Word-type effects in the lexical processing of different-script bilinguals

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE BILINGUAL LEXICON has traditionally occupied a central place in the study of bilingual cognitive organization and processing. Whereas researchers working in the area of the monolingual lexicon studied the role of semantic, phonological, orthographic, morphological and other variables in lexical organization, bilingual literature has until recently viewed language barrier as the major determiner of bilingual word organization, debating the issue of whether words of the two languages are stored on a common or separate basis. The common/separate dichotomy has recently started to give way to the view of the bilingual lexicon as a non-uniform structure that varies across, as well as within individuals. According to this view, bilingual lexical representations may be shared to different degrees, depending on a variety of factors. To account for the within individual variation in bilingual word processing, researchers have turned to the study of word characteristics and various combinations of representational elements that cause interlingual facilitation or inhibition. Such an approach has also brought the domains of bilingual and monolingual lexicons one step closer to sharing a common view of these phenomena.