Eye movement methods to investigate bilingual reading

Abstract

This chapter provides a general overview of the use of eye movement recordings to investigate the cognitive processes that underlie natural reading, including fi rst- (L1) and second-language (L2) reading in bilinguals. We focus on two important issues arising from bilinguals’ divided L1/L2 knowledge and use: cross-language activation (i.e., nonselective activation of both L1 and L2 lexical representations) and reduced lexical entrenchment (i.e., delayed lexical access resulting from lower baseline activation levels of L1 and L2 words and/or weakened L1 and L2 lexical memory representations). Prior work has used eye movement recordings to independently examine these two issues; however, in a reanalysis of recent work from our laboratory (Whitford and Titone, Psychon Bull Rev 19:73-80, 2012), we examine their joint impact on eye movement measures of bilingual reading. We fi nd that cross-language activation and reduced lexical entrenchment mutually constrain L1 and L2 reading in bilinguals, which suggests that they may be two sides of the same coin.