. La question posée est la suivante : quand et comment les significations des mots commencent à être reliées entre elles et à s'intégrer dans un système sémantique interconnecté. Dans un premier temps, trois études ont été menées chez des enfants monolingues français. L'Etude 1, a pour but d'observer si les mots sont organisés selon des liens taxonomiques (e.g., cochon - cheval). L'Etude 2 explore si l'effet d'amorçage sémantique est sous-tendu par des mécanismes cognitifs, comme les processus d'activation automatique et contrôlé. Puis enfin, l'Etude 3 observe si les mots sont organisés en fonction de leur distance de similarité sémantique (e.g., vache - mouton versus vache - cerf). Dans un deuxième temps, deux études ont été conduites chez des enfants apprenant deux langues simultanément. L'Etude 4 vise à déterminer si les mots sont taxonomiquement liés dans chacune des langues. L'Etude 5 explore si les mots présentés dans une langue activent leurs représentations sémantiques dans l'autre langue et vice versa. Dans le but de répondre à ces questions, le traitement lexico-sémantique a été étudié en utilisant deux techniques : l'eye-tracking et les potentiels évoqués (PEs). Ces deux techniques enregistrent lors de la présentation des mots des réponses comportementales (Etude 3) et neuronales (Etude 1, 2, 4 et 5) de haute résolution temporelle. Les Etudes 1 et 2 montrent que chez les monolingues les mots sont liés taxonomiquement à l'âge de 18 et 24 mois. Durant le développement du langage, les deux processus d'activation automatique et contrôlé sont impliqués dans le traitement des mots (Etude 2). L'Etude 3 montre qu'à 24 mois, les mots sont organisés dans le système lexico-sémantique en développement selon la distance des similarités sémantiques. L'Etude 4 montre que chez les enfants bilingues, le traitement sémantique ne diffère pas selon les deux langues, mais la topographie des PEs varie selon la langue traitée. L'Etude 5 montre que les mots présentés dans une langue activent leurs représentations sémantiques dans la deuxième langue et vice versa. Toutefois, la topographie des PEs est modulée selon la direction de traduction. Ces résultats suggèrent que l'acquisition de deux langues, bien qu'elle soit très précoce, requière deux ressources neuronales bien distinctes, sous-tendant ainsi le traitement lexico-sémantique des langues dominante et non-dominante. / The present doctoral research explored the developing lexical-semantic system in monolingual and bilingual toddlers. The question of how and when word meanings are first related to each other and become integrated into an interconnected semantic system was investigated. Three studies were conducted with monolingual French learning children which aimed at exploring how words are organized, that is, according to taxonomic relationships (e.g., pig - horse) and to semantic similarity distances between words (e.g., cow - sheep versus cow - deer), and whether cognitive mechanisms, such as automatic activation and controlled processes, underlie priming effects. An additional two studies conducted with children learning two languages simultaneously, aimed at determining, first, whether taxonomically related word meanings, in each of the two languages, are processed in a similar manner. The second goal was to explore whether words presented in one language activate words in another language, and vice versa. In an attempt to answer these questions, lexical-semantic processing was explored by two techniques: eye-tracking and event-related potentials (ERPs) techniques. Both techniques provide high temporal resolution measures of word processing but differ in terms of responses. Eye-movement measurements (Study III) reflect looking preferences in response to spoken words and their time-course, whereas ERPs reflect implicit brain responses and their activity patterns (Study I, II, IV, and V). Study I and II revealed that words are taxonomically organized at 18 and 24-month-olds. Both automatic and controlled processes were shown to be involved in word processing during language development (Study II). Study III revealed that at 24-month-olds, categorical and feature overlap between items underpin the developing lexical-semantic system. That is, lexical-items in each semantic category are organized according to graded similarity distances. Productive vocabulary skills influenced word recognition and were related to underlying cognitive mechanisms. Study IV revealed no differences in terms of semantic processing in the bilinguals¿ two languages, but the ERP distribution across the scalp varied according to the language being processed. Study V showed that words presented in one language activate their semantic representations in the second language and the other way around. The distribution of the ERPs depended, however, on the direction of translation. The results suggest that even early dual language experience yields distinct neural resources underlying lexical-semantic processing in the dominant and non-dominant languages during language acquisition.

The nature of the bilingual mental lexicon and how the L1 and the L2 interact in language production and processing has been the focus of decades of research from linguistic, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic perspectives. In spite of this significant body of evidence, the degree to which the L1 influences L2 production and processing remains an area of debate, especially with respect to formal features such as grammatical gender. While it is clear that non-nativelike production and processing of L2 grammatical gender persist even in highly-proficient adult bilinguals, the underlying representation of the L1 and L2 gender features and how this representation affects the use of gender in the L2 is currently unclear. Furthermore, there is no evidence at present regarding the nature of the L1-L2 grammatical gender system when the L1 and the L2 have asymmetric gender systems (in other words, differ in number of gender values), as is the case with German, which bears three gender values (masculine, feminine and neuter), and Spanish and French, which each display two gender values (masculine and feminine). This dissertation investigates the representation of and interactions between the L1 and the L2 at the level of the formal gender feature, with a particular focus on language pairings with asymmetric gender systems. Through complementary data from L2 production and processing, I examine the representation of the asymmetric grammatical gender systems in the mental lexicon of L1 Spanish-L2 German and L1 French-L2 German bilinguals and the consequences this asymmetry between the L1 and L2 gender systems has on gender use strategies in the L2. From the perspective of bilingual lexical access, this research contributes new evidence to inform existing psycholinguistic theories of L1-L2 gender interactions and also proposes the Asymmetric gender representation hypothesis, a new model to account for the unique integrated nature of the gender system in bilinguals with L1-L2 asymmetric gender systems. From a language acquisition perspective, the present study provides new data on L2 gender use strategies with asymmetric gender systems, formulating the L1 transfer continuum, which extends existing proposals to include the degree of (a)symmetry between the L1 and the L2. This research also connects theoretical proposals regarding gender agreement in functional-lexical code-switches (specifically, switches within the Determiner Phrase such as dieGER-F mesaSPA-F or elSPA-M TischGER-M) to bilinguals’ preferences in code-switching between two languages that display formal gender. Taken together, all of these complementary perspectives addressed in this dissertation offer a well-rounded perspective of grammatical gender in asymmetric gender systems specifically, and contribute novel evidence regarding the interactions between the L1 and the L2 in the bilingual mental lexicon in general.