The effects of inter-sentential code-switching on referential choice in Spanish-English bilinguals: an elicited production study

• Published in: Language, cognition and neuroscience Vol. 40; no. 7; pp. 971 - 986
• Main Authors: Contemori, Carla, Zuniga, Vianney
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 09.08.2025; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Bilingualism; Code switching; discourse; English; English language; Language; Natural language generation; Reaction time; Referential choice; Spanish; Spanish language
• ISSN: 2327-3798; 2327-3801
• DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2025.2496914

The present research examines the production of referential expressions in the context of inter-sentential code-switching in Spanish-English bilinguals. Fifty-seven Spanish-English bilinguals participated in a picture description task including code-switching. The results suggest that English-dominant speakers experienced a processing cost when switching from English into Spanish. Also, a tendency emerged to produce more overt pronouns and NPs when switching from English into Spanish, compared to staying the in the same language (Spanish-Spanish condition). In a second experiment, forty-nine Spanish-English bilinguals participated in a similar task including same-language conditions, blocked by language. Reaction times were significantly higher in experiment 1 than in experiment 2, while referential choice in the two experiments was comparable. Our study showed that the additional load of switching language did not substantially hinder referential choice, and bilingual speakers can efficiently build a discourse model even when the production system is under the additional pressure of switching language.