Electrophysiological and experimental-behavioral approaches to the study of intra-sentential code-switching
Janet G. van Hell | Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University
Carla B. Fernandez | Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University
Gerrit Jan Kootstra | Division of Human Movement and Education, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences
Kaitlyn A. Litcofsky | Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University
Caitlin Y. Ting | Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University
A hallmark of bilingual language processing is intra-sentential code-switching. An emergent body of research seeks to understand the intricate neural and cognitive mechanisms that underlie this seemingly effortless skill. In this paper, we discuss electrophysiological and experimental-behavioral research approaches that have been used to study intra-sentential code-switching, and illustrate the use of these techniques by discussing a select number of empirical studies. More specifically, we discuss electrophysiological approaches that are used to study the comprehension of visually and auditorily presented code-switched sentences, including the Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs) method, time-frequency analysis, and approaches to study inter-individual variation in electrophysiological response profiles. This is followed by a discussion of experimental-behavioral techniques to study the comprehension and production of code-switched sentences, including self-paced reading, shadowing, and confederate scripting.
(1976) Performance theories for sentence coding: Some quantitative evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2(1), 56.
Azuma, S. & Meier, R. P.
(1997) Open class and closed class: Sentence-imitation experiments on intrasentential code-switching. Applied Psycholinguistics, 181, 257–276.
Badiola, L, Delgado, R., Sande, A., & Stefanich, S.
Bakker, I., Takashima, A., van Hell, J. G., Janzen, G., & McQueen, J. M.
(2015) Changes in theta and beta oscillations as signatures of novel word consolidation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 27 (7), 1286–1297.
Bastiaansen, M., & Hagoort, P.
(2006) Oscillatory neuronal dynamics during language comprehension. Progress in Brain Research, 1591, 179–196.
Bastiaansen, M., & Hagoort, P.
(2015) Frequency-based segregation of syntactic and semantic unification during online sentence level language comprehension. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 271, 2095–2107.
(2013) Language switching in picture naming: What asymmetric switch costs (do not) tell us about inhibition in bilingual speech planning. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 251, 568–585.
Boersma, P. & Weenink, D.
(2016) Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.23, see [URL]
Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., McLean, J. F. and Cleland, A. A.
(2007) Syntactic alignment and participant role in dialogue. Cognition, 1041, 163–197.
Broersma, M. & De Bot, K.
(2006) Triggered codeswitching: A corpus-based evaluation of the original triggering hypothesis and a new alternative. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 91, 1–13.
Bullock, B. E., & Toribio, A. J.
(2009) The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Code-switching. Cambridge University Press.
Bultena, S., Dijkstra, T. & Van Hell, J. G.
(2015a) Language switch costs in sentence comprehension depend on language dominance: Evidence from self-paced reading. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(03), 453–469.
Bultena, S., Dijkstra, T., & Van Hell, J. G.
(2015b) Switch cost modulations in bilingual sentence processing: Evidence from shadowing. Language, Cognition, and NeuroScience, 301, 586–605.
Clyne, M.
(1967) Transference and Triggering. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Clyne, M.
(2003) Dynamics of language contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coulson, S., King, J. W. & Kutas, M.
(1998) Expect the unexpected: Event-related brain response to morphosyntactic violations. Language and Cognitive Processes, 13(1), 21–58.
De Bot, K.
(2008) The imaging of what in the multilingual mind?Second Language Research, 241, 111–133.
Declerck, M., & Philipp, A. M.
(2015) A review of control processes and their locus in language switching. Psychonomics Bulletin & Review, 221, 1630–1645.
(2000) Event-related brain potentials: Methods, theory, and applications. In J. T. Cacioppo, L. G. Tassinary & G. G. Berntson (Eds.), Handbook of Psychophysiology (pp. 53–84). New York NY: Cambridge University Press.
Fairchild, S., & Van Hell, J. G.
(2017) Determiner-noun code-switching in Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 201, 150–161.
Fernandez, C. B., & Van Hell, J. G.
(2016) How switching direction and foreign accented speech affect listening to code-switched sentences: An electrophysiological study. Poster presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. New York, April 2–6.
Frenck-Mestre, C.
(2005) Eye-movement recording as a tool for studying syntactic processing in a second language: A review of methodologies and experimental findings. Second Language Research, 211, 175–198.
