@misc{Festman2012, author = {Festman, Julia}, title = {Language control abilities of late bilinguals}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {459}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413930}, pages = {14}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Although all bilinguals encounter cross-language interference (CLI), some bilinguals are more susceptible to interference than others. Here, we report on language performance of late bilinguals (Russian/German) on two bilingual tasks (interview, verbal fluency), their language use and switching habits. The only between-group difference was CLI: one group consistently produced significantly more errors of CLI on both tasks than the other (thereby replicating our findings from a bilingual picture naming task). This striking group difference in language control ability can only be explained by differences in cognitive control, not in language proficiency or language mode.}, language = {en} } @article{WellmannHolzgrefeLangTruckenbrodtetal.2012, author = {Wellmann, Caroline and Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia and Truckenbrodt, Hubert and Wartenburger, Isabell and H{\"o}hle, Barbara}, title = {How each prosodic boundary cue matters evidence from German infants}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00580}, pages = {13}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Previous studies have revealed that infants aged 6-10 months are able to use the acoustic correlates of major prosodic boundaries, that is, pitch change, preboundary lengthening, and pause, for the segmentation of the continuous speech signal. Moreover, investigations with American-English- and Dutch-learning infants suggest that processing prosodic boundary markings involves a weighting of these cues. This weighting seems to develop with increasing exposure to the native language and to underlie crosslinguistic variation. In the following, we report the results of four experiments using the headturn preference procedure to explore the perception of prosodic boundary cues in German infants. We presented 8-month-old infants with a sequence of names in two different prosodic groupings, with or without boundary markers. Infants discriminated both sequences when the boundary was marked by all three cues (Experiment 1) and when it was marked by a pitch change and preboundary lengthening in combination (Experiment 2). The presence of a pitch change (Experiment 3) or preboundary lengthening (Experiment 4) as single cues did not lead to a successful discrimination. Our results indicate that pause is not a necessary cue for German infants. Pitch change and preboundary lengthening in combination, but not as single cues, are sufficient. Hence, by 8 months infants only rely on a convergence of boundary markers. Comparisons with adults' performance on the same stimulus materials suggest that the pattern observed with the 8-month-olds is already consistent with that of adults. We discuss our findings with respect to crosslinguistic variation and the development of a language-specific prosodic cue weighting.}, language = {en} } @article{FestmanMuente2012, author = {Festman, Julia and Muente, Thomas F.}, title = {Cognitive control in Russian-German bilinguals}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00115}, pages = {7}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Bilingual speakers are faced with the problem to keep their languages apart, but do so with interindividually varying success. Cognitive control abilities might be an important factor to explain such interindividual differences. Here we compare two late, balanced and highly proficient bilingual groups (mean age 24 years, L1 Russian, L2 German) which were established according to their language control abilities on a bilingual picture-naming task. One group had difficulties to remain in the instructed target language and switched unintentionally to the non-target language ("switchers"), whereas the other group rarely switched unintentionally ("non-switchers"). This group-specific behavior could not be explained by language background, socio-cultural, or demographic variables. Rather, the non-switchers also demonstrated a faster and better performance on four cognitive control tests (Tower of Hanoi, Ruff Figural Fluency Test, Divided Attention, Go/Nogo). Here, we focus on two additional executive function tasks, theWisconsin Card SortingTest (WCST) and the Flanker task requiring conflict monitoring and conflict resolution. Non-switchers outperformed switchers with regard to speed and accuracy, and were better at finding and applying the correct rules in the WCST. Similarly, in the Flanker task non-switchers performed faster and better on conflict trials and had a higher correction rate following an error. Event-related potential recordings furthermore revealed a smaller error-related negativity in the non-switchers, taken as evidence for a more efficient self-monitoring system. We conclude that bilingual language performance, in particular switching behavior, is related to performance on cognitive control tasks. Better cognitive control, including conflict monitoring, results in decreased unintentional switching.