Nouns and Verbs Processing in the First and Second Language: A Cognitive Investigation of Lexical Processing Levels in Persian-English Bilinguals

In lexical processing studies، nouns and verbs processing differences have always been investigated with respect to different lexical features in nouns and verbs and the activation of different cortical locations fundamental to noun and verb representations. Such investigations on bilinguals in particular، are of primary importance due to the mediation of L1 words to process L2 words. In this research، a comparative analysis between a first and a second language، by considering the lexical processing levels in Persian-English bilinguals and by participation of eighty six BA students of English literature has been done. Picture naming task was used as the main cognitive measure and the latencies in naming object and action pictures in either of Persian and English languages were recorded in milli-second. With regard to the findings of this research، in both languages morphological features in comparison with semantic features are more influential in nouns and verbs processing differences and nouns have longer retention in comparison with verbs. In addition، acquiring a language (L1) or learning a language consciously (L2) does not influence the significant contribution of processing levels in bilinguals.