Friederici, A.
(1995) The time course of syntactic activation during language processing: a model based on neuropsychological and neurophysiological data. Brain and Language, 501, 259–281.
Friederici, A. D.
(2002) Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing. Trends in Cognitive Science, 61, 78–84.
Gardner-Chloros, P.
(2009) Code-switching. Cambridge University Press.
Gollan, T. H., & Ferreira, V. S.
(2009) Should I stay or should I switch? A cost-benefit analysis of voluntary language switching in young and aging bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 351, 640–665.
Grey, S. E., & Van Hell, J. G.
(2017) Foreign-accented speaker identity affects neural correlates of language comprehension. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 421, 93–108.
Gullberg, M., Indefrey, P., & Muysken, P.
(2009) Research techniques for the study of code-switching. In B. E. Bullock & A. J. Toribio (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic code-switching (pp. 21–39). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., Valdés Kroff, J. R., & Dussias, P. E.
(2016) Examining the relationship between comprehension and production processes in code-switched language. Journal of Memory and Language, 891, 138–161.
Hagoort, P.
(2003) Interplay between syntax and semantics during sentence comprehension: ERP effects of combining syntactic and semantic violations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(6), 883–899.
Hagoort, P., Brown, C. M., & Groothusen, J.
(1993) The syntactic positive shift (SPS) as an ERP measure of syntactic processing. Language and Cognitive Processes, 81, 439–483.
Hagoort, P., Hald, L., Bastiaansen, M. & Petersson, K. M.
(2004) Integration of word meaning and world knowledge in language comprehension. Science, 3041, 438–441.
Handy, T. C.
(2005) Event-related potentials. A methods handbook. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hanulíková, A., Van Alphen, P. M., Van Goch, M. M., & Weber, A.
(2012) When one person’s mistake is another’s standard usage: The effect of foreign accent on syntactic processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(4), 878–887.
Ibáñez, A. J., Macizo, P., & Bajo, M. T.
(2010) Language access and language selection in professional translators. Acta Psychologica, 135(2), 257–266.
(2014) Self-paced reading. In J. Jegerski & B. VanPatten (Eds.), Research methods in second language psycholinguistics (20–49). New York: Routledge.
Jegerski, J. & VanPatten, B.
(2014) Research methods in second language psycholinguistics. New York: Routledge.
Kaan, E., Harris, A., Gibson, E., & Holcomb, P. J.
(2000) The P600 as an index of integration difficulty. Language and Cognitive Processes, 151, 159–201.
Kiesel, A., Steinhauser, M., Wendt, M., Falkenstein, M., Jost, K., Philipp, A. M., & Koch, I.
(2010) Control and interference in task switching: a review. Psychological Bulletin, 1361, 849–874.
Kootstra, G. J., van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T.
(2010) Syntactic alignment and shared word order in code-switched sentence production: Evidence from bilingual monologue and dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language, 631, 210–231.
Kootstra, G. J., van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T.
(2012) Priming of code-switches in sentences: The role of lexical competition, cognates, and language proficiency. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 151, 797–819.
Kootstra, G. J., van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T.
in revision). Interactive alignment drives lexical triggering of code-switching in bilingual dialogue.
Kreysa, H. & Pickering, M. J.
(2011) Eye movements in dialogue. In S. P. Liversedge, I. D. Gilchrist, & S. Everling (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Eye Movements (pp. 943–959). Oxford University Press.
Kutas, M. & Federmeier, K. D.
(2000) Electrophysiology reveals semantic memory use in language comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience, 41, 463–470.
(1996) Spoken word recognition of code-switched words by Chinese-English bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language, 351, 757–774.
Lipski, J.
(2013) Mapping the psycholinguistic boundaries between Spanish and Palenquero. PAPIA, São Paulo, 231, 7–38.
Litcofsky, K. A., & Van Hell, J. G.
(2016) How speaking and listening relate to each other in a dialogue: An electrophysiological study. Poster presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Boston, November 17–20.
Litcofsky, K. A. & van Hell, J. G.
(2017) Neural correlates of intra-sentential codeswitching: Switching direction affects switching costs. Neuropsychologia, 971, 112–139.
Liu, H., Liang, L., Zhang, L., Lu, Y., & Chen, B.
