The Cross-Linguistic Lexical Task in Tunisian Arabic: Adaptation and Pilot Evidence from Monolingual Children.

City Research

The Arabic Lexicon Project: Lexical decision data for 10,000 Modern Standard Arabic words

The current study developed, validated, and illustrated the advantage of a lexical decision database for MSA in three (virtual) experiments, and showed that the database largely replicates well-documented effects in visual word recognition (lexicality, word length, word frequency, word neighborhood size).

Linguistic frame switching in German–English bilinguals: implications for neuroscience

Introduction: Multilingual speakers frequently report that operating in a different language involves more than a change in grammatical system. The phenomenon at issue is linguistic frame switching (LFS): the involuntary reorganisation of cognitive, emotional, and identity-relevant schemas when a multilingual speaker moves between languages. This study investigated whether German–English bilinguals exhibit systematic language-dependent differences in self-perception and narrative content. Materials and methods: This report presents findings from an original mixed-methods study of 27 German–English bi- and multilinguals, combining self-report questionnaire data with computational text analysis (linguistic inquiry and word count, LIWC) of matched narrative pairs elicited by identical picture prompts in both languages at a six-week interval. Results: Approximately 78% of the participants reported feeling distinctly different when using their respective languages (21 of 27; χ2(1) = 8.33, p = 0.004). LIWC analysis revealed systematic cross-linguistic divergences: German narratives were consistently richer in cognitive processing, occupation-related content, and achievement themes; English narratives were higher in social process language. At the individual level, the contrasts were sometimes dramatic—the same person, the same picture, but two narratives that read as if written by different authors. Conclusions: It is argued that these patterns cannot be explained by code-switching or translation equivalence effects alone. LFS, the present report suggests, has largely untapped implications for how neuroscience conceptualises the brain–mind–environment relationship. These findings are exploratory and subject to important limitations: the sample was small (N = 27) and self-selected, language proficiency was self-rated rather than objectively measured, and no monolingual control group was included.

The power of adaptation: Multilingual localisation of extIPA for clinical phonetics and cross-linguistic speech assessment.

The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet (extIPA) support clinical transcription of atypical and disordered speech, but their chart metalanguage is primarily available in English. This article presents a feasibility study of multilingual extIPA localisation as clinical phonetic infrastructure rather than as an outcome intervention. A version-specified, language-agnostic workflow was developed and implemented across six languages: Croatian, French, German, Greek, Italian, and Welsh. The workflow decomposed extIPA chart metalanguage into 78 conceptual units, yielding 624 target-language string instances, coordinated through a translation management environment and reinserted into fixed-layout chart outputs. Process evidence from language-team review and translator comments identified recurring constraints involving source-version control, chart-cell space, orthography, technical terminology, abbreviations, and retention of English labels. The study demonstrates the feasibility of coordinated, traceable, and maintainable multilingual extIPA localisation while making no claims about effects on transcription accuracy, clinical usability, or training outcomes.

Cross-Linguistic Interference from Spanish to French in Learners' Writing Productions

This study examines linguistic interference from Spanish to French in the written productions of fifth-semester students enrolled in the Foreign Languages Program at the University of Cartagena. The research aimed to identify and categorize the most common instances of cross-linguistic influence present in learners' written responses. A mixed-methods design with a qualitative emphasis was adopted. Data were collected through a structured written production test consisting of guided writing tasks, sentence translation, sentence ordering, and interpretation activities. The analysis focused on identifying and classifying instances of interference according to four linguistic domains: morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The findings revealed that morphological interference was the most frequent category, particularly in orthography, grammatical gender, and lexical borrowing. Syntactic and semantic interferences were also recurrent, while pragmatic interference appeared less frequently. The results suggest that the typological proximity between Spanish and French facilitates learning while simultaneously generating transfer-related difficulties. The study highlights the importance of explicitly addressing differences between language during instruction in order to create linguistic awareness and to reduce negative transfer and improve learners' written production.

Comparative Study of Lexical Availability in a Bilingual Context: English-Dominant versus Spanish Heritage Speakers

Lexical availability (LA) refers to the subset of the mental lexicon that speakers readily activate in response to specific thematic prompts. It reflects the accessibility of lexical knowledge and is commonly characterized by the degree of lexical consensus observed across members of a speech community. This study investigates comparative intra-individual LA in speakers with English as the dominant language (DL) and Spanish as a heritage language (HL), addressing a gap in cross-language, within-subject research. A convenience sample of 31 undergraduate students at a university in California, USA, completed a free-association LA test in both English and Spanish according to the Pan-Hispanic Lexical Availability Project. Responses were lemmatized and processed with Dispogen; analyses examined size, consensus, core versus peripheral composition, and patterns of thematic contamination across domains (e.g., professions, city). Across most domains, the DL (English) exhibited a broader, more consensual lexical core, while the HL (Spanish) retained a longer low-frequency tail containing items that appear culturally specific, toponyms, and identity-linked references. Analyses also revealed systematic thematic contamination between languages and clear differences in the makeup of core versus peripheral lexica. Findings suggest that English-dominant, Spanish-heritage speakers maintain distinct distributions of high-consensus (core) and low-frequency (peripheral) vocabulary across languages. These patterns have direct pedagogical implications: empirical guidance from LA profiles can inform targeted interventions that combine heritage-language maintenance with focused instruction in formal and academic registers, and help shape institutional policies supporting bilingual education.