Abstract Bilinguals and multilinguals commonly encounter words in their multiple languages which share some linguistic aspects. Among those are interlingual homographs, or words that have the exact same orthography in two different languages. The current study examined, through a semantic judgment task in English with ERP recording, how multilinguals (speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, English and German) accessed the meanings of interlingual homographs that belonged to their dominant and non-dominant foreign languages compared to a control group of Brazilian Portuguese-English bilinguals. The findings demonstrated that multilinguals were slower to respond to the English-German interlingual homographs as compared to control stimuli (no homographs). The results also demonstrated that, when the interlingual homographs were semantically related to their targets in the non-target language, there were significantly more errors and a higher RT than in unrelated conditions. Additionally, only the bilinguals presented the typical N400 effect for unrelated conditions, suggesting that the co-activation of the non-target language due to interlingual homographs modulated this ERP in the multilingual group. Our results provide support for the Bilingual Interactive Activation plus model and suggest that literature findings on interference between first and second languages also hold for second and third languages.

Zusammenfassung Zweisprachige und mehrsprachige Menschen stoßen in ihren verschiedenen Sprachen häufig auf Wörter, die einige linguistische Aspekte gemeinsam haben. Dazu gehören interlingualen Homographen, d.h. Wörter, die sich in zwei unterschiedlichen Sprachen durch genau dieselbe Orthographie auszeichnen. In der vorliegenden Studie wurde anhand einer semantischen Beurteilungsaufgabe in Englisch mit ERP-Aufzeichnung untersucht, wie mehrsprachige Personen (Sprecher des brasilianischen Portugiesisch, des Englischen und des Deutschen) im Vergleich zu einer Kontrollgruppe von brasilianischen Portugiesisch-Englisch-Zweisprachigen auf die Bedeutung von interlingualen Homographen zugreifen, die zu ihrer dominanten und nicht-dominanten Fremdsprache gehören. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass mehrsprachige Personen im Vergleich zu den Kontrollstimuli (keine Homographen) langsamer auf die interlingualen Homographen Englisch-Deutsch reagierten. Die Ergebnisse zeigten auch, dass, wenn die interlingualen Homographen semantisch mit ihren Zielen in der Nicht-Zielsprache verwandt waren, signifikant mehr Fehler und eine höhere RT auftraten als in nicht verwandten Bedingungen. Darüber hinaus zeigten nur die Bilingualen den typischen N400-Effekt für nicht verwandte Bedingungen, was darauf hindeutet, dass die Koaktivierung der Nicht-Zielsprache durch interlinguale Homographen diese ERP in der mehrsprachigen Gruppe modulierte. Unsere Ergebnisse stützen das Bilingual Interactive Activation plus Modell und legen nahe, dass die Literaturergebnisse zur Interferenz zwischen Erst- und Zweitsprache auch für die Zweit- und Drittsprache gelten.

Resumo O fenômeno do bilinguismo é a premissa essencial da tradução. Este trabalho apresenta modelos cognitivos contemporâneos que explicam o acesso lexical de bilíngues e multilíngues para o reconhecimento de palavras escritas, a partir de experimentos com homógrafos interlinguais. São abordados os trabalhos sobre conflito entre duas ou mais línguas,e como seus achados convergem para a hipótese de acesso não-seletivo ao léxico, o que elucida o impacto do bilinguismo nos processos de leitura e tradução. Como objetivo secundário, e a partir de uma perspectiva neurocientífica, também descrevemos as mudanças no cérebro e nos processos mentais decorrentes à experiência do bilinguismo e do multilinguismo. Os estudos mostram vantagens nas funções executivas (atualização, inibição e flexibilidade mental) e mudanças estruturais e funcionais em circuitos, especialmente envolvendo os córtices pré-frontais bilateralmente. Estas mudanças têm sido apontadas como fatores importantes de proteção (reserva cognitiva e cerebral) frente a diferentes situações de perdaneural.

Abstract The phenomenon of bilingualism is the essential premise for translation. This paper presents contemporary cognitive models for written word recognition, based on previous experimental work with interlingual homographs. We will discuss studies on language conflict between two or more languages, and how these findings provide support for the language non-selective hypothesis for lexical access, which elucidates the impact of bilingualism in the processes of reading and translation. As a secondary goal and with a neuroscientific perspective, we will also describe the changes in the brain and mental processes that underlie the experience of bilingualism and multilingualism. Studies discussed here demonstrate an advantage in executive function (updating, inhibition and mental flexibility) as well as structural and functional changes in circuits, especially involving the prefrontal cortices bilaterally. These changes have been indicated as important protective factors in different situations of neural loss.