The Cognate Facilitation Effect of L2–L3 Cognates in Chinese–English–Spanish Trilinguals: The Role of L2 Proficiency

Abstract

Research on the cognate facilitation effect (CFE) in sequential bilinguals and trilinguals' lexical processing has offered important insights into the structure of the multilingual mental lexicon. A key cross‐linguistic factor that has received particular attention is second language (L2) proficiency, yet its role in different‐script trilinguals remains underexplored. The present study addressed this issue in L2 and L3 lexical processing among Chinese–English–Spanish trilinguals using lexical decision tasks. By manipulating L2 proficiency and measuring the strength of CFE through reaction times and accuracy, the study aimed to investigate orthographic‐overlap‐driven, form‐based cross‐language activation between the two non‐native languages. The findings provide preliminary evidence that the strength of form‐based L2–L3 cross‐language activation may vary with L2 proficiency, and they are compatible with the possibility that more entrenched lexical representations reduce reliance on orthographic overlap during visual word recognition.