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Is he floating across or crossing afloat? Cross-influence of L1 and L2 in

Spanish–English bilingual adults

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DOI: 10.1017/S1366728906002616

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Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 9 (3), 2006, 249–261

C 2006 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S1366728906002616 249

JILL HOHENSTEIN
Is he floating across or crossing King’s College London
afloat? Cross-influence of L1 ANN EISENBERG
University of Texas, San Antonio
and L2 in Spanish–English LETITIA NAIGLES
University of Connecticut
bilingual adults∗
Research has begun to address the question of transfer of language usage patterns beyond the idea that people’s native
language (L1) can influence the way they produce a second language (L2). This study investigated bidirectional transfer, of
both lexical and grammatical features, in adult speakers of English and Spanish who varied in age of L2 acquisition. Early
and late learners of English watched and orally described video depictions of motion events. Findings suggest bilinguals’
patterns of motion description lexically and grammatically resemble those of monolinguals in each language. However,
although participants showed bidirectional lexical transfer, they displayed only L1-to-L2 grammatical transfer. Furthermore,
learning L2 post-puberty affected L2 lexical choice, but both early and late L2 learners showed L2 influence on L1 lexical
choice. Finally, the findings of grammatical transfer and age of acquisition were mixed. We discuss results with reference to
theories of cross-language transfer.

Bilingual speakers have command of two languages and,
as such, have long intrigued psycholinguists with their
ability to shed light on issues of language representation
and language processing (e.g. Grosjean, 1982; Heredia,
1997). Many questions revolve around the basic issue
concerning the degree to which the two languages are rep-
resented or processed independently versus interactively
(e.g. Kroll and Stewart, 1994; Heredia, 1997; Nicoladis
and Genesse, 1997; Hartsuiker, Pickering and Veltkamp,
2004). Cross-language transfer provides a way of invest-
igating this issue because languages that are represented
and/or processed completely independently should not
influence each other in language USE. The dominant
paradigm in research on bilingual transfer has typically
focussed on the transfer of speakers’ first language (L1)
to their second language (L2, e.g. Gass and Selinker, 1992;
MacWhinney, 1992). Certainly, considerable L1→L2
transfer has been observed in adult bilinguals who learned
L2 after puberty, both in lexical (e.g. Kroll and Stewart,
1994; Heredia, 1997) and grammatical (e.g. Hartsuiker
et al., 2004) domains. For example, Kroll and Stewart
showed that latencies were much greater in translating
* This research was supported by NIMH postdoctoral fellowship
training grant number 5 T32 NH020025 to Jill Hohenstein. Thanks
go to Marianella Casasola and Elena Nicolaidis for their comments
on this research, and to Carmen Silva-Corvalán and two anonymous
reviews for their guidance. We are grateful to the bilingual speakers
for their participation and to Angelica Runno for her help in collecting
and translating these data. Portions of these data were presented at the
2003 International Conference on Cognitive Linguistics, La Rioja,
Spain.
words from L1 to L2 than in translating from L2 to L1.
In addition, Hartsuiker and colleagues demonstrated that
adult Spanish–English bilinguals produced more passives
in L2 when these had been heard repeatedly in L1.
Recently, however, researchers have begun to address
the question of transfer with respect to other complexities
in bilingualism, including the age of L2 acquisition, the
possible transfer of L2 to L1, and the different aspects
of language that may be affected. Whereas some studies
have examined one or two of these complexities, we know
of no study that has addressed all of them with the same
participants. Thus, in this paper, we present analyses
of Spanish–English bilingual speech that demonstrate
bidirectional transfer and effects of age of acquisition,
while addressing both lexical and grammatical aspects of
language.
Theoretical background
At least two theories have addressed the question
of why L1 might influence L2. One of these is the
Competition Model (MacWhinney, 1987, 1992), which
claims that learners rely (especially initially) on transfer
of knowledge through a set of cues from L1 to help
them function in L2 phonologically, syntactically
and lexically. These cues hold differing levels of
availability, detectability and reliability. One task learners
must face is discovering which cues map directly
onto L2 from L1, which cues require some amount
of manipulation before they are useful, and which
cues offer little to help production or comprehension
of L2.

Address for correspondence

Jill Hohenstein, Department of Education and Professional Studies, King’s College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building, London SE1 9NH, UK
E-mail: jill.hohenstein@kcl.ac.uk
250 J. Hohenstein, A. Eisenberg and L. Naigles
Generally, few studies have invoked the Competition
Model (CM) to explain any influence of L2 on L1. In
fact, when Cook, Iarossi, Stellakis and Tokumaru (2003)
tested the CM by asking bilinguals (English L2, Japanese,
Greek or Spanish L1) to assign subjects to sentences
containing two nouns and one verb, they found general
rather than specific influences from L2 on L1. That is,
their L1 performance differed from monolinguals’ but
not in ways that were predictable by the presence of L2.
Another explanation of language transfer comes from
the theory of Structural Ambiguity (Müller, 1998), which
holds that in simultaneous bilinguals, the direction of
transfer for any given structure should be from the
language that is least ambiguous to that which is more
ambiguous in input for that structure.1 This transfer may
manifest as overuse of a pattern in the target language that
is ubiquitous in the source language. Müller exemplified
Structural Ambiguity using a bilingual French/Dutch
speaking child who produced OV sequences in French
such as livre lire “book to read”, which are rare (but
not prohibited) in French but common in Dutch. In
these cases, it is suggested that the production of the
French structure comes from information about Dutch
structure due to the ambiguity (or multi-potentiality, as
both VO and OV are possible) of French in this instance.
According to Toribio (2004), bilinguals will select the
most parsimonious grammar that serves both languages.
Structural Ambiguity (SA) seems to be most applicable
in cases of simultaneous language acquisition. However,
SA may lend some insight to adult learners’ experience
as well. That is, if a structure in the learner’s L2 is
completely unambiguous, the learner might slip into a
pattern while speaking L1 that matches L2, if the L1
pattern is ambiguous. On the other hand, this would only
help explain the transfer of unambiguous patterns to over-
shadow ambiguous ones. What would happen if both L1
and L2 had ambiguous structures for a given expression?
Following our review of some previous research in this
field, we present a study that considers this scenario.
Transfer in simultaneous bilinguals
There have been several recent demonstrations of bidirec-
tional language transfer. Most of these have only assessed
language use among simultaneous bilinguals, however,
and have only investigated grammatical constructions.