}, language = {en} } @article{DomahsKnausOrzechowskaetal.2012, author = {Domahs, Ulrike and Knaus, Johannes and Orzechowska, Paula and Wiese, Richard}, title = {Stress "deafness" in a language with fixed word stress an ERR study on Polish}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00439}, pages = {15}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The aim of the present contribution was to examine the factors influencing the prosodic processing in a language with predictable word stress. For Polish, a language with fixed penultimate stress but several well-defined exceptions, difficulties in the processing and representation of prosodic information have been reported (e.g., Peperkamp and Dupoux, 2002). The present study utilized event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the factors influencing prosodic processing in Polish. These factors are (i) the predictability of stress and (ii) the prosodic structure in terms of metrical feet. Polish native speakers were presented with correctly and incorrectly stressed Polish words and instructed to judge the correctness of the perceived stress patterns. For some stress violations, an early negativity was found which was interpreted as a reflection of an error-detection mechanism. In addition, exceptional stress patterns (=antepenultimate stress) and post-lexical (=initial) stress evoked a task-related positivity effect (P300) whose amplitude and latency is correlated with the degree of anomaly and deviation from an expectation. In contrast, violations involving the default (=penultimate stress) did not produce such an effect. This asymmetrical result is interpreted to reflect that Polish native speakers are less sensitive to the default pattern than to the exceptional or post-lexical patterns. Behavioral results are orthogonal to the electrophysiological results showing that Polish speakers had difficulties to reject any kind of stress violation. Thus, on a meta-linguistic level Polish speakers appeared to be stress-"deaf" for any kind of stress manipulation, whereas the neural reactions differentiate between the default and lexicalized patterns.}, language = {en} } @article{RothweilerChillaClahsen2012, author = {Rothweiler, Monika and Chilla, Solveig and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Subject-verb agreement in specific language impairment}, series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, volume = {15}, journal = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, number = {1}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {1366-7289}, doi = {10.1017/S136672891100037X}, pages = {39 -- 57}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This study investigates phenomena that have been claimed to be indicative of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in German, focusing on subject-verb agreement marking. Longitudinal data from fourteen German-speaking children with SLI, seven monolingual and seven Turkish-German successive bilingual children, were examined. We found similar patterns of impairment in the two participant groups. Both the monolingual and the bilingual children with SLI had correct (present vs. preterit) tense marking and produced syntactically complex sentences such as embedded clauses and wh-questions, but were limited in reliably producing correct agreement-marked verb forms. These contrasts indicate that agreement marking is impaired in German-speaking children with SLI, without any necessary concurrent deficits in either the CP-domain or in tense marking. Our results also show that it is possible to identify SLI from an early successive bilingual child's performance in one of her two languages.}, language = {en} } @article{StedePeldszus2012, author = {Stede, Manfred and Peldszus, Andreas}, title = {The role of illocutionary status in the usage conditions of causal connectives and in coherence relations}, series = {Journal of pragmatics : an interdisciplinary journal of language studies}, volume = {44}, journal = {Journal of pragmatics : an interdisciplinary journal of language studies}, number = {2}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0378-2166}, doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2012.01.004}, pages = {214 -- 229}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The meaning of linguistic connectives has often been characterized in terms of their position in a bipartite (semantic, pragmatic) or a tripartite (content, epistemic, speech act) structure of domains, depending on what kinds of entities are being connected (largely: propositions or speech acts). This paper argues that a more fine-grained analysis can be achieved by directing some more attention to the characterization of the entities being related. We propose an inventory of categories of illocutionary status for labelling the spans that are being connected. On this basis, the distinction between the content and the epistemic domain, in particular, can be made more explicit. Focusing on the group of causal connectives in German, we conducted a corpus annotation study from which we derived distinct pragmatic 'usage profiles' of the most frequent causal connectives. Finally, we offer some suggestions on the role of illocutions in relation-based accounts of discourse structure.}, language = {en} } @article{KeehnerFischer2012, author = {Keehner, Madeleine and Fischer, Martin H.