Search

Studies of auditory perception in bilinguals focus on the interaction between linguistic and non- linguistic factors in language processing. The interaction of bottom-up (linguistic) and top-down (linguistic and non-linguistic) processes in language processing is presented in models built on the basis of the interpretation of experimental research results. The focus is also on the question of language switch control and the roles linguistic and non-linguistic factors have in language switching. This study rests on the proposition put forward in the BIMOLA model (Grosjean 1997) that bottom-up acoustic information specific to one language can speed up the recognition of words in that language in bilingual speech processing, diminishing the language switch cost. The paper studies the influence of sensory information (bottom-up), and contextual information and control processes (top-down) in the auditory processing of isolated English and Croatian words. The results of two groups of speakers differing in their English language proficiency have been compared (C1 and C2 according to CEFR). An auditory language decision task has been carried out in three language sets consisting of mixed and one-language stimulus lists. The interaction of the independent variables of language (Croatian, English), the language set (monolingual, bilingual) and English language proficiency (C1, C2) with regard to the dependent variable of reaction time is investigated. Research results will be used to clarify the language switch control in the auditory processing of these two languages. Due to the phonetic and phonological language specificities of the studied languages, small or insignificant influence of top-down processes on auditory perception is expected. Moreover, it is expected that bottom-up processes will influence the language selectivity of processing and ease the processing strain at the moment of the language switch.

This paper studies written language processing in speakers of two languages which differ in their morphological richness, namely Croatian as L1 and English as L2, and the existence of deceptive transparency in such processing. Deceptive transparency is defined as the phenomenon according to which L2 learners are prone to misinterpret word meaning based on the word’s deceptive morphological structure (Laufer, 1997). The participants in this study were given sets of morphologically and semantically related (derived) and unrelated (deceptively transparent) word pairs in both languages. They were required to decide whether the words in each pair were related. Reaction times were measured and compared. Implications related to the organization of the mental lexicon and lexical access in Croatian speakers of English are discussed.

A new type of language speaker has emerged over the past few decades, namely the speaker of English as the language of globalisation or Global English. Such a speaker has a mother tongue different from English, is not bilingual, learns English as a foreign language but uses it intensively in some aspect of their life, mostly for educational or occupational purposes and possibly pastime. English is not the official language of their environment. A psycholinguistic investigation of language processing in such a speaker seems necessary for future research dealing with this (growing) group of speakers. In this study lexical decision task has been used to study visual lexical access in Croatian speakers of Global English in three language modes: Croatian, English, and mixed. Language mode has been defined as the state of activation of languages and language processing mechanisms in a bilingual speaker at any given point in time (Grosjean 2008). The results of this research are portrayed in form of two Global English language mode continua and compared to the bilingual language mode continuum as a type of an ideal. The difference between the language mode continuum of a bilingual and a speaker of Global English are discussed.

Cognates are translation equivalents which share similarity of form across languages (e.g. Cro. problem and Eng. problem). In relation to non–cognates, bilingual speakers have been shown to react to cognates faster (cognate facilitation effect) in the lexical decision task, and slower (cognate inhibition effect) in the language decision task. Postulates of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model + (BIA+) (Dijkstra & van Heuven, 2002) are used in the formulation of hypotheses and the explanation of results in this study. The cognate facilitation effect in the lexical decision task may be accounted for in the BIA+ model by suggesting increased semantic activation levels in cognate processing as opposed to non–cognate processing which occurs due to the shared characteristics of the items belonging to a cognate pair (Lemhöfer & Dijkstra, 2004). In this study, cognate processing of a group of Croatian speakers of Global English is investigated by means of a lexical decision task. Croatian speakers of Global English use the English language (which is not their mother tongue) on a daily basis in some aspect of their lives (work, academia, international communication) as well as in their pastime. As English is used as the lingua franca of the modern business world and education, and the number of speakers of Global English is on the rise in Croatia, their language processing needs to be examined and represented in the models of language processing. In the analysis the interaction of the following independent variables was investigated: language (Croatian / English), word type (word / pseudoword), and cognateness (cognate / non–cognate). The analysis of variance showed a significant triple interaction of language, word type and cognateness. The opposite cognate effect was found in reactions to Croatian cognates as reaction times to Croatian cognates were slower than reaction times to Croatian non–cognates. There was no effect of cognateness found in reaction times to English words and pseudowords, and Croatian pseudowords. On the basis of the results of this study, an adaptation of the BIA+ model was laid out so as to accommodate the findings related to cognate processing in Croatian speakers of Global English. The significant additions to the BIA+ model involve lateral inhibition of the cognates within the same processing levels, lateral inhibition at the language level which results in the necessity of the participants to perform a language decision prior to performing the lexical decision, and inhibitory influence of the activation of the less proficient language on the mother tongue activation which is reflected in the mother tongue inhibition in the processing.