For example, Hernandez, Bates and Avila (1994) showed
that, in a sentence interpretation task, adult Spanish–
English bilinguals used word order cues in Spanish more
than did monolingual Spanish speakers (thus showing
1
A similar theory about language contact called Convergence
(Muysken, 2000; Clyne, 2003) holds that among other things,
economy of expression influences language change when two
languages are in contact with each other.
the influence of English on Spanish) and noun–verb
agreement cues more in English than did monolingual
English speakers (thus showing the influence of Spanish
on English). Moreover, Müller and her colleagues (Müller,
1998; Müller and Hulk, 2001) demonstrated that German–
Romance bilingual children between the ages of one
and four used object drop (a German grammatical form)
in their Romance production MORE frequently than did
monolingual Romance child learners, and they produced
verb-final word orders (another German form) LESS
frequently in German than did monolingual German child
learners. Similarly, Nicoladis (2003) found that English–
French bilinguals aged three to six years used incorrect
verb–object construction (e.g. lave-vaisselle “washes
dishes”, a productive French form) more frequently
in English than did their English monolingual peers.
Interestingly, they also produced these constructions
correctly more frequently in FRENCH than did their French-
speaking monolingual peers. Finally, Döpke (2000) found
that children learning both German and English showed
more frequent use of structures that were shared by
the two languages than was observed in monolinguals
of either language. Thus, certain structures that are
similar cross-linguistically reinforce learning. As can be
seen, bidirectional transfer seems well established, at
least within the grammatical domain and with speakers
who learned both languages simultaneously as children.
Moreover, both cue validity and structural ambiguity exert
influence in what gets transferred.
L2 influence on L1 and bidirectional transfer in adult
learners
Recently, work has begun to address the question of
whether L2 also influences L1 in older learners. Two types
of influences have been observed: specific and general.
Specific influences are those in which a specific aspect
of L2 infiltrates L1. Instances of this type of influence
have been shown by Balcom (2003), who demonstrated
that French speaker grammaticality judgements of middle
constructions were affected (i.e. diminished) by learning
English. Additionally, Jarvis (2003) showed that in a case
study of a Finnish L1 and English L2, the participant’s L1
errors (both grammatical and lexical) were predictable by
English use and, interestingly, were often not recognised
by the participant as utterances she would produce. Laufer
(2003) also showed that identification of collocation
errors by Russian–Hebrew bilinguals in Russian (L1) was
influenced by their knowledge of Hebrew (L2) in ways
that mapped on to Hebrew speech patterns.
General influences happen when bilingual speakers’
L1 seems different from that of monolingual speakers, but
not in a way that implies a direct influence of L2. Cook
et al.’s (2003) findings, described earlier, are one example
of this. Kecskes and Papp (2000) have provided another:

they compared two kinds of high-school classroom
learning of a foreign language (A: Students learned other
subjects in the foreign language in addition to receiving
limited language training and B: Students whose only
L2 exposure was through their foreign language class).
They found that the A group had better writing skills
in L1 than the B group. Because there is no reason to
suppose that any of the foreign languages these Hungarian
students were learning (Russian, English or French) had
any direct link to writing skills, it appears that the increase
in writing skills experienced by those who had a broader
use of L2 was a general influence of learning (and using)
a second language on L1. Furthermore, though Laufer
(2003) also showed specific influences in one study, a
separate study demonstrated more general influences on
L1 from L2 in that L1 speakers had less lexical diversity
than monolinguals in writing (especially those who were
long-time speakers of L2).
Finally, two recent studies have investigated BIDIREC-
TIONAL transfer in adults. Pavlenko and Jarvis (2002)
examined bidirectional transfer with Russian speakers
(L1) who learned English (L2) post-puberty. Unlike most
previous studies, their work addressed questions of both
lexical and grammatical production. They asked parti-
cipants to narrate dialogue-less films in either English or
Russian. They found bidirectional transfer in the domains
of linguistic frame choice, word selection, loan transla-
tion, and sub-categorization transfer. For example, Rus-
sian and English differ in the syntactic constructions used
in reference to emotions. In Russian, speakers commonly
refer to emotions as processes rather than states. Pavlenko
and Jarvis’ participants tended to refer to emotions using
nouns (as if they could be possessed) in English, as would
be typical in Russian (L1 influence on L2). They also used
verb + adjective constructions in Russian that are typical
of English (L2 influence on L1). In this study, then, L1
and L2 appeared to influence each other in speakers’ story
narratives in both the lexical and grammatical domains.
Interestingly, some work with adult learners of L2 has
also shown that in the description of motion events there
is a bidirectional transfer in a non-linguistic aspect of
communication. Bilinguals who speak both English and
either Spanish or French (both languages with high gesture
rates) were more likely than monolingual English speakers
to accompany their speech in English with gestures (Pika,
Nicoladis and Marentette, under review). Additionally,
higher rate of gesture occurred regardless of whether
English was the L1 or the L2.
Taken together, these findings suggest, indeed, that L2
influences L1; moreover, bidirectional influence occurs
in the same individuals. Are these effects independent of
age of L2 acquisition? A recent study by Montrul (2002)
suggests not: Montrul demonstrated that Spanish L1
learners showed less traditional usage of the tense/aspect
system in Spanish if they had early, rather than late,
Bilingual adult cross-influence 251
English (L2) acquisition. These results may be informative
in the transfer debate because loss of Spanish here could
be seen as the result of the influence of English, which
has a less distinct system of past tense marking. Adult
Spanish/English bilinguals who were simultaneous, pre-3
(learned before age 3), early (learned between ages 4 and
7), or late (learned between ages 8 and 12) learners were
tested in the comprehension and production of preterit and
imperfect tenses. Montrul found that, in a story-telling
task in Spanish, simultaneous bilinguals used imperfect
verbs in contexts that called for the preterit, whereas
early bilinguals used the preterit where the imperfect
was called for. Thus, overall, earlier bilinguals showed
less fluency in their Spanish tense/aspect distinctions than
did late bilinguals and monolinguals. Similarly, Gutierrez
and Silva-Corvalán (1993) compared Spanish L1 speakers
who learned English L2 at different times in their lives
(simultaneous, before age 6, after age 11 or never) for
their use of clitics in L1. They found that the groups
with the least experience with L2 used the most preverbal
clitics in L1, with simultaneous and early bilinguals often
omitting reflexive and reciprocal clitics, especially. Thus,
though Gutierrez and Silva-Corvalán were not working
within the CM tradition, they found that more experience
with L2, seen usually in early bilinguals, led to more L2
influence, as would be predicted by the CM.
In sum, bidirectional transfer clearly occurs; however,
questions remain concerning how pervasive it is. First,
does bidirectional transfer depend on age of acquisition?
