Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2)
This study investigates the cross-linguistic priming effect in the syntactic written output of late bilingual Levantine Arabic speakers who learn English as a second language. In particular, we examined priming sentence type (simple vs. complex sentences) and priming language condition (Levantine Ar...
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MDPI AG
2025-04-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/4/72 |
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| author | Jamal A. Khlifat Pui Fong Kan |
| author_facet | Jamal A. Khlifat Pui Fong Kan |
| author_sort | Jamal A. Khlifat |
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| description | This study investigates the cross-linguistic priming effect in the syntactic written output of late bilingual Levantine Arabic speakers who learn English as a second language. In particular, we examined priming sentence type (simple vs. complex sentences) and priming language condition (Levantine Arabic vs. English). Forty-nine bilinguals (Mean age = 33.3, SD = 8.5), who learned Levantine Arabic as their L1 and English as their L2, were primed with a short paragraph presented on the computer screen in either English or Levantine Arabic and asked to produce a written response in the counterpart language. Logistic regression analysis revealed a significant cross-linguistic priming effect, suggesting that the syntactic structure of the prime in the participants’ first language (Levantine Arabic) predicts the participants’ written output in the second language (English), and the reverse is also true. However, there was no significant effect of priming sentence type (simple vs. complex) on the likelihood of producing primed res ponses, indicating that both priming conditions yielded similar levels of priming. In contrast, there was a significant effect of the priming language condition, with participants significantly more likely to produce syntactically primed responses when the priming language was Arabic compared to English. In addition, there was a significant interaction between the priming language condition and priming sentence type: Arabic priming led to more simple sentence production in English, whereas English priming did not significantly affect sentence complexity in Arabic. These findings align with the shared syntax account but highlight the need to consider factors such as language dominance in bilingual syntactic processing. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-7e340765205d4b77b34f1ea0538b0143 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2226-471X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
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| series | Languages |
| spelling | doaj-art-7e340765205d4b77b34f1ea0538b01432025-08-20T03:13:52ZengMDPI AGLanguages2226-471X2025-04-011047210.3390/languages10040072Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2)Jamal A. Khlifat0Pui Fong Kan1Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USASpeech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USAThis study investigates the cross-linguistic priming effect in the syntactic written output of late bilingual Levantine Arabic speakers who learn English as a second language. In particular, we examined priming sentence type (simple vs. complex sentences) and priming language condition (Levantine Arabic vs. English). Forty-nine bilinguals (Mean age = 33.3, SD = 8.5), who learned Levantine Arabic as their L1 and English as their L2, were primed with a short paragraph presented on the computer screen in either English or Levantine Arabic and asked to produce a written response in the counterpart language. Logistic regression analysis revealed a significant cross-linguistic priming effect, suggesting that the syntactic structure of the prime in the participants’ first language (Levantine Arabic) predicts the participants’ written output in the second language (English), and the reverse is also true. However, there was no significant effect of priming sentence type (simple vs. complex) on the likelihood of producing primed res ponses, indicating that both priming conditions yielded similar levels of priming. In contrast, there was a significant effect of the priming language condition, with participants significantly more likely to produce syntactically primed responses when the priming language was Arabic compared to English. In addition, there was a significant interaction between the priming language condition and priming sentence type: Arabic priming led to more simple sentence production in English, whereas English priming did not significantly affect sentence complexity in Arabic. These findings align with the shared syntax account but highlight the need to consider factors such as language dominance in bilingual syntactic processing.https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/4/72Arabiccross-linguistic primingshared syntax accountsyntactic primingbilingualism |
| spellingShingle | Jamal A. Khlifat Pui Fong Kan Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2) Languages Arabic cross-linguistic priming shared syntax account syntactic priming bilingualism |
| title | Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2) |
| title_full | Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2) |
| title_fullStr | Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2) |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2) |
| title_short | Cross-Linguistic Syntactic Priming in Late Bilinguals of Levantine Arabic (L1) and English (L2) |
| title_sort | cross linguistic syntactic priming in late bilinguals of levantine arabic l1 and english l2 |
| topic | Arabic cross-linguistic priming shared syntax account syntactic priming bilingualism |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/10/4/72 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jamalakhlifat crosslinguisticsyntacticpriminginlatebilingualsoflevantinearabicl1andenglishl2 AT puifongkan crosslinguisticsyntacticpriminginlatebilingualsoflevantinearabicl1andenglishl2 |