The activation and selection of lexico-syntactic features in speech production: behavioural and electrophysiological evidence from L1 and L2 speakers

Wang, S. (2025)

Doctoral Thesis

How do brains of multilingual speakers process native and non-native languages in speaking? This thesis has attempted to characterize the multilingual experience in late language learners, focusing on the processing of two distinct but similar lexico-syntactic features: classifiers in Chinese and grammatical gender in Dutch, across different populations. The thesis investigated whether and how lexico-syntactic features are processed during non-native language (L2) speech production and compared this to their processing in native language (L1) production. Moreover, it explored the role of linguistic similarity in L2 lexico-syntactic feature processing. This thesis explored these questions using a combination of behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) methods to gain detailed insight into language production and provided a thorough description of the statistical approach used to analyze complex datasets.

• Speech production
• Event-related potentials
• N400
• Picture-naming
• Classifier congruency effect
• Gender congruency effect
• Semantic interference effect

• All authors: Wang, S.
• Supervisor: Schiller, N.O.
• Co-supervisor: Grüter, T.
• Committee: Levelt, C.C.; Audring, J.; Wang, M.; Qian, Z.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University
• Date: 2025-04-15
• Title of host publication: LOT dissertation series
• Publisher: Amsterdam: LOT
• Name: 689