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In:Multilingual Cognition and Language Use: Processing and typological perspectives
Edited by Luna Filipović and Martin Pütz
[Human Cognitive Processing 44] 2014
► pp. 229–262

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About phonological, grammatical, and semantic accents in bilinguals’ language use and their cause

Published online: 10 June 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.44.09gro
The linguistic expressions of the majority of bilinguals exhibit deviations from the corresponding expressions of monolinguals in phonology, grammar, and semantics, and in both languages. In addition, bilinguals may process spoken and written language differently from monolinguals. Two possible causes of such “accents” in bilinguals’ language use are considered: the first, that becoming bilingual results in memory representations for specific linguistic units qualitatively different from the corresponding representations in monolinguals, and the second, parallel activation of linguistic elements in the two language subsystems of bilinguals when they use language. I exemplify the occurrence of phonological, syntactic, and semantic accents in bilinguals’ language use and explain them in terms of both qualitatively different memory representations and parallel activation.
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