Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Imageability is a psycholinguistic variable that indicates how well a word gives rise to a mental image or sensory experience. Imageability ratings are used extensively in psycholinguistic, neuropsychological, and aphasiological studies.... more
Imageability is a psycholinguistic variable that indicates how well a word gives rise to a mental image or sensory experience. Imageability ratings are used extensively in psycholinguistic, neuropsychological, and aphasiological studies. However, little formal knowledge exists about whether and how these ratings are associated between and within languages. Fifteen imageability databases were cross-correlated using nonparametric statistics. Some of these corresponded to unpublished data collected within a European research network-the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists (COST IS1208). All but four of the correlations were significant. The average strength of the correlations (rho = .68) and the variance explained (R (2) = 46%) were moderate. This implies that factors other than imageability may explain 54% of the results. Imageability ratings often correlate across languages. Different possibly interacting factors may explain the moderate strength and variance explained in the correla...
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ABSTRACT The study of code-switching and more specifically the restrictions that govern bilingual speech have recently received a lot of attention in linguistics research. Several theoretical models have been proposed mainly to account... more
ABSTRACT The study of code-switching and more specifically the restrictions that govern bilingual speech have recently received a lot of attention in linguistics research. Several theoretical models have been proposed mainly to account for what happens at “conflict sites”, that is, where the grammars of the two languages differ. The aim of the present study is to provide a general overview of the different methodologies available to evaluate which factors determine the resolution of grammatical conflict in bilingual speech. Reference will be made to the results that previous studies obtained in some bilingual communities. Some of the data gathering methods will be described, from most naturalistic methods (corpus data) to most experimental ones, such as (semi-spontaneous) elicitation behavioral tasks and auditory acceptability judgment tasks or more novel methods as the electrophysiological responses measured by means of event related potentials. We will discuss how the data obtained through different methods may cast light on theoretical linguistics based on recent studies on Welsh-English, Basque-Spanish and Papiamento-Dutch bilinguals. The main results of these studies will be presented in order to explore some of the grammatical conflicts that arise in the nominal phrase when the properties of the languages differ. In particular, we will focus on a) the relative order of the noun and the adjective (Welsh-English and Papiamento-Dutch), and b) the presence or absence of grammatical gender (Basque-Spanish). In general, the results corroborate the need for integrating various methodologies in order to analyze in depth both the linguistic and extralinguistic features of code-switching.