Planning scope in second language sentence production: Do bilingual speakers plan ahead more in L1 than in L2?

Abstract

AbstractLanguage production is incremental in nature; we tend to plan linguistic chunks prior to articulating the first word of the utterance. Researchers have acquired knowledge about how far ahead sentences are generally planned, but mostly in monolinguals or the speaker's first language (Allum & Wheeldon, 2007; Martin, Crowther, Knight, Tamborello II, & Yang, 2010; Wagner, Jescheniak, & Schriefers, 2010). It is unclear whether the scope of planning is the same in bilinguals, or the speaker's second language. Here, we examined planning scope in Dutch–English bilinguals' sentence production using a paradigm that elicits descriptions of short animations. Analyses of speech onset times and articulation durations suggest that, on the surface, bilinguals have comparable planning scope in L1 and L2. However, in their L2, bilinguals extended their articulation duration, suggesting that they committed early to the initial noun phrase, but produced it more slowly to buy time to plan the next noun phrase.