(2017) Modulatory role of inhibition during language switching: Evidence from evoked and induced oscillatory activity. International Journal of Bilingualism, 211, 57–80.
Luck, S. J.
(2014) An introduction to the event-related potential technique (second edition). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M.
(2011) Research methods in second language acquisition: a practical guide. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
(1973) Linguistic structure and speech shadowing at very short latencies. Nature, 2441, 522–523.
Marslen-Wilson, W. D.
(1985) Speech shadowing and speech comprehension. Speech Communication, 41, 55–73.
McCallum, W. C., Farmer, S. F. & Pocock, P. K.
(1984) The effects of physical and semantic incongruities on auditory event- related potentials. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 591, 447–488.
Meulman, N., Stowe, L. A., Sprenger, S. A., Bresser, M & Schmid, M. S.
(2014) An ERP study on L2 syntax processing: When do learners fail?Frontiers in Psychology, 51, 1072.
Meuter, R. F. I., & Allport, A.
(1999) Bilingual language switching in naming: Asymmetrical costs of language selection. Journal of Memory and Language, 401, 25–40.
Mitchell, D. C., & Green, D. W.
(1978) The effects of context and content on immediate processing in reading. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 30(4), 609–636.
Moreno, E. M., Federmeier, K. D., & Kutas, M.
(2002) Switching languages, switching palabras (words): An electrophysiological study of code switching. Brain and Language, 801, 188–207.
Moreno, E. M., Rodriquez-Fornells, A. & Laine, M.
(2008) Event-related potentials (ERPs) in the study of bilingual processing. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 211, 477–508.
Ng, S., Gonzalez, C., & Wicha, N. Y. Y.
(2014) The fox and the cabra: An ERP analysis of reading code switched nouns and verbs in bilingual short stories. Brain Research, 15571, 127–140.
Osterhout, L., & Holcomb, P.
(1992) Event-related brain potentials elicited by syntactic anomaly. Journal of Memory and Language, 311, 785–806.
(2008) Structural priming: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 1341, 427–459.
Poplack, S.
(1980) Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish Y TERMINO EN ESPAÑOL: Toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics, 181, 581–618.
Proverbio, A. M., Leoni, G., & Zani, A.
(2004) Language switching mechanisms in simultaneous interpreters: an ERP study. Neuropsychologia, 42(12), 1636–1656.
Radeau, M., & Morais, J.
(1990) The uniqueness point effect in the shadowing of spoken words. Speech Communication, 9(2), 155–164.
Rayner, K., Kambe, G., & Duffy, S. A.
(2000) The effect of clause wrap-up on eye movements during reading. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53A1: 1061–1080.
Sabourin, L.
(2009) Neuroimaging and research into second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 251, 5–11.
Stadhagen-Gonzalez, H., Lopéz, L., Parafita Couto, M. C., Párraga, C. A.
(2017) Using two-alternative forced choice tasks and Thurstone’s law of comparative judgment for acceptability judgments: Examining the adjacency condition in Spanish/English code-switched sentences. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8 (1).
Tanner, D., Grey, S. E., & Van Hell, J. G.
(2017) Dissociation retrieval interference and reanalysis in the P600 during sentence comprehension. Psychophysiology, 541, 248–259.
Tanner, D., Inoue, K., & Osterhout, L.
(2014) Brain-based individual differences in on-line L2 grammatical comprehension. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 171, 277–293.
in preparation). Enrique Iglesias tops the charts with newly released canción!: How socio-contextual information facilitates code-switching.
Treisman, A. M.
(1965) The effects of redundancy and familiarity on translating and repeating back a foreign and a native language. British Journal of Psychology, 56(4), 369–379.
Valdéz Kroff, J. R, Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., Dussias, P. E.
(2017) Experimental contributions of eye-tracking to the understanding of comprehension processes while hearing and reading code-switches. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8 (1).
Van Berkum, J. J., Van den Brink, D., Tesink, C. M., Kos, M., & Hagoort, P.
(2008) The neural integration of speaker and message. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(4), 580–591.
Van Der Meij, M., Cuetos, F., Carreiras, M., & Barber, H. A.
(2011) Electrophysiological correlates of language switching in second language learners. Psychophysiology, 48(1), 44–54.
Vandierendonck, A., Liefooghe, B., & Verbruggen, F.