The above findings suggest that L2→L1 transfer is
influenced by age of acquisition; however, there is little
data concerning the L1→L2 direction. One might predict
less L2→L1 influence in late learners because late
learners have less experience with L2 and so less time for
its influence to be felt. Moreover, late learners typically do
not achieve mastery of L2 as completely as early learners
do (e.g. Johnson and Newport, 1989, 1991; Montrul,
2002; Montrul and Slobokova, 2003); an L2 that is not
thoroughly learned may have less influence to exert.
However, late learners might show more influence of L1
on L2, given their shorter experience with L2. Second,
how much does bidirectional transfer depend on specifics
of the structure or domain? The above studies have
primarily investigated grammatical structures, especially
those that are ambiguous (i.e. multipotential) in one of
the bilinguals’ two languages. Pavlenko and Jarvis are
the only ones to report bidirectional effects with lexical
items; clearly, more such research is needed. Moreover, the
issue of Structural Ambiguity needs more investigation;
in particular, is SA necessary to enable cross-language
transfer? Might such transfer across languages occur
if either both structures or lexical items are available
in both languages, but to different degrees based on
patterns of language use? In the current study, we address
these questions with an investigation of Spanish–English
252 J. Hohenstein, A. Eisenberg and L. Naigles
bilinguals’ descriptions of motion events. We compare
early vs. late learners of English (all were Spanish mother
tongue) and analyse the motion event descriptions for both
lexical word choice and grammatical constructions.
Motion event description
Much attention has been devoted recently to motion event
description in speakers of various languages (e.g. Talmy,
1991; Berman and Slobin, 1994; Naigles, Eisenberg,
Kako, Highter and McGraw, 1998). We chose to examine
motion events in bilingual production because the cross-
linguistic differences in motion event description are
both lexical and grammatical in nature (e.g. Berman and
Slobin, 1994). Motion events include many components,
such as the figure, ground, cause, manner, or path;
however, languages vary in which components they
typically express in the verb. Talmy (1991) called langu-
ages that tend to express the path of motion in the main
verb ‘verb-framed languages’ (e.g. Spanish, Hebrew),
whereas he called languages that tend to express the
manner of motion in the main verb ‘satellite-framed
languages’ (e.g. English, German). For instance, the
English sentence “She is RUNNING out of the house”
would be expressed in Spanish as “Ella está saliendo
de la casa (CORRIENDO)”/“She is exiting the house
(RUNNING)”. Moreover, because information about the
path is expressed in Spanish in the main verb, more spe-
cific ground or locative information, usually expressed by
prepositional phrases (PPs), is not produced as frequently
as in English (e.g. “the house” in the previous example).
This pattern has been seen in language production tasks
with both adults and children (e.g. Berman and Slobin,
1994; Naigles et al., 1998) and in novel verb-learning
tasks (Naigles and Terrazas, 1998; Hohenstein, Naigles
and Eisenberg, 2004; Hohenstein, 2005). Notice, then, that
the expression of motion in both languages involves both
lexical (i.e. verb choice) and grammatical (i.e. modifiers,
ground/locative PPs) variables (Hohenstein et al., 2004).
Transfer between languages can thus be purely lexical or
purely grammatical, or involve some combination of the
two.
Importantly, neither language uses its typical pattern
exclusively. That is, both languages are somewhat
ambiguous with regard to input on the proper way to
describe motion. Thus, it is possible to say, “She is
exiting” in English and “Ella está CORRIENDO”/“She
is RUNNING” in Spanish. In this case, then, we are
looking at possible transfer between two languages that
are each structurally and lexically ambiguous. Structural
Ambiguity would predict that neither language pattern
would be unambiguous and, thus, that there would be
little transfer, bidirectional or otherwise, between Spanish
and English in motion event description. In contrast, the
Competition Model would predict that there would be
more L2 to L1 transfer in early bilinguals than in late
bilinguals because they have had more time to solidify
the patterns of L2. However, CM would also suggest
that there would be more L1 to L2 transfer than L2 to
L1 transfer in late bilinguals because they have spent more
time practicing L1 than L2.2
We used the methodology employed by Naigles et al.
(1998) to examine the ways early and late bilinguals
express motion events. In the Naigles et al. study, adult
speakers of either Spanish or English were asked to
watch a series of videotaped motion events and describe
them in writing. These verbal descriptions were parsed
and coded for verb type (manner, path, or other), the
presence of manner modifiers, and utterance-final (bare;
i.e. no ground/locative PPs) verbs. Several differences
were found across language groups. English speakers used
mainly manner verbs for the main verb of the sentence and
Spanish speakers used proportionally more path verbs.
Spanish speakers also used more manner modifiers than
did English speakers, thereby equalizing the amount of
manner mentioned in the sentences. Finally, Spanish
speakers used more bare verbs (i.e. fewer ground/locative
PPs) than did English speakers.
The three main questions addressed in this study
involved the ways Spanish–English bilingual adults would
describe motion events. The first question was whether the
same Spanish/English contrast that Naigles et al. (1998)
found would be present within bilingual speakers. That is,
do bilinguals, like monolinguals, present more manner
verbs in describing motion events in English than in
Spanish? And do the same syntactic patterns appear (i.e.
do bilinguals produce more sentences with bare verbs
when speaking Spanish than when speaking English)? In
sum, we predicted that the patterns of manner/path verb
use and syntax found in monolinguals would be present
in bilinguals’ speech in the corresponding languages.
The second question was whether the contrast would
manifest cross-linguistic transfer. We were primarily
interested to see whether the use of manner or path verbs
in either Spanish or English was influenced by learning
English as a second language. Because previous research
has shown bidirectional transfer in lexical domains (e.g.
Pavlenko and Jarvis, 2002), we predicted that we would
find lexical transfer from both L1 to L2 and L2 to L1.
In addition, we expected there to be some transfer in
grammar (e.g. Hernandez et al., 1994; Müller and Hulk,
2001; Nicoladis, 2003).
The final question was whether cross-linguistic transfer
varies according to the age of L2 acquisition. As Montrul
2 These predictions are based on the idea that participants who learn
a language later in life would have less overall time spent using L2.
However, we acknowledge that there are cases in which a person will,
because of L2 usage patterns, become dominant in L2 or as fluent in
L2 as in L1. Our predictions based on these theories in such cases
would likely not pertain.

