INTERLANGUAGE DISSIMILARITY ENHANCES THE DECLINE OF THINKING ABILITY DURING FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PROCESSING

This study tested a hypothesis that the ''foreign language effect'' is larger when similarity between a foreign language and a native langua ge is less. Foreign language effect refers to a temporary decline of t hinking ability during foreign language processing, a decline that is distinguished from foreign language processing difficulty per se. In t he first of two divided-attention experiments, we compared 16 adult na tive speakers of German and 16 of Japanese given English as a common f oreign language; in the second, we compared 16 adult native speakers o f Korean and 16 of English given Japanese as a common foreign language . The participants performed a thinking task (addition) and a linguist ic task (question-answering)in parallel. The thinking task contained n o foreign language; the linguistic task was presented in either the na tive language or the foreign language. In accordance with the hypothes is, the foreign language effect (defined by lower performance in the t hinking task when the linguistic task was in the foreign language) was larger in both cases for those whose native language was less similar to the common foreign language.