Word Comprehension and Second Language

Midgley, Holcomb, and Grainger (2011) investigated modalities of the processing of cognate and noncognate words in second language learners in the first (L1) and second (L2) language. Participants were native english speakers learning as their second language french. The subjects required to read lists of words and what their meaning was and making button presses when there were probes from a particular semantic category. During the task, ERP's were recorded. Cognates were 160 items that were chosen for the two languages and the same amount of noncognates were also chosen. There were made two lists of words, an english one, and a french one. The ERP N400 component was affected by the cognate states in the case of both languages. For noncognates, the N400 was even larger than for cognates. In both L1 and L2 there was reduced amplitude of the N400 concerning cognate words as compared to noncognate words in both L1 and L2. It was suggested that the principal finding of this investigation was related to the influence of cognate status upon the recognition of words in the first language (Midgley et al., 2011).