(2002) and Gutierrez and Silva-Corvalán (1993) showed
previously, the use of L1 (Spanish) was more affected
in early bilinguals than in late bilinguals by the learning
of L2 (English). We predicted that late bilinguals would
show less L2 to L1 transfer than would early bilinguals
because late bilinguals’ L1 was established independently
of L2. Similarly, we predicted that late bilinguals would
show more L1-to-L2 transfer than would early bilinguals
because L2 structures may yield more in competition
with more firmly established L1 structures (Johnson and
Newport, 1989, 1991; MacWhinney, 1992). In contrast,
we predicted that early bilinguals would show some
transfer both from L1 to L2 and from L2 to L1 because
they learned both languages at relatively the same time
and, hence, neither language had time to become firmly
established before introducing potential influences from
the other. In addition, this last question allows us to
compare the predictions of SA and CM stated earlier.
Method
We collected data from adult bilingual participants who
had learned Spanish as a first language and acquired
English afterwards. Participants were considered either
early bilinguals (learned English before or beginning at
the age of 5) or late bilinguals (learned English after the
age of 12).
Participants
Participants were adult bilinguals in English and Spanish,
who were either college students or employees at a Texas
university. Eighteen participants (Mean age = 23.2 years,
SD = 3.4) were considered early-onset bilinguals because
they had begun learning English before or at age 5.
The remaining 19 participants were considered late-onset
bilinguals because they had learned English after age
12 (Mean age = 34.4 years, SD = 9.9). On average the
early bilinguals had been speaking English for 19.2 years
(SD = 4.1) and the late bilinguals had been speaking
English for 14.7 years (SD = 5.7). The two groups differed
not only in the variable of interest, namely age at which
exposure to English began, but also in age at time of testing
(p < .01) and length of exposure to English (p < .01). In
addition, whereas all early bilinguals had graduated from
high school, six of the 19 late bilinguals had not attended
high school at all, thus presenting a difference in education
level between groups. The early bilinguals were college
students who used English both at school and at work.
They also tended to use a mix of Spanish and English in
their personal lives. In contrast, the group of late bilinguals
consisted of some college students and some service staff
at the university. As a whole, they tended to use primarily
or only Spanish in their personal lives and both English
and Spanish at work or school.
Bilingual adult cross-influence 253
Table 1. Descriptions of the video motion
event stimuli (Order A).
Item Description
1 Man jogging into building
2 Man crawling up hill
3 Man walking across sidewalk
4 Girl twirling out of building
5 Girl running down hill
6 Girl sliding down slide
7 Girl walking out of building
8 Girl rolling down hill
9 Girl jumping into pool
10 Man leaping into building
11 Man walking up hill
12 Man crawling across sidewalk
Materials
The stimuli were twelve dynamic videos of motion events.
As Table 1 shows, the videos depicted six different paths
of motion (entering, exiting, crossing, going uphill, going
downhill and going into a pool), each of which was
presented twice. Each path event was presented with
two different manners of motion. For instance, the path
of entering a building was presented once with the girl
walking (item 7) and once with the girl twirling (item 4).
Two orders (A and B) were produced to counterbalance
for order effects.
Procedure
Interviews were conducted individually with half of
the participants interviewed first in English, and half
in Spanish first. Participants were shown the videos
sequentially and asked, “What is he/she doing? /What is
happening?” (in Spanish, “¿Qué está pasando?”). The tape
was paused after each video so that participants had time
to respond. They were asked to produce one sentence per
video; however, they were free to say as much as they liked.
All responses were given orally. This was done, in part,
because, although the bilinguals were all fluent English
and Spanish speakers, we could not be sure that they were
literate (or equally literate) in both languages. One week
following completion of the first session, participants
returned to the laboratory and were asked to view the
same videos in the counterbalanced order in the language
not used during the first session. Half of the participants
viewed order A first and half viewed order B first.
Our procedures differ somewhat from those of Naigles
et al. (1998). First, we elicited oral responses, whereas
Naigles et al. asked for written descriptions. Second, we
tested participants individually, with the experimenter
254 J. Hohenstein, A. Eisenberg and L. Naigles
14
12
10
8
6
0
English English Bilingual Spanish Bilingual
Monolingual
Language group
Figure 1. Mean (and Standard Deviation) number of path-conflating and manner-conflating verbs elicited by stimulus
videos, by language group.
present and attending to the videos; whereas in Naigles
et al., people participated in groups, as in a classroom,
with the experimenter present, at the front of the room.
These differences in testing situations may have in-
fluenced the two sets of results and will be addressed in
the General Discussion.
Coding
Most of the responses (96.4%) that participants produced
contained only one main verb. For cases in which there
was more than one main verb, we opted to analyse only
the first main verb of the response. In accordance with
Naigles et al. (1998), the verbs were sorted into three main
categories: manner (e.g. run, walk, skip, leap), path (e.g.
go, come, enter, cross), and other verbs (e.g. play). Coding
was completed by the first and third authors who agreed for
99% of their judgments. Disagreements were resolved by
discussion. Utterances containing the first verb produced
were also parsed for analyses of the post-verbal phrases.
The parses were also completed by the first and third
authors and focussed on identifying the manner modifiers
(e.g. on all fours) and bare verbs (i.e. motion verbs lacking
locative/ground information).
Results
We present three sets of analyses that correspond to the
questions laid out in the introduction. First, we examined
the ways in which these bilingual participants described
the motion events using manner and/or path verbs, and the
proportion of utterances that contained manner modifiers
or bare verbs. Next, we compared these results with
Manner
Path
Spanish
Monolingual
those of monolingual speakers of English and Spanish
from Naigles et al. (1998, Study 2). Finally, we looked
at whether those bilinguals who learned English at an
early age showed differences in the way they described
the events from those who learned English relatively late.
Preliminary analyses revealed no differences in the
proportion of manner or path verbs used by order of video
series presentation or by order of language presentation.
Therefore, in the following analyses we have collapsed
across these variables.
Within-participant comparison of English and Spanish
responses
Propensity to use manner and path verbs
The number of manner and path verbs used by each
participant can be seen in Figure 1 (centre pairs of
bars). In English, participants used an average of 10.19
(SD = 1.61) manner verbs, 1.65 (SD = 1.77) path verbs,
and 0.35 (SD = .86) other verbs. In contrast, when
speaking Spanish, participants used an average of 7.22
(SD = 2.35) manner verbs, 4.49 (SD = 2.35) path verbs,
and 0.27 (SD = .69) other verbs. To compare the frequency
of verb usage in each language, sign tests were performed.
