Code-switching in bilinguals: Behavioral and elctrophysiological approaches. Public talk to Jane Van Hell (Penn State).
A unique feature of bilingual speech is that bilinguals often produce utterances that switch between languages, such as "I ate huevos para el desayuno" (eggs for breakfast). What are the mechanisms that drive bilinguals to switch into the other language when interacting with other bilinguals? What are the processing costs involved in reading or listening to code-switched sentences? Dr. Van Hell will present recent psycholinguistic and electrophysiological studies that examined intro-sentential code-switching in production and comprehension, and discuss evidence showing that switching direction (switching from the first language to the second language, or vice versa) and accented speech modulate switching costs when bilinguals read or listen to code-switched sentences. Together these studies attest to the value of integrating psycholinguistic and neurocognitive approaches to understand the mechanisms f intra-sentential code-switching.

Location:	Shanks 370/380
Price:	free
Contact:	Abby Walker ajwalker@vt.edu 231-5138
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