Des bilingues français–espagnol sont soumis à deux tâches de reconnaissance en traduction visant à mettre en évidence des effets d’homographie interlangue. Dans l’expérience 1, les résultats montrent que les traductions cognats (orthographe et sémantique similaires dans deux langues, par exemple LIBRE en français et en espagnol) sont reconnues plus rapidement que les traductions non-cognats. Dans l’expérience 2, la présence d’homographes interlangues (orthographe identique, sens différents dans deux langues) provoque un effet inhibiteur, alors que l’effet facilitateur obtenu pour les mots cognats dans l’expérience 1 disparaît. Les résultats sont discutés dans le cadre du modèle des représentations distribuées de la mémoire bilingue (van Hell et de Groot, 1998van Hell J.G., de Groot A.M.B. Conceptual representation in bilingual memory: effects of concreteness and cognate status in word association Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1998 ;  1 (3) : 193-211 [cross-ref]

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références) et du BIA+ (Dijkstra et van Heuven, 2002Dijkstra A., van Heuven W.J.B. The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: from identification to decision Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 2002 ;  5 : 175-197

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références).

Several studies on bilingual word recognition have shown effects of word similarity between languages. Cognate words (translation equivalents with identical or near-identical forms like LIBRE in French and Spanish) are generally recognized and translated faster than non-cognates (translation equivalents with different forms). In this study, a translation recognition task (de Groot, 1992de Groot A.M.B. Bilingual lexical representations: a closer look at conceptual representations Orthography, Phonology, Morphology and Meaning Amsterdam: Elsevier (1992). 

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références) was used in which participants (French-Spanish bilinguals) had to decide whether two words presented on a computer screen were translations or not. In Experiment 1, translation equivalents were identical cognates (same form: CIVIL-CIVIL [civil in Spanish]) and non-cognates (different forms: DANSE-BAILE [dance in Spanish]). All non-translation equivalents had different forms (TABLE [table in French]-AMIGO [friend in Spanish]). We observed a facilitation effect for cognate pairs which were processed faster than non-cognate pairs. In Experiment 2, we used the same material for translation equivalents (cognates and non-cognates) and two types of non-translation equivalents: interlingual homographs (same form but different meanings: CREER [create in French]-CREER [believe in Spanish]) and non-homographic non-translation pairs (different forms between languages) as used in Experiment 1. When the non-translation pairs shared the same form (interlingual homographs), they were rejected more slowly than other non-translation pairs. Moreover, contrary to Experiment 1, due to the presence of interlingual homographs in the experimental lists, the facilitation effect for cognate pairs was not replicated. The results suggest that all homographs (cognates and interlingual homographs) have a special status in bilingual memory (due to their lexical and/or semantic overlap) but their processing also depends on task demands and experimental list composition. Our results are in line with the distributed conceptual feature model of bilingual memory (de Groot, 1992de Groot A.M.B. Bilingual lexical representations: a closer look at conceptual representations Orthography, Phonology, Morphology and Meaning Amsterdam: Elsevier (1992). 

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références, van Hell et de Groot, 1998van Hell J.G., de Groot A.M.B. Conceptual representation in bilingual memory: effects of concreteness and cognate status in word association Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1998 ;  1 (3) : 193-211 [cross-ref]

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références). This model can explain facilitation and inhibition effects due to different overlaps between words (in both lexical and semantic levels). However, our results lead us to distinguish identification processes and decisional processes in this task as described in the BIA+ model (Dijkstra et van Heuven, 2002Dijkstra A., van Heuven W.J.B. The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: from identification to decision Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 2002 ;  5 : 175-197

Cliquez ici pour aller à la section Références).