The paper investigates linguistic patterns of direct author reference in research papers in linguistics in English and Croatian. All research papers communicate empirically proven, verifiable findings of conducted scientific research, but the rhetorical practices of various disciplinary communities vary greatly in terms of what they consider to be appropriate ways of “academic persuasion“, that is ways of communicating their research activities and findings in a persuasive way. The presented research is based on the assumption that, apart from differences in the rhetorical conventions of various disciplinary communities, there are also differences between the conventions of particular scientific communities within the same discipline. This assumption is tested by means of text analysis of two corpora of linguistics research articles written in English and Croatian. The use of the first person singular and plural is analyzed as a direct signal of writer presence in research articles, with a view to tracing down conventionalized rhetorical practices within a single discipline in two discrete scientific communities. In addition to the analysis of the preferred patterns of direct author reference, the text analysis is aimed at uncovering and comparing discourse functions of direct author reference in the two corpora. Interviews with members of the Croatian linguistics scientific community are conducted in order to find out in what ways have those authors acquired the conventions of academic writing in linguistics, how much they emphasize their own authorial role in their research papers and what communicative effects they wish to achieve with the chosen rhetorical strategies. The contribution of this research is to shed light on the differences between the rhetorical practices of academic writing in linguistics in the two studied communities.

This paper draws on the conclusions of previous studies (Boers 2011) and some aspects of a larger research study into the use of conceptual metaphors as primary criteria in choosing which idioms should ultimately be taught to EFL/ESL learners. A hypothesis is set forth which argues that Croatian and English idioms that stem from shared conceptual metaphors are examples of idiomatic expressions that should take precedence in EFL/ESL curricula since they are likely to be learned with greater ease and may facilitate the retention of other instances of L2 vocabulary. A list of 24 English idioms was formed and grouped according to the nature of their underlying motivation (metaphor-based or culturally-based). Idioms unknown to the participants (university level EFL learners) were identified by means of a two-part questionnaire (Part 1) and their definitions were attempted by the same participants when the idiomatic examples were provided in context (Part 2). The results were then cross-compared with the conceptual status of each idiom yielding the results which are in favor of accepting the hypothesis on the facilitative effect of conceptual metaphor on idiom learning.

This paper reports the results of an experimental study into the interpretation of subject pronouns in ambiguous intra-sentential contexts in Croatian. Being a null-subject language (like Italian), Croatian allows subject pronouns to be either expressed (overt) or omitted (null). The use of these forms is regulated by discourse- pragmatic conditions. Two groups of 11-year-old children, Croatian-Italian simultaneous bilinguals and Croatian monolinguals, and a group of monolingual Croatian-speaking adults completed a picture selection task. Complex sentences contained an ambiguous null or overt subject pronoun in the subordinate clause, which followed the main clause. The participants were asked to choose between two pictures, thereby selecting the subject or the object of the main clause as the antecedent of the pronoun. The two groups of 11-year-olds did not differ in their antecedent selection for null and overt pronouns, but both differed from the adults in the overt pronoun condition, where they selected the subject antecedent more often than the adults. This suggests that Croatian-Italian simultaneous bilinguals do not lag behind Croatian monolinguals in the acquisition of the discourse- pragmatic constraints on the interpretation of Croatian subject pronouns in ambiguous intra- sentential contexts.

This paper focuses on the pronunciation of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in Croatia. We analyse the English pronunciation of five focus group members representing five different first languages. They are university students of English and discuss topics of their common interest. A recording was made of their conversation, which was preceded by the reading of a test passage serving as a prompt for discussion. Four independent trained listeners performed an auditory analysis of the recording. There were two basic research questions. First, to what extent and in what way does the participants' pronunciation at this highest level of competence differ from the pronunciation which was found in the interlanguage of Croatian learners? Second, what are the characteristic, national features which distinguish this 'mature' ELF pronunciation of individual focus-group members from the other participants who are native speakers of phonologically different languages? Despite the limitations of scope and method, the results provide unambiguous answers to our questions. At this level of pronunciation, as opposed to learners' pronunciation, we have found all the features necessary for complete international intelligibility. However, the 'non-core' features giving away non-native pronunciation, such as absence of allophonic alternation and non-native prosody, have also been found with all five participants. The manifestation of these give-away features depends on the phonological background of the participant. What they all turn out to have in common is the impression of a syllable-based rhythm. Accordingly, guidelines are provided for a comparative study of their rhythm by vowel duration measurement and comparing their syllabicity indices based on Low, Grabe and Nolan (2000) and Deterding (2010).