Transparency of first language calendar terms and its impact on calendrical calculations in the first and the second language

Abstract

Calendrical calculations, defined here as calculating the target weekday/month after a stimuli weekday/month, are an important component of problem-solving and temporal cognition and can vary cross-linguistically. English speakers, whose calendar naming system is irregular and opaque, rely on verbal-list processing. Unlike English speakers, Chinese speakers, with knowledge of numerically and linguistically transparent calendar terms, prefer a more efficient numerical operation system. Previous studies have focused on the effects of differences in calendar lexicon on speakers’ development of simple calendar calculations. However, scant research extends the potential effects to cognition of bilinguals, who know L1 transparent and L2 opaque calendar terms. To fill this research gap, this study aims to provide an experimental basis for the effects of different levels of transparency of the calendar naming system on calendrical calculations when tested in L1 and L2. A total of 30 Chinese-English bilinguals and English monolinguals were recruited from universities in English-speaking countries. This study used the Calendrical Calculation Task (week, month, hour, and year) and the Self-reported Strategies Task to test participants’ cognition process in calendrical reasoning. Variables, including Distance (short/long), Direction (forward/backward), Boundary (within/across), and Input (linguistic/numerical), were manipulated. The English speakers were invited to do the two tasks in L1 English, labeled as the English group. The Chinese-English bilinguals were required to do the two tasks in L1 Chinese and L2 English, labeled as the Chinese group and the Bilingual group, respectively. Linear mixed-effects models in R were used to analyze reaction times and response accuracy, while the self-reported strategies were analyzed descriptively. The results showed that the English group relied on verbal list processing, while the Chinese and English groups relied on numerical reasoning. Also, the Chinese group was the fastest, while the Bilingual group was as fast as the English group in week and month calculation questions. Negative effects of long distance and backward directionality were found in all groups. Positive effects of crossing boundary and negative effects of numerical input were only found in the English group. Results have implications for research on temporal reasoning, linguistic relativity, and bilingual cognition.