"What the eyes reveal about first and second language reading: Explorations of cross-language competition and individual differences" with Dr. Debra Titone (McGill)

Thursday, March 12th, 2015
2:30 p.m.
306 Southam Hall

Eye movement investigations have been crucial for building a deep understanding of the linguistic processes and representations that support first and second language reading. Eye movement methods are ideally suited to this task: they have great temporal precision, allow researchers to observe language processes as they naturally unfold, and enable elegant gaze contingent manipulations that address theoretical questions with great rigor and precision. In this talk, I present data from my laboratory investigating a variety of questions of relevance to first and second language reading processes. These include the factors that modulate the real-time comprehension of language-unique words, words that straddle a bilingual’s two known languages (e.g., CHAT, which means cat in French and a conversational exchange in English; PIANO, which refers to the same musical object in both English and French), and words that vary with respect to their emotional charge (e.g., SEX vs. SKY). Across studies, we are particularly interested in how differences among bilinguals in L2 ability and other cognitive capacities (e.g., executive control) affect bilingual reading performance.