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Code-Switching: a Touchstone of Models of Bilingual Language CODE-SWITCHING: A TOUCHSTONE OF MODELS OF BILINGUAL LANGUAGE PRODUCTION Mehdi Purmohammad Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Faculty of Humanities, Center for the Study of Language and Society (CSLS) University of Bern First Supervisor: Professor Constanze Vorwerg | downloaded: 4.10.2021 Second Supervisor: Professor Jubin Abutalebi Original document saved on the web server of the University Library of Bern This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No derivative works 2.5 Switzerland licence. To see the licence go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ch/ or write to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California 94105, USA. Copyright Notice https://doi.org/10.7892/boris.83451 source: This document is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial- No derivative works 2.5 Switzerland. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/2.5/ch/ You are free: to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must give the original author credit. Non-Commercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No derivative works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.. For any reuse or distribution, you must take clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights according to Swiss law. The detailed license agreement can be found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ch/legalcode.de 2 ABSTRACT The goal of the present thesis was to investigate the production of code-switched utterances in bilinguals‟ speech production. This study investigates the availability of grammatical- category information during bilingual language processing. The specific aim is to examine the processes involved in the production of Persian-English bilingual compound verbs (BCVs). A bilingual compound verb is formed when the nominal constituent of a compound verb is replaced by an item from the other language. In the present cases of BCVs the nominal constituents are replaced by a verb from the other language. The main question addressed is how a lexical element corresponding to a verb node can be placed in a slot that corresponds to a noun lemma. This study also investigates how the production of BCVs might be captured within a model of BCVs and how such a model may be integrated within incremental network models of speech production. In the present study, both naturalistic and experimental data were used to investigate the processes involved in the production of BCVs. In the first part of the present study, I collected 2298 minutes of a popular Iranian TV program and found 962 code-switched utterances. In 83 (8%) of the switched cases, insertions occurred within the Persian compound verb structure, hence, resulting in BCVs. As to the second part of my work, a picture-word interference experiment was conducted. This study addressed whether in the case of the production of Persian-English BCVs, English verbs compete with the corresponding Persian compound verbs as a whole, or whether English verbs compete with the nominal constituents of Persian compound verbs only. Persian-English bilinguals named pictures depicting actions in 4 conditions in Persian (L1). In condition 1, participants named pictures of action using the whole Persian compound verb in the context of its English equivalent distractor verb. In condition 2, only the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of the light verb of the target Persian compound verb and in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb. In condition 3 3, the whole Persian compound verb was produced in the context of a semantically unrelated English distractor verb. In condition 4, only the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of the light verb of the target Persian compound verb and in the context of a semantically unrelated English distractor verb. The main effect of linguistic unit was significant by participants and items. Naming latencies were longer in the nominal linguistic unit compared to the compound verb (CV) linguistic unit. That is, participants were slower to produce the nominal constituent of compound verbs in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb compared to producing the whole compound verbs in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb. The three-way interaction between version of the experiment (CV and nominal versions), linguistic unit (nominal and CV linguistic units), and relation (semantically related and unrelated distractor words) was significant by participants. In both versions, naming latencies were longer in the semantically related nominal linguistic unit compared to the response latencies in the semantically related CV linguistic unit. In both versions, naming latencies were longer in the semantically related nominal linguistic unit compared to response latencies in the semantically unrelated nominal linguistic unit. Both the analysis of the naturalistic data and the results of the experiment revealed that in the case of the production of the nominal constituent of BCVs, a verb from the other language may compete with a noun from the base language, suggesting that grammatical category does not necessarily provide a constraint on lexical access during the production of the nominal constituent of BCVs. There was a minimal context in condition 2 (the nominal linguistic unit) in which the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of its corresponding light verb. The results suggest that generating words within a context may not guarantee that the effect of grammatical class becomes available. A model is proposed in order to characterize the processes involved in the production of BCVs. Implications for models of bilingual language production are discussed. 4 Contents LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... 7 LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................. 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS............................................................................................. 8 Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ 8 Symbols ......................................................................................................................................... 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 11 1.1 Aim of this study and outline ................................................................................................. 11 1.2 Who do I mean by a ‘bilingual speaker’? ................................................................................ 15 1.3 Persian ................................................................................................................................... 19 1.4 Persian compound verbs ........................................................................................................ 21 1.5 Bilingual compound verbs ...................................................................................................... 27 1.6 Grammatical class: An unresolved issue in language studies................................................... 32 CHAPTER 2: Current approaches to the study of code-switching ...................................................... 42 2.1 Sociolinguistics ....................................................................................................................... 42 2.2 Structural Linguistics .............................................................................................................. 44 2.3 Neurolinguistics ..................................................................................................................... 46 2.4 Psycholinguistics .................................................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER 3: Language selection in bilinguals: A multidisciplinary approach...................................... 52 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 52 3.2 Language choice during the speech production in bilinguals .................................................. 54 3.3 Bilingual language choice as a social issue .............................................................................. 55 3.4 Language choice in the models of bilingual language production ........................................... 59 3.5 Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 65 3.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 75 CHAPTER 4: The production of bilingual (switched) compound verbs: Implications for bilingual production models .........................................................................................................................
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