The influence of prior linguistic knowledge on second language semantic implicit learning: Evidence from Cantonese–English bilinguals

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that prior linguistic knowledge affects semantic implicit learning when stimuli are presented in the first language. We report an experiment that investigated whether such cross-linguistic influence from the first language would still emerge in the second language for semantic implicit learning of novel articles and fire/water semantic category mappings, a semantic distinction that is explicitly marked by semantic radicals in Chinese but not in English and a type of form–meaning connections that has not been investigated. We found that 30 Cantonese–English bilinguals and 30 native English speakers learned the target form–meaning connections and that the knowledge that they developed may have been implicit, as shown through post-experiment verbal reports. Moreover, the bilingual group was significantly faster than the English group in distinguishing fire/water English nouns. These findings extend the range of semantic-based regularities that can be learned at the implicit level and suggest that the markings of fire/water distinctions in Chinese affect second language task performance.