The Effects Of Input And Output Modalities On Language Switching Between Chinese And English

Language control is important for bilinguals to produce words in the right language. While most previous studies investigated language control using visual stimuli with vocal responses, language control regarding auditory stimuli and manual responses was rarely examined. In the present study, an alternating language switching paradigm was used to investigate language control mechanism under two input modalities (visual and auditory) and two output modalities (manual and vocal) by measuring switch costs in both error percentage and reaction time (RT) in forty-eight Cantonese-English early bilinguals. Results showed that higher switch costs in RT were found with auditory stimuli than visual stimuli, possibly due to shorter preparation time with auditory stimuli. In addition, switch costs in RT and error percentage could be obtained not only in speaking, but also in handwriting. Therefore, language control mechanisms, such as inhibition of the non-target language, may be shared between speaking and handwriting.