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The degree of semantic equivalence of translation pairs is typically measured by asking bilinguals to rate the semantic similarity of them or comparing the number and meaning of dictionary entries. Such measures are subjective, labor-intensive, and unable to capture the fine-grained variation in the degree of semantic equivalence. Thompson et al. (in Nature Human Behaviour , 4 (10), 1029–1038, 2020 ) propose a computational method to quantify the extent to which translation equivalents are semantically aligned by measuring the contextual use across languages. Here, we refine this method to quantify semantic alignment of English–Chinese translation equivalents using word2vec based on the proposal that the degree of similarity between the contexts associated with a word and those of its multiple translations vary continuously. We validate our measure using semantic alignment from GloVe and fastText, and data from two behavioral datasets. The consistency of semantic alignment induced across different models confirms the robustness of our method. We demonstrate that semantic alignment not only reflects human semantic similarity judgment of translation equivalents but also captures bilinguals’ usage frequency of translations. We also show that our method is more cognitively plausible than Thompson et al.’s method. Furthermore, the correlations between semantic alignment and key psycholinguistic factors mirror those between human-rated semantic similarity and these variables, indicating that computed semantic alignment reflects the degree of semantic overlap of translation equivalents in the bilingual mental lexicon. We further provide the largest English–Chinese translation equivalent dataset to date, encompassing 50,088 translation pairs for 15,734 English words, their dominant Chinese translation equivalents, and their semantic alignment Rc values.

Semantic and affective priming have long been treated separately in psycholinguistic studies. Recently, however, the question of whether and how these two primings interact has become controversial, especially in cross-language contexts where such discussions are rare. In the present study, four mixed-design experiments were conducted with Chinese EFL learners to investigate cross-language semantic-affective interactions: 3 (prime valence: negative, positive, neutral) × 2 (semantic relatedness: related, unrelated). Results show that semantic priming effects occurred in the L1 L1 and L1 L2 conditions, whereas affective priming effects were observed in the L2 L2 condition. In the L2 L1 priming condition, only emotion primes induced cross-language priming. These results suggest that semantic and emotional accesses are activated automatically and separately, but can facilitate cross-language word processing mutually. The results support the hierarchical representation of semantic features of emotion words from L1 to L2 in the unbalanced bilingual mental lexicon, while affective attributes are spread across a distributed network.

The present study investigates voice onset times (VOTs) to determine if cognates enhance the cross-language phonetic influences in the speech production of a range of Spanish–English bilinguals: Spanish heritage speakers, English heritage speakers, advanced L2 Spanish learners, and advanced L2 English learners. To answer this question, lexical items with considerable phonological, semantic, and orthographic overlap (cognates) and lexical items with no phonological overlap with their English translation equivalents (non-cognates) were examined. The results indicate that there is a significant effect of cognate status in the Spanish production of VOT by Spanish–English bilinguals. These bilinguals produced /t/ with longer VOT values (more English-like) in the Spanish production of cognates compared to non-cognate words. It is proposed that the exemplar model of lexical representation (Bybee, 2001; Pierrehumbert, 2001) can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections by which cognates facilitate phonetic interference in the bilingual mental lexicon.

The study investigates the impact of teaching vocabulary through semantic relations (i.e. including hyponymy, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, homonymy and metonyms) on the breadth and depth of EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge. A convenient sample of 50 freshman EFL learners from a state university in Jordan was recruited. The study followed an experimental approach; data were collected through pre- and post-tests over an academic term. An interview was also conducted to elicit students’ attitudes toward this vocabulary-learning strategy. The results of the ANOVA test have revealed that Jordanian EFL learners find certain difficulties concerning the identification and production of all semantic relations. They scored low in identifying semantic fields properly though they were more aware of synonyms and antonyms than others. The T-test analysis of the data revealed that the degree of awareness of the major types of semantic relations significantly differed between both tests. This implies that using this strategy has improved students' semantic awareness. Besides, students have shown positive attitudes towards using this technique asserting that it contributes to the development of their mental lexicon. The study has many pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research.

This commentary is a response to Denisa Bordag, Kira Gor, and Andreas Opitz's article \"Ontogenesis Model of the L2 Lexical Representation\" (same journal issue).

Word-initial obstruent-liquid clusters, frequent in English (e.g., blue), are prohibited in Korean. Korean learners of English perceptually repair illicit word-initial consonant sequences with an epenthetic vowel [ʊ]. Thus they might perceive blue as b[ʊ]lue, and, at least initially, also represent it lexically as a disyllabic word. We ask whether the sound sequences permitted in one's L1 influence the way L2 words are represented in the mental lexicon. If they do, we predict that in a lexical decision task, Korean learners will accept nonwords containing epenthetic vowels ([bʊˈluː] for blue) as real English words more often than English listeners. These predictions were confirmed: we observed high error rates on test nonwords ([bʊˈluː]) by the Korean participants only, accompanied by few errors on control nonwords ([bɪˈluː]), suggesting that learners’ lexical representations for familiar L2 words can be activated by nonwords that obey their L1 phonotactic grammar.

