Simulating Spanish-English Code-Switching: El Modelo Está Generating Code-Switches

TY - CHAP

T1 - Simulating Spanish-English Code-Switching

T2 - El Modelo Está Generating Code-Switches

AU - Tsoukala, Chara

AU - Frank, Stefan

AU - van den Bosch, A.

AU - Valdéz Kroff, Jorge

AU - Broersma, Mirjam

PY - 2019/6/7

Y1 - 2019/6/7

N2 - Multilingual speakers are able to switch from one language to the other (“code-switch”) between or within sentences. Because the underlying cognitive mechanisms are not well understood, in this study we use computational cognitive modeling to shed light on the process of code-switching. We employed the Bilingual Dual-path model, a Recurrent Neural Network of bilingual sentence production (Tsoukala et al., 2017), and simulated sentence production in simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals. Our first goal was to investigate whether the model would code-switch without being exposed to code-switched training input. The model indeed produced code-switches even without any exposure to such input and the patterns of code-switches are in line with earlier linguistic work (Poplack,1980). The second goal of this study was to investigate an auxiliary phrase asymmetry that exists in Spanish-English code-switched production. Using this cognitive model, we examined a possible cause for this asymmetry. To our knowledge, this is the first computational cognitive model that aims to simulate code-switched sentence production.

AB - Multilingual speakers are able to switch from one language to the other (“code-switch”) between or within sentences. Because the underlying cognitive mechanisms are not well understood, in this study we use computational cognitive modeling to shed light on the process of code-switching. We employed the Bilingual Dual-path model, a Recurrent Neural Network of bilingual sentence production (Tsoukala et al., 2017), and simulated sentence production in simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals. Our first goal was to investigate whether the model would code-switch without being exposed to code-switched training input. The model indeed produced code-switches even without any exposure to such input and the patterns of code-switches are in line with earlier linguistic work (Poplack,1980). The second goal of this study was to investigate an auxiliary phrase asymmetry that exists in Spanish-English code-switched production. Using this cognitive model, we examined a possible cause for this asymmetry. To our knowledge, this is the first computational cognitive model that aims to simulate code-switched sentence production.

M3 - Contribution to conference proceedings

SP - 20

EP - 29

BT - Proceedings of the Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics

PB - Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)

CY - Minneapolis, Minnesota

ER -