ABSTRACT
We investigated whether morphosyntactic representations in bilinguals’ native language become activated by form-related representations in their second language. Specifically, we examined whether, relative to English monolinguals, German-English bilinguals would exhibit a bias to initially interpret English nouns ending in –er as referring to a male due to the association of masculine gender with this ending in German. This question was tested by recording bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ eye movements as they read English sentences containing a stereotypically male, female, or neutral –er noun that was an antecedent of a gender-matching or -mismatching reflexive. The bias to initially interpret the –er nouns’ referent as male was assessed by the size of the “mismatch effect” or the difference between the participants’ total fixation duration on feminine versus masculine reflexives. The results showed a positive mismatch effect for both the bilinguals and monolinguals in the stereotypical male condition, no mismatch effect for either group in the neutral condition, and a mismatch effect only for the monolinguals in the stereotypical female condition. The results were simulated using a connectionist interactive activation model, and the implications for future study are discussed.