These tests showed that participants were more likely
to use manner verbs when speaking English than when
speaking Spanish, z = –5.26, p < .01. Similarly, they were
more likely to use path verbs when speaking Spanish than
when speaking English, z = –4.93, p < .01. Indeed, when
speaking English, participants were more likely to use a
manner verb than a path verb, z = –5.83, p < .01. However,
when speaking Spanish, participants were also more likely
to use a manner verb than a path verb, z = –2.29, p < .05.

These language differences held for both early, z = –3.57
and z = –3.84, and late bilinguals, z = –3.41 and z = –3.16,
all ps < .01.
Effects of typology on language use
Three separate analyses were of interest with regard to the
way typology interacted with language use: the difference
in verb types that speakers used in each language, the
frequency of manner modifiers used in Spanish and
English, and the number of verbs speakers used in each
language that did not include locative/ground elaboration.
Of the 444 responses in English, 45 verb types were
produced, 32 of which were categorised as manner verbs,
7 as path verbs, and 6 as other. In comparison, of the 444
responses in Spanish, 35 verb types were produced, 22 of
which were categorised as manner verbs, 11 as path verbs,
and 2 as other. Thus, while bilinguals produced more
manner verb types than path verb types in both languages,
the participants produced somewhat fewer verb types in
Spanish than in English. In particular, they produced a
smaller set of manner verbs.
In addition, when speaking in Spanish, participants
produced twice as many manner modifiers (31%) as they
did when speaking English (14%), t(36) = 5.24, p < .01.
These included PPs (e.g. on one foot), adverbs (e.g.
slowly), or gerunds (e.g. moving his arms). In both English
and Spanish, participants tended to use manner modifiers
in sentences with path verbs (26% in English, 48% in
Spanish) rather than with manner verbs (12% in English,
22% in Spanish). And, consistent with Naigles et al.
(1998), participants seemed to produce utterances with
a manner verb more often when speaking English than
when speaking Spanish (85% vs. 60%). However, if we
consider utterances that include either a manner verb or
a manner modifier, participants mentioned manner 88.5%
of the time in English and 78% of the time in Spanish.
Thus, they were more likely to mention manner of motion
in the main verb when speaking English but used either
the verb or a manner modifier to express manner in
Spanish.
Participants also produced more verbs that were
utterance-final, without locative elaboration (i.e. ‘bare’),
when speaking Spanish (19%) than when speaking
English (11%), t(36) = 2.06, p < .05. Of the verbs that
were categorised as bare, these were more often manner-
conflating (82% in Spanish, 90% in English) than path-
conflating (18% in Spanish, 8% in English) in both
languages.
Taken together, the findings indicate that the pattern
that was present in monolingual speakers of English and
Spanish (Naigles et al., 1998) was also evident in bilingual
speakers of both languages. Manner verbs were used more
commonly in English than in Spanish and path verbs were
used more often in Spanish than in English. Furthermore,
manner modifiers occurred more often with path verbs
Bilingual adult cross-influence 255
than with manner verbs in both languages. Finally, manner
verbs appeared in utterance-final positions more often
than did path verbs in both English and Spanish. Although
the pattern among bilinguals appears similar to that seen in
monolinguals, it remains to be seen whether the magnitude
of differences across languages was the same in bilinguals
as it was in monolinguals.
Bilinguals compared with monolinguals
The following analyses compare the data presented in the
previous section with the data from Naigles et al. (1998,
Study 2). Naigles et al. collected data from 11 monolingual
English speakers and 11 monolingual Spanish speakers.
Participants viewed the same video stimuli as in the
present study and provided written responses to each
video. Each participant watched the set of videos in
both orders. Thus, there are two responses for each
video from each participant (therefore, N = 22 in each
group’s analysis). In order to compare monolinguals with
bilinguals, we analysed the bilinguals’ first viewing of the
video series (N = 20 in Spanish and N = 17 in English)
together with the monolinguals’ two viewings, thereby
somewhat equalizing the groups’ sizes.
Propensity to use manner and path verbs
Figure 1 presents the mean number of manner and path
verbs produced for each of the four groups. English-
speaking monolinguals and bilinguals speaking English
produced similar numbers of manner verbs; however,
when speaking English, the bilinguals used more path
verbs than did English monolingual speakers, as shown
in the Mann-Whitney test, z = –2.29, p < .05. In
contrast, when speaking Spanish, bilinguals differed
more dramatically from Spanish monolinguals, using
significantly more manner verbs, z = –3.56, p < .001, and
fewer path verbs, z = –3.73, p < .001. Thus, L1 (Spanish)
influenced bilinguals’ L2 (English) production, at least
in their use of path verbs. However, L2 exerted a greater
influence on speakers’ L1 production in their selection
of motion verbs. Here, there was clearly bidirectional
transfer between L1 and L2 in that bilinguals’ motion
verb choice was less frequently manner-conflating than
monolinguals’ in English and less frequently path-
conflating than monolinguals’ in Spanish.
Effects of language typology on language use
Here the question involved whether the bilingual parti-
cipants used manner modifiers and bare verbs at rates dif-
ferent from monolingual speakers of English or Spanish.
When considering manner modifiers, it appears that
bilinguals produced fewer overall than did monolinguals
in both English (monolingual 31%, bilingual 14%),
t(33.37) = –5.29, p < .01, and Spanish (monolingual 55%,
bilingual 31%), t(40) = –4.49, p < .01. In English, this
pattern of use resulted in somewhat less talk about manner
256 J. Hohenstein, A. Eisenberg and L. Naigles
14
12
10
6
0
Spanish English
Early
Figure 2. Mean (and Standard Deviation) number of path-conflating and manner-conflating verbs produced by early and late
bilinguals.
altogether in bilinguals than in monolinguals (mono-
linguals 95%, bilinguals 88.5%). On the other hand, in
Spanish there was no difference in the overall mention
of manner by monolinguals (79%) and bilinguals (78%).
Thus, although the way in which monolinguals and
bilinguals expressed manner differed in Spanish (more in
the main verb in bilinguals vs. more manner modifiers in
monolinguals), the overall amount of talk about manner
was the same. That there were more manner modifiers
in monolingual than in bilingual speakers’ Spanish
utterances indicates an influence of L2 on L1. However,
in English, monolinguals and bilinguals differed only
in the use of manner modifiers, with bilingual speakers
talking less about manner overall. Thus, L1 influenced L2
in that bilinguals speaking English talked about manner
less than monolinguals in English did. But because
there were no differences overall in manner mention in
Spanish, L2 seems not to have affected L1 in the need to
talk about manner.