}, title = {Unusual bodies, uncommon behaviors individual and group differences in embodied cognition in spatial tasks}, series = {Spatial cognition and computation}, volume = {12}, journal = {Spatial cognition and computation}, number = {2-3}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Philadelphia}, issn = {1387-5868}, doi = {10.1080/13875868.2012.659303}, pages = {71 -- 82}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This editorial introduces a set of papers on differential embodiment in spatial tasks. According to the theoretical notion of embodied cognition, our experiences of acting in the world, and the constraints of our sensory and motor systems, strongly shape our cognitive functions. In the current set of papers, the authors were asked to particularly consider idiosyncratic or differential embodied cognition in the context of spatial tasks and processes. In each contribution, differential embodiment is considered from one of two complementary perspectives: either by considering unusual individuals, who have atypical bodies or uncommon experiences of interacting with the world; or by exploring individual differences in the general population that reflect the naturally occurring variability in embodied processes. Our editorial summarizes the contributions to this special issue and discusses the insights they offer. We conclude from this collection of papers that exploring differences in the recruitment and involvement of embodied processes can be highly informative, and can add an extra dimension to our understanding of spatial cognitive functions. Taking a broader perspective, it can also shed light on important theoretical and empirical questions concerning the nature of embodied cognition per se.}, language = {en} } @article{AydelottBaerHenneyTrzaskowskietal.2012, author = {Aydelott, Jennifer and Baer-Henney, Dinah and Trzaskowski, Maciej and Leech, Robert and Dick, Frederic}, title = {Sentence comprehension in competing speech dichotic sentence-word priming reveals hemispheric differences in auditory semantic processing}, series = {Language and cognitive processes}, volume = {27}, journal = {Language and cognitive processes}, number = {7-8}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hove}, issn = {0169-0965}, doi = {10.1080/01690965.2011.589735}, pages = {1108 -- 1144}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This study examined the effects of competing speech on auditory semantic comprehension using a dichotic sentence-word priming paradigm. Lexical decision performance for target words presented in spoken sentences was compared in strongly and weakly biasing semantic contexts. Targets were either congruent or incongruent with the sentential bias. Sentences were presented to one auditory channel (right or left), either in isolation or with competing speech produced by a single talker of the same gender presented simultaneously. The competing speech signal was either presented in the same auditory channel as the sentence context, or in a different auditory channel, and was either meaningful (played forward) or unintelligible (time-reversed). Biasing contexts presented in isolation facilitated responses to congruent targets and inhibited responses to incongruent targets, relative to a neutral baseline. Facilitation priming was reduced or eliminated by competing speech presented in the same auditory channel, supporting previous findings that semantic activation is highly sensitive to the intelligibility of the context signal. Competing speech presented in a different auditory channel affected facilitation priming differentially depending upon ear of presentation, suggesting hemispheric differences in the processing of the attended and competing signals. Results were consistent with previous claims of a right ear advantage for meaningful speech, as well as with visual word recognition findings implicating the left hemisphere in the generation of semantic predictions and the right hemisphere in the integration of newly encountered words into the sentence-level meaning. Unlike facilitation priming, inhibition was relatively robust to the energetic and informational masking effects of competing speech and was not influenced by the strength of the contextual bias or the meaningfulness of the competing signal, supporting a two-process model of sentence priming in which inhibition reflects later-stage, expectancy-driven strategic processes that may benefit from perceptual reanalysis after initial semantic activation.}, language = {en} } @misc{Zerbian2012, author = {Zerbian, Sabine}, title = {Variation in the grammar of black south African English}, series = {Southern African linguistics and applied language studies}, volume = {30}, journal = {Southern African linguistics and applied language studies}, number = {1}, publisher = {NISC}, address = {Grahamstown}, issn = {1607-3614}, doi = {10.2989/16073614.2012.693721}, pages = {131 -- 135}, year = {2012}, language = {en} } @article{Winst2012, author = {Winst, Silke}, title = {Narration in the late middle ages seriality and complexity in the epic prose "Loher and Maller"}, series = {Beitr{\"a}ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur}, volume = {134}, journal = {Beitr{\"a}ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur}, number = {2}, publisher = {Niemeyer}, address = {T{\"u}bingen}, issn = {0005-8076}, pages = {220 -- 238}, year = {2012}, language = {de} }