Dr. V. Keerthana Kapiley

Bilingual language use happens in a social context. Therefore, for a bilingual speaker, the social, linguistic and cultural identity of the interlocutor or even the presence of a passive listener matters. Although bilingual speakers use their top-down control system to modulate language production which should be appropriate, many a times, various salient cues influence language production. Bilingual speakers must consider the language of the listener or conversation partner to select the appropriate language. For example, if the interlocutor speaks predominantly a certain language, then bilingual speakers must select this and inhibit the other language, which is anyways active. However, it is not clear if bilinguals take into consideration the language proficiency of the interlocutor while selecting their own language and the cognitive processes involved during this process. I intend to explore multiple components (language proficiency of bilinguals, familiarity, predictability and monitoring) along with the effects of interlocutors’ language proficiency bilingual language processing using behavioral and Eye-tracking techniques. This area of research is been conducted in collaboration with Prof. Ramesh Mishra