Elena Nicoladis

List of John Benjamins publications for which Elena Nicoladis plays a role.

Journal

In experimental tasks, bilinguals often have greater difficulty accessing words than monolinguals and greater difficulty in their weaker language than their stronger language, consistent with the weaker-links hypothesis (Gollan et al., 2011). The purpose of the present research is to test… read more
According to the Lexical Retrieval Hypothesis, one important function of representational gestures is to help speakers retrieve words for production. In this study, we test whether gestures help preschoolers access words for production. We tested two predictions generated from the LRH. First,… read more
Nicoladis, Elena, Amen Duggal and Alexandra Besoi Setzer 2023 Texting!!!: Attributions of gender and friendliness to texters who use exclamation marksInteraction Studies 24:3, pp. 422–436 | Article
Previous research shows that females use more exclamation marks than males, often to establish rapport. The purpose of the present studies was to test whether people associate texters’ use of exclamation marks with friendliness and femaleness. If this association is due to normative… read more
Bilinguals often have a harder time accessing words for production than monolinguals, perhaps because they have less exposure to words from each language (the weaker-links hypothesis). This research on lexical access mostly comes from studies of words in isolation. The purpose of the present… read more
Nicoladis, Elena, Paula Marentette and Candace Lam 2022 Co-speech gestures can interfere with learning foreign language wordsGesture 21:2/3, pp. 239–263 | Article
Co-speech gestures can help the learning, processing, and memory of words and concepts, particularly motoric and spatial concepts such as verbs. The purpose of the present studies was to test whether co-speech gestures support the learning of words through gist traces of movement. We asked… read more
Setzer, Alexandra Besoi, Elena Nicoladis and C. Lorelei Baquiran 2021 In the ear of the beholder: How ethnicity of raters affects the perception of a foreign accentPragmatics of Accents, Planchenault, Gaëlle and Livia Poljak (eds.), pp. 229–244 | Chapter
In the present study, we tested whether a foreign accent activated different stereotypes, depending on the listener. Here, we explore whether ethnicity of a rater affects the perceived intelligence of a doctor speaking English with a Chinese accent vs. a doctor speaking English with a standard… read more
Enns, Robyn, Nicole Lemire and Elena Nicoladis 2020 Chapter 4. Two solitudes? Simultaneous bilingual children’s lexical access in experimental tasksChild Bilingualism and Second Language Learning: Multidisciplinary perspectives, Li, Fangfang, Karen E. Pollock and Robbin Gibb (eds.), pp. 45–64 | Chapter
Proficient adult bilinguals likely have one conceptual store encompassing both languages: in experimental tasks, they produce many translation equivalents. In contrast, bilingual preschoolers often produce few translation equivalents on similar tasks, perhaps because they have not yet developed… read more
Nicoladis, Elena, Trevor Luk and Shireen Gill 2020 Out-group gestures can lower self-esteemGesture 19:2/3, pp. 223–245 | Article
Culture-specific symbols can prime aspects of identity, like self-esteem, in bilingual-bicultural individuals. The purpose of the present studies was to test whether gestures that are specific to a culture prime self-esteem and, if so, whether it is due to in-group/out-group association. In… read more
Bilinguals sometimes show crosslinguistic influence from one language to another while speaking (or gesturing). Adult bilinguals have also shown crosslinguistic influence in gestures as well as speech, suggesting an underlying conceptualization that is similar for both languages. The primary… read more
Nicoladis, Elena 2018 Chapter 5. Simultaneous child bilingualismBilingual Cognition and Language: The state of the science across its subfields, Miller, David, Fatih Bayram, Jason Rothman and Ludovica Serratrice (eds.), pp. 81–102 | Chapter
Simultaneous bilingual children are exposed to two languages from an early age. They show a remarkable ability to differentiate their two languages from early in development. They nonetheless show some small signs of cross-linguistic influence, or processing their two languages in ways that show… read more
Barbosa, Poliana Goncalves and Elena Nicoladis 2016 Deverbal compound comprehension in preschool childrenThe Mental Lexicon 11:1, pp. 94–114 | Article
When English-speaking children first attempt to produce deverbal compound words (like muffin maker), they often misorder the noun and the verb (e.g., make-muffin, maker muffin, or making-muffin). The purpose of the present studies was to test Usage-based and Distributional Morphology-based… read more
Marentette, Paula and Elena Nicoladis 2012 Does ontogenetic ritualization explain early communicative gestures in human infants?Developments in Primate Gesture Research, Pika, Simone and Katja Liebal (eds.), pp. 33–54 | Article
This chapter evaluates predictions that the origins of at least some gestures of human infants are shaped through ontogenetic ritualization (Clark 1978; Lock 1978; Tomasello 2008). To do so, we examine the development of five gesture types in four children between the ages of 6.5 and 11.5 months.… read more
Smithson, Lisa, Elena Nicoladis and Paula Marentette 2011 Bilingual children’s gesture useGesture 11:3, pp. 330–347 | Article
Previous studies have shown that bilinguals use more manual gestures than monolinguals (Pika et al., 2006; Nicoladis et al., 2009), suggesting that gestures may facilitate lexical retrieval or may reduce the cognitive load on working memory during speech production. In this study, we tested the… read more
Nagpal, Jaya and Elena Nicoladis 2009 Why are Noun-Verb-er compounds so difficult for English-speaking children?The Mental Lexicon 4:2, pp. 276–301 | Article
Preschool children who attempt novel NV-er compounds (like cat brusher) often misorder the noun and the verb, arguably based on sentential phrasal ordering (e.g., Clark, Hecht, & Mulford, 1986). In this study, we test this argument by replicating Clark’s prediction that children’s attempts will… read more
Children’s creation of novel words is thought to be guided by several variables of their language(s), including the simplicity and frequency of required morphology and/or target structure (Clark, 1993). This study documents children’s acquisition of French deverbal Verb–Object compounds (e.g.,… read more
Sherman, Jody and Elena Nicoladis 2005 Gestures by advanced Spanish-English second-language learnersGesture 4:2, pp. 143–156 | Article
We examined the role of deictic (i.e., point) and symbolic (i.e., imagistic) gestures in advanced Spanish-English second-language learners to determine whether the role of gestures is consistent with that of intermediate second-language learners (i.e., Gullberg, 1998). Participants (10 L1 Spanish… read more
Nicoladis, Elena 2001 Finding first words in the input: Evidence from a bilingual childTrends in Bilingual Acquisition, Cenoz, Jasone and Fred Genesee (eds.), pp. 131–147 | Article