Abstract
Real time language in multilingual speakers is one of the least understood types of human cognition. Especially the differential nature of the speaker's mother tongue (L1) and additional languages (L2) has challenged many researchers in the past 20 years. Although profound insight has now been gained into factors that affect language processing in the multilingual mind (see processing models like BIA+), these models represent a static, linear view of language processing and have yielded contradictory results. The real time, dynamic dimension of multilingual language use has thus far been neglected. Newly developed techniques in other fields of cognitive research focus on dynamic patterns in variability that have traditionally been regarded as irrelevant 'noise', but that reveal highly significant 'dynamical hues' in processing (Van Orden, Holden & Turvey, 2003). These techniques now provide an opportunity for ground breaking research into the dynamic nature of language performance and lexical knowledge. This allows us to investigate the most crucial concepts in lexical dynamics, like the degree of consciousness or automatization in L1 and L2 language processing, the development of L1 and L2 processing over time, the impact of exposure on L1 and L2 processing, and the influence of typological distance. A longitudinal pilot study (Plat 2011) over a two-year time span has yielded remarkable results and gives rise to a series of very promising follow up studies, centred around the cognitive dynamic nature of speech in multilingual language users. In the present study we will use a number of new experimental techniques to tap into real time processing in L1 and L2 that can help us answer questions that may otherwise remain unanswered.