Consistent with their lower rate of manner modifier
use, bilinguals also produced more bare-verb utterances
than did monolinguals. In Spanish, the monolinguals
produced 5.7% of their utterances with bare verbs but
the bilinguals produced 19% in this fashion; however,
this difference was not significant, t(40) = –0.66, n.s.
Similarly, in English the monolinguals did not use
bare-verb utterances at all, whereas 10.8% of the
manner
path
Spanish English
Late
bilinguals’ utterances in English included bare motion
verbs. This difference was not tested statistically due to
lack of variance amongst monolingual English speakers.
Interestingly, across language conditions, the proportion
of bare-verb utterances that were path- and manner-
conflating was similar; namely, many more bare-verb
utterances included manner verbs than path verbs. For the
monolingual Spanish speakers, the proportions were 87%
manner-conflating and 13% path-conflating. Similarly,
the bilingual participants’ bare-verb utterances were 82%
manner-conflating and 18% path-conflating in Spanish
and 90% manner-conflating and 8% path-conflating in
English. So in bare verb production, the major influence
is from L1 to L2, because knowing Spanish seems to
have increased English speakers’ production of bare verbs
relative to that of monolingual English speakers. Thus, in
both their mention of manner and bare verbs, bilinguals
seemed to be more influenced by L1 when speaking L2
than the other way around.
Early versus late bilinguals
Propensity to use manner and path verbs
Figure 2 shows that, in English, early bilinguals used
significantly more manner verbs than did late bilinguals,
z = –2.83, p < .01. Early bilinguals did not differ from
monolingual English speakers in their propensity to use
 Bilingual adult cross-influence 257

manner and path verbs. On the other hand, late bilinguals Table 2. Early and late bilinguals’ and Spanish and
differed from early bilinguals in path verb use, z = –2.48, English monolinguals’ percentage use of manner
p < .05, and they produced significantly more path verbs modifiers and bare verbs.
than the English monolinguals did, z = –3.20, p < 001.
Thus, the effect of bilingual language transfer in English Manner Manner Bare
seems confined to the late bilinguals, who produced Group Modifier Mention Verb
fewer manner and more path verbs than early bilinguals Spanish
or monolinguals. In this case, the lexicon of L1 appears
Monolingual 55 79 5.7
to be influencing that of L2, but only when L2 is learned
Early 24.6 74 22.4
after puberty.
In contrast, there were no statistically reliable Late 38.4 82.4 15.7
differences between early and late bilinguals in Spanish. English
Although we expected to see more influence of English Monolingual 31 95 0
on early bilinguals speaking Spanish (because they had Early 11.4 92.6 7.5
spent more time speaking English), this was not the Late 17.3 83.3 14.8
case. As shown in Figure 2, both groups averaged
between four and five path verbs and approximately
seven manner verbs when describing the motion events in
Spanish. In fact, both early and late bilinguals produced the early bilinguals used them nearly three times as often
fewer path verbs than Spanish monolinguals did (Early: in Spanish compared with English, t(18) = 3.32, p < .01 –
z = –3.99, p < .001, Late: z = –3.51, p < .001). Thus, again, like the monolinguals – whereas the late bilinguals
the effect of L2 on L1 occurs regardless of the age of L2 used them equivalently in both languages. For all groups,
acquisition. That is, both groups of bilinguals produced bare verbs were much more likely to include the manner
fewer path verbs than the monolinguals did in Spanish. of motion than the path of motion.
On the other hand, there was bidirectional transfer in the With these last comparisons, the signs of cross-
lexicon, but only for the late learners of L2, as they were language transfer become complicated to discern. That
the only ones who produced both fewer manner verbs than is, it is hard to tease apart effects of bilingualism per
monolingual English speakers did and fewer path verbs se from effects of a specific language. In terms of the
than the monolingual Spanish speakers did. Interestingly, constructions used with manner or path verbs within and
both bilingual groups showed more lexical transfer from across languages, the early bilinguals look more like the
L2 to L1 than from L1 to L2. Early and late bilinguals monolinguals in both languages: they use bare verbs more
both used more manner verbs in Spanish than they did with manner verbs than with path verbs, and they mention
path verbs in English, z = –3.71, p < .001 and z = –3.61, manner more in English than in Spanish. Where they differ
p < .001, respectively. from the monolinguals is in the sheer amount of use of
bare verbs and manner modifiers, producing the former
frame more and the latter frame less than monolinguals in
Effects of language typology on language use
both languages. Thus, it is not clear that these differences
Table 2 presents the percentage of manner modifiers and
are attributable to specific effects of L1 or L2. In contrast,
bare verbs used by the different groups. In examining
the late bilinguals look more similar to the monolinguals
the use of manner modifiers in the early and late
in actual numbers (both in English and in Spanish!), as
bilinguals, we observed that the late bilinguals appeared
their percentage use of manner modifiers is closer to
to use more manner modifiers in their descriptions
that of the monolinguals. But this group differs from the
than did early bilinguals in both English and Spanish.
monolinguals in terms of the English/Spanish contrast,
However, neither of these differences was significant.
which is much diminished: they use equivalent numbers
On the other hand, both early and late bilinguals used
of bare verbs in both languages and mention manner at
more manner modifiers in Spanish than in English (like
equivalent rates in both languages. One could say that
monolinguals), t(18) = 3.39, p < .01 and t(17) = 3.95,
L2 and L1 seem to be exerting reciprocal effects here,
p < .01, respectively. In contrast, whereas the late
as speakers’ Spanish is diminishing their manner use in
bilinguals were relatively similar in their proportions
English while their English is enhancing their manner use
of manner MENTION in English and Spanish, the early
in Spanish.
bilinguals had a greater difference between their overall
mention of manner in English and Spanish. In English,
the early bilinguals’ percentages of manner mention are
Discussion
closer to those of the monolinguals. With regard to bare
verbs, both early and late bilinguals used them, overall, in In this study, we have addressed three questions. First,
similar proportions (around 15% of utterances). However, do bilinguals demonstrate the same differences in motion
258 J. Hohenstein, A. Eisenberg and L. Naigles
event descriptions in English and Spanish that are seen
in monolinguals? Our evidence suggests an affirmative
answer: lexically, bilinguals used more manner verbs
in English and path verbs in Spanish. Grammatically,
they used more manner modifiers and bare verbs when
speaking Spanish than when speaking English. Second,
we asked whether this overall pattern was affected by
cross-language transfer and whether such transfer was
seen in both the lexical and grammatical domains. Again,
the answer was in the affirmative: with regard to lexical
transfer, bilinguals’ production of both Spanish and
English was affected. In Spanish, bilinguals used more
manner verbs than did Spanish monolinguals and, in
English, more path verbs than did English monolinguals.
