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The English disease in Finnish compound processing: Backward transfer effects in Finnish–English bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2019

Raymond Bertram  and
Victor Kuperman Open the ORCID record for Victor Kuperman [Opens in a new window]
Raymond Bertram*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland Laboratory for Cognitive Studies of Language, National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia
Victor Kuperman
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and Languages, McMaster University, Canada
*
Address for correspondence: Raymond Bertram, E-mail: rayber@utu.fi
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Abstract

Most English compounds are spaced compounds, whereas spelling regulations prescribe Finnish compounds to be written in a concatenated format. However, as in English, Finnish compounds are commonly spaced nowadays (e.g., piha juhla ‘garden party’), a phenomenon that we labeled the ‘English disease’. In this eye movement study with Finnish–English bilinguals we investigate whether the reading of a concatenated or illegally spaced Finnish compound is affected by the spelling of an English translation equivalent (ETE). We found that spaced Finnish compounds were read slower than their concatenated counterparts, but this effect was attenuated when ETEs were thought to be spaced. Similarly, concatenated Finnish compounds were read faster when their ETEs were also concatenated. These backward transfer effects are in line with studies that show that processing behavior in L1 is affected by a strong concurrent L2, even when the L1 is the native language as well as the dominant community language.

Keywords

Finnishcompoundsbackward transfertranslation equivalentseye-tracking
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , May 2020 , pp. 579 - 590
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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