2007/01/17

Moreno, E. M., Federmeier, K. D., & Kutas, M. (2002). Switching Languages, switching Parabras (words): an electrophysiological study of code switching. Brain and Language, 80, 188–207.

Presentation: Chris
Summary: Shelly

This study aims to measure and compare the processing cost of unexpected code switching and lexical switching. The participants were 37 English-Spanish bilingual speakers, who were tested and self-reported to have at least functional proficiency in both languages. The stimuli were English sentences ending with expected English words (e.g. The ship disappeared into the thick ‘fog’), Spanish translation (e.g. The ship disappeared into the thick ‘niebla’) (code-switching), and English synonyms (e.g. The ship disappeared into the thick ‘mist’) (lexical switching). As the participants were reading the sentences, their event-related brain potentials (ERPs) N400 were measured. N400 had been testified, in previous studies, to increase when subjects encountered unexpected semantic changes in sentences. Higher N400 implies higher processing costs at the semantic level. The results of this study showed that lexical switching within the same base language elicits higher N400 than code switching, while code switching elicit higher LPC, which is related to processing of physical changes. The above findings suggest that code switching seems to be treated more as a change in form than in meaning, and for some people code switching may even be less costly than lexical switching at some processing stages. Further research is needed to uncover the cause of such a difference between code switching and lexical switching.