<p>Language comprehension involves prediction, but what exactly can comprehenders predict? We ask if bilinguals can consciously predict upcoming code-switches between languages. If predictions focus on a sentence’s message, then listeners should not predict code-switches, which alter the language used but not necessarily the meaning. Alternatively, if listeners predict at many levels—including language—then they may predict code-switches. Here, we selected sentences from a corpus of spontaneous bilingual conversations that started in Spanish and removed the final word that would have continued in Spanish or code-switched to English. In two preregistered experiments, Spanish–English bilinguals heard these sentence fragments and predicted the language of the omitted final word. They successfully predicted upcoming code-switches when given 30 seconds of context prior to their predictions (Experiment 1; <i>N</i> = 94), but not when only hearing the sentence fragment (Experiment 2, <i>N</i> = 115). This shows that bilinguals can predict upcoming code-switches when sufficient conversational cues are available.</p>

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¿Sabes si viene un code-switch? Bilinguals can predict upcoming code-switches given enough context

  • Lauren K. Salig,
  • Jorge R. Valdés Kroff,
  • Jeymi Menendez,
  • Mia C. Lulli,
  • L. Robert Slevc

摘要

Language comprehension involves prediction, but what exactly can comprehenders predict? We ask if bilinguals can consciously predict upcoming code-switches between languages. If predictions focus on a sentence’s message, then listeners should not predict code-switches, which alter the language used but not necessarily the meaning. Alternatively, if listeners predict at many levels—including language—then they may predict code-switches. Here, we selected sentences from a corpus of spontaneous bilingual conversations that started in Spanish and removed the final word that would have continued in Spanish or code-switched to English. In two preregistered experiments, Spanish–English bilinguals heard these sentence fragments and predicted the language of the omitted final word. They successfully predicted upcoming code-switches when given 30 seconds of context prior to their predictions (Experiment 1; N = 94), but not when only hearing the sentence fragment (Experiment 2, N = 115). This shows that bilinguals can predict upcoming code-switches when sufficient conversational cues are available.