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In:Interdisciplinary Approaches to Romance Linguistics: In honor of Barbara E. Bullock and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio
Edited by Mark Amengual and Amanda Dalola
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 45] 2025
► pp. 42–68

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Chapter 2
Linguistic environment and bilingual lexical access

Exploring how short-term changes in environment impact language selection

 | Purdue University
Published online: 2 September 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.45.02ols
Abstract
Research on bilingual lexical access has shown that switching languages often incurs a temporal cost. Such costs are subject to long-term (e.g., proficiency) and short-term factors (e.g., the ratio of each language in the interaction). The current study, employing a cued picture-naming task, explores the influence of short-term shifts in linguistic environment on lexical access. Second language (L2) learners were tested in two different linguistic environments — an L1-dominant environment (USA) and an L2-dominant (Spain) environment — immediately prior to leaving one linguistic environment and upon arrival in the second environment. Results show that naming latencies and switch costs were modulated by the linguistic environment, highlighting the influence of the linguistic environment and suggesting that L1 regulatory mechanisms impact language selection.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Long-term and short-term influences on bilingual lexical access
    • 1.2The role of external factors in lexical access
    • 1.3The current study
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Picture-naming stimuli
    • 2.3Picture-naming procedure
    • 2.4Picture-naming data analysis
    • 2.5Lexical and grammatical task
    • 2.6Global accent rating task
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Naming latency results
    • 3.3Switch cost analysis
    • 3.4Error rates
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1The role of external factors
    • 4.2The role of language dominance
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
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