Kroll, J. F. 1 , Misra, M. 1 & Guo, T. 2
1 Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA
2 Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
When individuals acquire a second language (L2) past early childhood, the established first language (L1) may be used as a basis on which to mediate access to the meaning of new L2 words. According to the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994), the mediation of L2 words via their L1 translation characterizes the performance at lower levels of proficiency, but not once individuals become highly proficient and appear able to conceptually process the meaning of L2 words directly. Past studies have challenged this view in two ways, suggesting first that L1 mediation is not required at all (e.g., Brysbaert & Duyck, 2010), even at the earliest stages of L2 learning, and second, that proficient bilinguals may continue to access the L1 translation equivalent even well after they have acquired a high degree of proficiency in the L2 (e.g., Morford et al., 2011; Thierry & Wu, 2007). We present two sets of behavioral and ERP studies that examine this issue with highly proficient Chinese-English and Spanish-English bilinguals performing a translation recognition task. By manipulating the relation of distractor words in L1 to target words in L2, we could determine the degree to which the L1 actively influences processing in the L2. By comparing behavioral results and ERPs, we could identify the time course over which these effects unfold. The comparison of two different relatively proficient bilingual groups also enabled us to assess the role of same vs. different-script language in mediating the persisting effects of the L1 on the L2. The results suggest that the L1 translation equivalent is indeed available to even highly proficient L2 speakers but the time course of these effects suggests that access to the meaning of L2 words does not depend on it.