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Knowledge of the world is fundamental to human thought and ability to navigate the world, and a large literature has accumulated on the neuroscience of semantic memory. Because language serves as one of the most important interfaces between the private world of thought and other people, researchers often tap into semantic memory through word-based tasks. But this approach fails to acknowledge crucial distinctions between word meaning and general-purpose, non-linguistic knowledge. This article will discuss the relation between words and non-linguistic representations, drawing in part on evidence about cross-linguistic lexical diversity. It will argue that a more nuanced consideration of the language-thought interface is needed in the neuroscience of concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: This study contributes to understanding L2 word learning and why "semantic accent" persists. It examines the impact of L1–L2 semantic relations, input conditions, and L1–L2 dissimilarity on learning outcomes. Methodology: Mandarin-speaking learners of English labeled actions in 26 brief videos, typically called carrying or holding by native speakers. The labeling pattern is simpler in English than in Mandarin but requires a shift to different semantic dimensions. Further, hold is a higher frequency term than carry. The learners were resident in either China (N = 34) or the United States (N = 25), with somewhat higher proficiency in the US sample. Twenty native English speakers in the United States also responded. Data and analysis: Learner groups' name choices were compared to each other and those of native speakers. Findings/conclusions: The dissimilarity between Mandarin and English did not block importing L1 meanings to L2, but progress was seen across sub-groups. Input variables did impact progress: immersion (mediated by proficiency) was better than classroom learning, and use of the higher frequency term was greater than of the lower. Notably, however, many learners narrowed to domain-relevant vocabulary without using the words in native-like ways despite the simplicity of the target L2 system. They appeared to update knowledge at the level of word form-to-domain mappings without updating word form-to-meaning associations. Originality: Semantic accent has been documented previously, but the L2 word learning trajectory and factors that contribute to semantic accent have not been well understood. This study advances that understanding. Significance/implications: Imported meanings are difficult to reshape even for dissimilar languages and even with immersion. Enhanced learning may require sensitizing learners to L2 semantic content via either explicit instruction or intensive exposure to discrepancies between L1 and L2 meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storms, Ameel, and Malt [2015. "Development of Cross-language Lexical Influence." International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 18: 529–547] compared the development of naming patterns in monolingual and bilingual children. They concluded that bilinguals' naming patterns in their two languages become increasingly similar with age and are thus converging. In this commentary, we argue that taking into account younger participants' smaller vocabulary and greater variability in names for individual objects changes the paper's conclusions: bilingual naming patterns are found to diverge with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One way that languages are able to communicate a potentially infinite set of ideas through a finite lexicon is by compressing emerging meanings into words, such that over time, individual words come to express multiple, related senses of meaning. We propose that overarching communicative and cognitive pressures have created systematic directionality in how new metaphorical senses have developed from existing word senses over the history of English. Given a large set of pairs of semantic domains, we used computational models to test which domains have been more commonly the starting points (source domains) and which the ending points (target domains) of metaphorical mappings over the past millennium. We found that a compact set of variables, including externality , embodiment , and valence , explain directionality in the majority of about 5000 metaphorical mappings recorded over the past 1100 years. These results provide the first large-scale historical evidence that metaphorical mapping is systematic, and driven by measurable communicative and cognitive principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machery (2009) has proposed that the notion of 'concept' ought to be eliminated from the theoretical vocabulary of psychology. I raise three questions about his argument: (1) Is there a meaningful distinction between concepts and background knowledge? (2) Do we need to discard the hybrid view? (3) Are there really categories of things in the world that are the basis for concepts? Although I argue that the answer to all three is 'no', I agree with Machery's conclusion that seeking a single characterization of concepts will not be fruitful for understanding cognitive representations and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

if different languages map words onto referents in different ways, bilinguals must either (a) learn and maintain separate mappings for their two languages or (b) merge them and not be fully native-like in either. We replicated and extended past findings of cross-linguistic differences in word-to-referent mappings for common household objects using Belgian monolingual speakers of Dutch and French. We then examined word-to-referent mappings in Dutch-French bilinguals by comparing the way they named in their two languages. We found that the French and Dutch bilingual naming patterns converged on a common naming pattern, with only minor deviations. Through the mutual influence of the two languages, the category boundaries in each language move towards one another and hence diverge from the boundaries used by the native speakers of either language. Implications for the organization of the bilingual lexicon are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]