(2010) Task switching: interplay of reconfiguration and interference control. Psychological Bulletin, 1361, 601–626.
Van Hell, J. G, Litcofsky, K. A., Ting, C. Y.
(2015) Sentential code-switching: cognitive and neural approaches. In J. W. Schwieter (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Processing (pp. 459–482). Cambridge University Press.
Van Hell, J. G., & Tanner, D.
(2012) Second language proficiency and cross-language lexical activation. Language Learning, 621, 148–171.
Van Hell, J. G., & Tokowicz, N.
(2010) Event-related brain potentials and second language learning: Syntactic processing in late L2 learners at different L2 proficiency levels. Second Language Research, 261, 43–74.
Weiss, S., & Mueller, H. M.
(2012) “Too many betas do not spoil the broth”: the role of beta brain oscillations in language processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 3(201), 1–15.
Ziegler, J., Muneaux, M., & Grainger, J.
(2003) Neighborhood effects in auditory word recognition: Phonological competition and orthographic facilitation. Journal of Memory and Language, 48(4), 779–793.
2018. From the Field to the Lab: A Converging Methods Approach to the Study of Codeswitching. Languages 3:2 ► pp. 19 ff.
Beatty-Martínez, Anne L., Christian A. Navarro-Torres & Paola E. Dussias
2020. Codeswitching: A Bilingual Toolkit for Opportunistic Speech Planning. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Bosma, Evelyn & Leticia Pablos
2020. Switching direction modulates the engagement of cognitive control in bilingual reading comprehension: An ERP study. Journal of Neurolinguistics 55 ► pp. 100894 ff.
Cox, Jessica G., Ashley LaBoda & Najee Mendes
2020. “I'm gonna Spanglish it on you”: Self-reported vs. oral production of Spanish–English codeswitching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23:2 ► pp. 446 ff.
Fernandez, Carla B., Kaitlyn A. Litcofsky & Janet G. van Hell
2019. Neural correlates of intra-sentential code-switching in the auditory modality. Journal of Neurolinguistics 51 ► pp. 17 ff.
Gosselin, Leah
2022. Bilinguals have a single computational system but two compartmentalized phonological grammars: Evidence from code-switching. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 6:1
Gosselin, Leah & Laura Sabourin
2021. Lexical-semantic processing costs are not inherent to intra-sentential code-switching: The role of switching habits. Neuropsychologia 159 ► pp. 107922 ff.
2020. How different code-switching types modulate bilinguals’ executive functions: A dual control mode perspective. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23:4 ► pp. 909 ff.
Kaan, Edith, Souad Kheder, Ann Kreidler, Aleksandra Tomić & Jorge R. Valdés Kroff
2020. Processing Code-Switches in the Presence of Others: An ERP Study. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Kootstra, Gerrit Jan, Ton Dijkstra & Janet G. van Hell
2020. Interactive Alignment and Lexical Triggering of Code-Switching in Bilingual Dialogue. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Koronkiewicz, Bryan
2019. Control Stimuli in Experimental Code-Switching Research. Languages 4:3 ► pp. 67 ff.
Liu, Hong
2019. Attitudes Toward Different Types of Chinese-English Code-Switching. SAGE Open 9:2 ► pp. 215824401985392 ff.
Munarriz-Ibarrola, Amaia, Maria del Carmen Parafita Couto & Emma Vanden Wyngaerd
Valdés Kroff, Jorge R., Patricia Román & Paola E. Dussias
2020. Are All Code-Switches Processed Alike? Examining Semantic v. Language Unexpectancy. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Vaughan-Evans, Awel, Maria Carmen Parafita Couto, Bastien Boutonnet, Noriko Hoshino, Peredur Webb-Davies, Margaret Deuchar & Guillaume Thierry
2020. Switchmate! An Electrophysiological Attempt to Adjudicate Between Competing Accounts of Adjective-Noun Code-Switching. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Yacovone, Anthony, Emily Moya & Jesse Snedeker
2021. Unexpected words or unexpected languages? Two ERP effects of code-switching in naturalistic discourse. Cognition 215 ► pp. 104814 ff.
Zeller, Jan Patrick
2020. Code-Switching Does Not Equal Code-Switching. An Event-Related Potentials Study on Switching From L2 German to L1 Russian at Prepositions and Nouns. Frontiers in Psychology 11
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.