Lexico-semantic organization in bilinguals

Abstract

Abstract A central topic in bilingual processing research is how words and meanings are represented and organized in the mind of a bilingual speaker. Research on this topic deals with specific issues such as whether a bilingual speaker has one integrated bilingual lexicon or two separate lexicons, whether a bilingual speaker has an integrated semantic system or two separate semantic systems, and how a word in one language is linked to a word in another and to semantic representations. Multiple theoretical proposals have been put forward, such as the distributed conceptual feature model and the revised hierarchical model. Empirical research has led to some consensuses, e.g., that the two lexical systems are linked to a shared semantic system. Researchers differ in their view regarding other issues, e.g., whether less proficient bilinguals rely on lexical links more and whether bilinguals can access meaning equally efficiently from their two languages.