In this respect they were truly “in between” (Hernandez
et al., 1994). However, in their grammatical constructions,
bilinguals differed from monolinguals most obviously
when speaking English, displaying only L1 to L2 trans-
fer. That is, bilinguals speaking English manifested lower
manner modifier use and greater bare verb use, both
properties more typical of Spanish motion event
description.
When these results were further examined for
influences of age of L2 acquisition, we found only one
effect for early bilinguals, an L2 to L1 effect. That is,
early bilinguals used few path verbs in Spanish (showing
the influence of English). However, the effects were more
prevalent for the late bilinguals, in both the lexicon
and grammar. Late bilinguals used fewer path verbs in
Spanish and more path verbs in English (bidirectional
transfer) than did monolinguals; moreover, they made
more mention of manner overall in Spanish and less
mention of manner overall in English, than monolinguals
of either language. Furthermore, their distinction between
English and Spanish in the use of bare verbs was
diminished, as they used these about 15% of the time
in both languages. Thus, specific bidirectional transfer in
this study was seen most frequently in the late bilinguals
and not in the early bilinguals.
These findings appear to provide more support for
the Competition Model than for Structural Ambiguity
as we outlined them in the Introduction. That is, despite
ambiguous structure in both languages, there was transfer
from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English.
However, support for the CM is not so clear-cut either. We
suggested that CM would predict more L2 to L1 transfer
in early than in late bilinguals. In contrast, there seem to
be similar amounts of L2 to L1 transfer in early and late
bilinguals here. Furthermore, whereas we suggested that
there would be more transfer in late bilinguals from L1
to L2 than from L2 to L1, this was only true for lexical
transfer, and it was also true of the early bilinguals. Thus,
neither model provides a clear picture of the nature of
bilingual transfer in these participants. This may be due to
differences in socioeconomic background and education
levels of the groups (discussed below). However, it is
likely that the way individuals in these groups are using
language is playing a significant role in transfer of usage
patterns from one language to another. That is, the fact
that we found transfer in structures that are ambiguous
in both languages indicates that the ambiguity status of
the linguistic structures is not enough to predict whether
transfer will occur. Furthermore, though we did not gather
enough information about each participant to tell whether
usage patterns in individuals’ daily lives mapped onto
individual descriptions of motion in this task, it is worthy
of mention that the late learners of English tended to use
English less often in their personal life as a group, but
were still affected by the presence of English in their use
of Spanish. Thus, the comparison of CM and SA here
mainly serves to reinforce the complexity of the bilingual
speakers’ language patterns.
A fourth finding warrants mention as well, namely
a possible general effect of learning English. This
general effect can be seen in the heightened use of bare
verbs by bilinguals compared with monolinguals in both
languages, as well as the reduction of use of manner
modifiers in both languages. That is, when speaking
Spanish, bilinguals produced the same percentage of
manner modifiers as English-speaking monolinguals,
whereas when speaking English, they produced far fewer
manner modifiers than English-speaking monolinguals.
As mentioned earlier, it is difficult to interpret these
effects as influences of one language on the other,
because they were observed in the bilinguals’ production
in both languages. Nicoladis’ (2003) findings might be
considered similar to these in that the bilingual children
in her study used more Verb–Object compounds in both
languages than did the monolinguals in either language.
On the other hand, there may be differences in the testing
situation across studies or social class differences (as
discussed below) that affected the outcomes.
In what follows, we discuss these findings with respect
to our overarching question about the roles of the
lexicon, grammar, and age of acquisition in single and
bidirectional cross-language transfer. The most pervasive
cross-language transfer was seen in our late bilinguals.
These individuals demonstrated bidirectional transfer in
both lexical and grammatical areas. That is, their L1
enhanced path verb use in L2 and their L2 enhanced
manner verb use in L1. Moreover, the late bilinguals
mentioned manner less in English than monolinguals did.
They made less of a distinction between the two languages
in the grammatical aspects of motion event description
as well, using bare verbs to the same extent in both
languages. These late bilinguals, then, demonstrate that
cross-language transfer can occur with both the lexicon
and grammar, in the same individuals at the same time,
thus replicating Pavlenko and Jarvis’s (2002) findings. At
the same time, these findings are in line with our prediction

that the L1→L2 influence would be stronger than the
L2→L1 influence in late bilinguals. In contrast, the early
bilinguals demonstrated cross-language transfer only in
the lexical domain, and only in one direction, namely,
L2→L1. This was again contrary to our prediction, as
we had expected similar L1→L2 and L2→L1 transfer in
the early bilinguals. Hence, the question becomes, why
was cross-language transfer so much more pervasive in
our late bilinguals than the early ones, both in terms of
direction of transfer and in terms of areas of language?
One possibility is that the cross-language transfer
operated for different reasons in the two directions.
Recall that L1→L2 influence has been most extensively
documented in late bilinguals (e.g. Kroll and Stewart,
1994; Pavlenko and Jarvis, 2002; Hartsuiker et al.,
2004; our findings). These findings most clearly fit
MacWhinney’s (1987, 1992) Competition Model that L1
is stronger in these speakers because they have spent
many more years using L1 only. Therefore, L1 persistently
intrudes upon L2 for PSYCHOLINGUISTIC reasons, because
L1’s words and grammatical constructions are the more
practised. Hakuta, Bialystok and Wiley (2003) have also
suggested that the longer one’s experience with L1 alone,
the more L1 has an effect on L2.
On the other hand, L2→L1 influence may appear, at
least partly, because of CULTURAL reasons. That is, L2→L1
influences seem to be documented in two different
sociolinguistic contexts: first, by adult bilinguals who
are living in a primarily L2 environment (e.g. Gutierrez
and Silva-Corvalán, 1993; Montrul, 2002; Pavlenko and
Jarvis, 2002; Jarvis, 2003; Laufer, 2003; Hartsuiker
et al., 2004), and second, by children who are developing
both languages simultaneously. Given that our study
involved adults, we can say little about what happens
with simultaneous bilingual children. However, the adult
studies, together with our findings that both early and
late bilinguals demonstrated L2→L1 transfer, suggest
that the language dominance of the culture – in addition
to that of the individual – may play a role in cross-
language transfer. Conceivably, this role is also one
of competition, where the ambient language (now L2)
persistently offers lexical and grammatical options for
speech.3 The validity of this second type of cross-language
influence can only be tested experimentally by collecting
data from three other categories of bilingual speakers:
Spanish L1 learning English as L2 and living in a Spanish-
dominant environment (i.e. the same order of acquisition
as our study, but in a different environment), English L1
3 Only Montrul’s (2002) findings are somewhat at odds with this
generalisation: while two-thirds of her bilingual speakers did
demonstrate L2→L1 transfer, one-third (the so-called late learners)
did not. (Moreover, her “late” learners fell into a category that would
be older than our early learners [who began learning L2 at or before
age 5] but younger than our late learners, who began learning L2, on
average, when they were 20 years of age.)
