Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1998
Abstract
Language dependency in parsing results when the parsing strategies used by bilinguals depend on the language of the input, in the case that cross-linguistic differences in processing exist. If bilingual parsing is language independent, on the other hand, bilinguals will process all input using the same strategies---those of L1, those of L2, or an amalgamated or compromised set of L1 and L2 strategies. This discussion evaluates existing research on bilingual processing, regarding how well it addresses questions related to the language dependency issue, as well as recent research on cross-linguistic differences in parsing. As a preview into the future of bilingual sentence processing research, this paper also reports preliminary evidence on bilingual sentence processing which shows that language history strongly influences strategy use in the second language of bilinguals.