Changing pronoun interpretations across-languages: Discourse priming in Spanish-English bilingual speakers

Abstract

Are bilingual speakers' representations of pronominal expressions completely independent in the two languages, or is there sharing of discourse-level representations cross-linguistically? In the present study, we address this question by using a sentence comprehension task that implements the cross-linguistic priming technique at the discourse-level. In two experiments conducted with Spanish-English bilinguals, we prime dis-preferred interpretations for ambiguous pronouns in the second language (English) by using first language (Spanish) pronoun interpretation primes. In experiment 1, Spanish null pronouns prime second-mentioned/object interpretations in English, showing an effect of priming. In experiment 2, Spanish explicit pronouns prime second-mentioned/object interpretations in English, indicating that an effect of priming approaches significance. The results demonstrate that bilinguals' inferences about probability distributions and coherence relations are susceptible to cross-linguistic influence. The strength of the priming effect is discussed within models of cross-language abstract representations.