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Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 9:2 (2019) ► pp.314–340

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Pragmatic abilities in bilinguals

The case of scalar implicatures

 | Institute for Cognitive Sciences - Marc Jeannerod (ISC-MJ UMR 5304, CNRS – University Lyon 1), France
 | Center for Cognitive Science of Language, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
 | Center for Cognitive Science of Language, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
 | Institute for Cognitive Sciences - Marc Jeannerod (ISC-MJ UMR 5304, CNRS – University Lyon 1), France
 | Institute for Cognitive Sciences - Marc Jeannerod (ISC-MJ UMR 5304, CNRS – University Lyon 1), France
 | Institute for Cognitive Sciences - Marc Jeannerod (ISC-MJ UMR 5304, CNRS – University Lyon 1), France
 | Institute for Cognitive Sciences - Marc Jeannerod (ISC-MJ UMR 5304, CNRS – University Lyon 1), France
 | Center for Cognitive Science of Language, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
ORCiD logo with link | Institute for Cognitive Sciences - Marc Jeannerod (ISC-MJ UMR 5304, CNRS – University Lyon 1), France
Published online: 16 January 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.17017.dup
Abstract
The experimental literature on the pragmatic abilities of bilinguals is rather sparse. The only study investigating adult second language (L2) learners (Slabakova, R. (2010) Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition. Lingua, 1201, 2444–2462. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) found an increase of pragmatic responses in that population relative to monolinguals. The results of studies on early bilingual children are unclear, some finding a significant increase in pragmatic responses in early bilingual children (preschoolers) relative to monolinguals (Siegal, M., Matsuo, A., Pond, C., & Otsu, Y. (2007). Bilingualism and cognitive development: Evidence from scalar implicatures. In Y. Otsu (Ed.), Proceedings from the Eight Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), while another (Antoniou, K., & Katsos, N. (2017). The effect of childhood multilingualism and bilectalism on implicatures understanding. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), testing school children, does not. We tested adult French L2 learners of English and Spanish (in their two languages) as well as French monolingual controls in Experiment 1 and Italian-Slovenian early bilingual children (in both languages) and Slovenian monolingual controls in Experiment 2. Our results were similar to those of Antoniou, K., & Katsos, N. (2017). The effect of childhood multilingualism and bilectalism on implicatures understanding. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar in early bilingual children, but different from those of Siegal, M., Matsuo, A., Pond, C., & Otsu, Y. (2007). Bilingualism and cognitive development: Evidence from scalar implicatures. In Y. Otsu (Ed.), Proceedings from the Eight Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. We found no pragmatic bias in adult L2 leaners relative to adult monolinguals.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Grice’s theory of implicature
    • 1.2Experimental approaches to scalar implicatures in monolinguals
    • 1.3Experimental work on pragmatic implicatures in multilingual speakers
      • 1.3.1Scalar implicatures in L2 learners
      • 1.3.2Implicatures in early bilingual children
  • 2.The current experiments
  • 3.Experiment 1a
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Design and materials
      • 3.1.3Procedure
    • 3.2Results and discussion
      • 3.2.1Data treatment and exclusion criteria
        • Response Analysis
  • 4.Experiment 1b
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Participants
      • 4.1.2Design
      • 4.1.3Materials and procedure
    • 4.2Results and discussion
      • 4.2.1Data treatment and exclusion criteria
        • Response Analysis
  • 5.Experiment 2
    • 5.1Method
      • 5.1.1Participants and inclusion criteria
      • 5.1.2Design and materials
      • 5.1.3Procedure
    • 5.2Results and discussion
  • 6.General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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