Regulating the bilingual lexico-semantic system

This paper aims to foster discussion of the means by which bilinguals control their two language systems. It proposes an inhibitory control (IC) model that embodies the principle that there are multiple levels of control. In the model a language task schema (modulated by a higher level of control) "reactively" inhibits potential competitors for production at the lemma level by virtue of their language tags. The IC model is used to expand the explanation of the effect of category blocking in translation proposed by Kroll and Stewart (1994) and predictions of the model are tested against other data. Its relationship to other proposals and models is considered and future directions proposed. Introduction There has been progress in understanding the nature and organization of processes underlying the performance of specific tasks (e.g., single word production, Levelt, Roelofs and Meyer, in press) but much less evident is an understanding of how various component processes are linked to perform one task rather than another or to switch between tasks (Monsell, 1996). Hearing a word a person could retrieve its meaning, write it down, repeat it (again and again), free associate to it, count the number of letters or syllables in it , or translate it into another language. Given one task to perform rather than another, how do individuals configure the various modules required and ensure that other tasks are not performed instead? Typically, experimental research requires individuals to perform just one task (e.g., lexical decision, picture naming) and so this aspect of the potential competition between different tasks afforded by a stimulus goes unrecognized. Bilingual research poses the problem of the competition between tasks and the competition between responses quite directly. To exemplify: consider the task of translating a visually presented word. Is this task not also a kind of Stroop task? Bilinguals have to avoid naming the printed word and, instead, produce a translation equivalent as a response. In other circumstances, such as naming a picture, a bilingual speaker is also potentially faced with the problem of selecting between alternative responses. This selection problem might seem to be directly connected to the problem of how words are represented in the minds of bilingual speakers. There are a number of proposals about the nature of the bilingual lexico-semantic system (Votaw, 1992) but these proposals have not always addressed the question of how to achieve a desired output. Ervin and Osgood (1954), for …