In this article we examine the allomorphic variation found in Pennsylvania Dutch plurality. In spite of over 250 years of variable contact with English, Pennsylvania Dutch plural allomorphy has remained largely distinct from English, except for a number of loan words and borrowings from English. Adopting a One Feature-One Head (OFOH) Architecture that interprets licit syntactic objects as spans, we argue that plurality is distributed across different root-types, resulting in stored lexical-trees (L-spans) in the bilingual mental lexicon. We expand the traditional feature inventory to be ‘mixed,’ consisting of both semantically-grounded features as well as ‘pure’ morphological features. A key claim of our analysis is that the s-exponent in Pennsylvania Dutch shares a syntactic representation for native and English-origin roots, although it is distinct from a ‘monolingual’ English representation. Finally, we highlight how our treatment of plurality in Pennsylvania Dutch, and allomorphic variation more generally, makes predictions about the nature of bilingual morphosyntactic representations.

Dil eğitim ve öğrenimi alanındaki araştırmacılar, dikkatlerini Sözlük (dile ait kelimelerin öğrenimi) konusu üzerinde yoğunlaştırmışlardır. Çünkü bu konu, bir dilde yetkin olmanın esasını teşkil eder ve ister anadil isterse yabancı dil olsun dillerin öğrenimi için temel bir başlangıç sayılır. Zira dillerin öğretimi alanındaki modern çalışmalar, dil becerilerini geliştirme ve öğrenme ile ilgili hedefleri gerçekleştirmede Sözlük’ün önemini vurgulamaktadır. Şurası bir gerçektir ki öğrenci için Sözlük’e ait birikim, dile dair anlama ve türetme becerilerini geliştirme konusunda esastır. Ayrıca bu birikim, –Sözlük öğrenim-öğretimi konusunun ilgili olduğu pedagojik sorunlar ve eğitime dair zorluklar itibariyle – dil hâkimiyetinin ve dil aracılığıyla bilgi edinim hâkimiyetinin de en önemli unsurudur. Buradan hareketle ana dili Arapça olmayan bazı Türk öğrencilerdeki (Sakarya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi-Türkiye) morfolojik farkındalığın, onların, Arapça zihinsel sözlük gelişimlerine katkı derecesini netleştirmeye çalışan bu araştırmanın konusu ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu konu, dilsel farkındalık ile dillerin öğrenimi arasındaki ilişkiye dair araştırmaların sonuçlarına dayanarak ele alınacaktır. Bu itibarla çalışmada, farkındalık süreçlerinin –özellikle morfolojik farkındalık- Türk öğrencilerde zihinsel sözlük gelişimine etkisi olduğu ve bunun da anlama ve türetme ameliyelerinin yansımaları olduğu varsayımını teyit edeceğiz.

Modelling the structure of cognitive systems is a central goal of the cognitive sciences—a goal that has greatly benefitted from the application of network science approaches. This paper provides an overview of how network science has been applied to the cognitive sciences, with a specific focus on the two research ‘spirals’ of cognitive sciences related to the representation and processes of the human mind. For each spiral, we first review classic papers in the psychological sciences that have drawn on graph-theoretic ideas or frameworks before the advent of modern network science approaches. We then discuss how current research in these areas has been shaped by modern network science, which provides the mathematical framework and methodological tools for psychologists to (i) represent cognitive network structure and (ii) investigate and model the psychological processes that occur in these cognitive networks. Finally, we briefly comment on the future of, and the challenges facing, cognitive network science.

The present study is an attempt to empirically test and compare the results of three methods of word association (WA) analysis. Two of the methods - namely, associative commonality and nativelikeness, and lexico-syntactic patterns of associative organization - have been traditionally used in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) associative research and the third one - collocational aspect of associative responses - is a more recent perspective on associative connections. The central assumption behind the study is that each method captures a different aspect of language users' lexical organization and, in that, their findings may paint a different picture of how the L1 and L2 lexicons compare as proficiency increases. At the same time, the sensitivity of each method to reflect differences related to proficiency may also point to their potential as a research and assessment tool. Three equal size groups of participants (N = 180) at different proficiency levels -native speakers (NSs), second language (L2) advanced and intermediate learners of English - completed a familiarity and a WA test in writing. The tests contained 36 items equated for lexical class (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and frequency of occurrence (high, mid, and low). The participants' WAs generated to familiar vocabulary were analysed in three different ways, following the methods of analysis practiced by each of the three traditions under investigation. In the main, the results showed that examining the lexico-syntactic patterns of associative organization as well as the collocational aspect of associative links are two more 'promising' ways of looking at WAs than examining them with respect to their nativelike associative commonality.