The influence of bilingualism factors and its variants on the assessment of the perceptual experience contribution to word semantics

Abstract

This study addresses a key issue in cognitive linguistics: how bilingualism influences the sensory-perceptual foundations of word meaning. Grounded in the theory of embodied cognition, which posits that semantic representations are built on multimodal sensory experiences, the research aims to identify the specific impact of bilingualism as a general factor and the differential effects of its variants. The central hypothesis is that both the fact of bilingualism and its specific type (e.g., Tuvan-Russian vs. Uzbek-Russian) systematically shift the perceptual profiles of words in a second language (L2). The research employs a comparative psycholinguistic methodology. The primary empirical base is the author's newly created TuvRusWordPerception database, containing ratings from 198 Tuvan-Russian bilinguals. For comparison, data from two other groups were used: 102 Uzbek-Russian bilinguals (from the UzRusWordPerception database) and 111 monolingual Russian speakers (from the RuWordPerception database). All participants assessed the same set of 600 Russian words (nouns, adjectives, verbs) using a 7-point Likert scale, rating the strength of association with five perceptual modalities: Vision, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Touch. This unified procedure ensured the comparability of the collected data, which totaled hundreds of thousands of individual ratings. A comparative statistical analysis of the averaged modality ratings across the three groups revealed systematic differences. While the visual modality was dominant across all groups, its strength varied: Uzbek-Russian bilinguals showed the highest visual scores, followed by Tuvan-Russian bilinguals, with monolinguals showing the lowest. The most striking finding concerns non-visual modalities. Tuvan-Russian bilinguals consistently provided statistically significantly higher ratings for auditory, olfactory, taste, and touch modalities compared to both Uzbek-Russian bilinguals and Russian monolinguals. The latter two groups often showed similar, lower scores for these modalities. The study yields two primary conclusions. First, the fact of bilingualism itself has a significant enriching effect, as evidenced by the generally higher sensory ratings from Tuvan-Russian bilinguals compared to monolinguals. Second, and more importantly, the type of bilingualism is a decisive factor. The stark contrast between the Tuvan-Russian and Uzbek-Russian groups indicates that linguistic and cultural context modulates perceptual semantics. The "Tuvan" profile, characterized by balanced, high ratings across all senses, is interpreted as a result of their coordinative bilingualism and a cultural context that may emphasize multisensory experience. Conversely, the "Uzbek" profile, with a strong visual dominance, aligns with a subordinative type of bilingualism. Thus, the research proves that bilingualism does not merely alter language processing but qualitatively reshapes embodied semantic representations, depending on the specific bilingual experience. The author declares no conflicts of interests.