Bilingual adult cross-influence 259
learning Spanish as L2 and living in an English-dominant
environment (i.e. the same environment as our study but
a different order of acquisition), and English L1 learning
Spanish as L2 in a Spanish-dominant environment (i.e.
different order of acquisition and different environment
from our study). Only by comparing different L1s,
different L2s, and different language environments can the
possibly differing roles of individual and cultural language
dominance potentially be distinguished. In fact, Navarro
and Nicoladis (2004) have compared L2 Spanish speakers
who were L1 English speakers with L1 Spanish speakers
(though they were not monolinguals), all of whom were
living in an English-speaking environment on this same
aspect of motion event description. Differences between
the two groups in use of manner and path verbs were not
significant. However, L1 Spanish speakers used more bare
verbs than did L2 Spanish speakers in their descriptions.
Thus, the grammatical effect was stronger than the lexical
effect in this English-dominant environment. Perhaps
then, the CM is supported somewhat by these results, at
least in the area of grammar. However, there is still need
for research with all these groups in Spanish dominant
environments.
Some interesting work on language contact has already
addressed issues of cultural reasons for language change.
For instance, Gutierrez and Silva-Corvalán’s (1993) work
clearly suggests that Spanish L1 is becoming simplified as
a result of contact with English in the American context.
Moreover, other studies (e.g. Otheguy and Garcı́a, 1993)
demonstrate effects of language contact in explanations of
speakers’ experiences in the United States as opposed to
Latin American contexts. These and other studies provide
evidence that cultural context is an extremely important
aspect of language use.
Finally, we take up the differing findings in the lexical
versus grammatical domains: whereas the late bilinguals
showed cross-language transfer in both domains (more
manner verbs in Spanish and path verbs in English, than
monolinguals, and more manner mentions in Spanish but
fewer in English, than monolinguals), the early bilinguals
showed L2→L1 effects – not the only ones expected –
only in the lexical realm. Why was their cross-language
transfer restricted to the lexical realm? One possibility is
that any grammatical L2→L1 effects were masked by the
large increase in bare verb use in both languages. That
is, an L2→L1 effect of grammar might involve the early
bilinguals using MORE ground PPs in Spanish than the
monolinguals; however, they actually used fewer. It seems
that their proclivity for terseness – displayed by both early
and late bilinguals – outweighed any demonstration of
influence of L2 in this area.
So why did the bilinguals exhibit such terseness in
their motion event descriptions? Social class differences
have been cited as possible reasons for differing amounts
of language output; for example, Hoff-Ginsberg (1991)
260 J. Hohenstein, A. Eisenberg and L. Naigles
found that mothers with a high school education spoke
less to their children than did mothers who had some
college education. And, as mentioned earlier, the late
bilinguals in this study had less education than did the
early bilinguals. However, we believe that SES played
little role in our findings, for two reasons: first, the late
bilinguals were actually somewhat LESS terse than the early
bilinguals (e.g. they used more manner modifiers than the
early bilinguals). Second, the socioeconomic status (SES)
of the monolinguals in Naigles et al.’s (1998) study, who
typically had only completed high school, was actually
quite similar to that of the late bilinguals here.
Another potential reason our bilinguals were terse in
comparison with the monolinguals that Naigles et al.
(1998) tested involves the testing situation. While it seems
logical that oral testing would elicit lengthier responses
than written testing because speaking seems like less
work than writing, it is also possible that writers felt their
responses had to be clearer and more detailed because
the audience for the communication was more remote.
Because the bilingual participants were essentially
speaking to someone who could see the video, they might
not have felt compelled to have their descriptions of
the events be as detailed and comprehensive. Clearly,
a useful replication would include responses from both
monolingual and bilingual participants that were either
oral or written. The differences in testing situations
clearly present some limitations to our findings; however,
this seems to have only potentially affected participants’
grammatical constructions, rather than their choice of
lexicon. That is, participants were more terse in the oral
format than in the written one, but they still used more
manner verbs than monolingual Spanish speakers and
more path verbs than monolingual English speakers.
Returning to the issue of the Competition Model and
Structural Ambiguity, we have not resolved the problem
of how these models serve to predict the outcomes of
bidirectional language transfer. Further study of this kind
will require greater attention to the usage patterns and
language dominance of individual speakers. However, we
have clearly shown that both languages that our speakers
used affected each other, particularly in the case of late
learners of English. Whereas these findings do not imply
distinctions in speakers’ mental representations (but see
Hohenstein, 2005, for evidence of linguistic influence on
non-linguistic thought), the speakers’ usage patterns did
enable cross-language transfer.
Obviously, much ground has yet to be covered in the
area of research on bilingualism and bilingual transfer.
In order to understand the phenomena involved in L2 ac-
quisition more completely, it is necessary to conduct more
studies that include bilingual speakers learning languages
other than English and to examine English L1 speakers
learning other languages. Furthermore, the recent devo-
tion of attention to bidirectional transfer must be main-
tained. As both Pavlenko and Jarvis (2002) and we have
shown, both the native language and the target language
can be affected by the introduction of a second language.
Finally, our research suggests that the degree to which
bilinguals process languages independently depends to
some extent on when L2 is learned. That is, learning a
second language early may allow speakers to develop
relatively independent mechanisms for processing their
two languages, as evidenced in the early bilinguals’
lack of cross-linguistic transfer in all areas except
L2→L1 lexical influence. This pattern might be seen as
consistent with Heredia’s (1997) argument that bilinguals
represent lexically according to language dominance if
we consider that these participants were all living in an
English-dominant society. In contrast, learning a second
language after puberty seems to affect processing in
both languages and across both lexical and grammatical
domains. However, characterising late bilinguals as ‘in
between’ (Hernandez et al., 1994) may be too simplistic an
analysis; late bilinguals may demonstrate L1→L2 effects
and L2→L1 effects for different reasons. In sum, the
degree of independent versus interactive processing of L1
and L2 by bilinguals seems clearly affected by the age
of acquisition of L2, and is seen most clearly in lexical
rather than grammatical processes.
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Received February 24, 2005
Revision received September 27, 2005
Accepted December 12, 2005