Generative naming in Korean-English bilingual speakers

This present study investigated generative naming in Korean-English bilingual adult speakers. Specific aims were: 1) to compare the total number of named items generated in Korean-English bilingual adults in the categories of Food, Clothes, and Animals, 2) to investigate the relationship between language proficiency and the total number of items named in each category and across categories for each language, and 3) to examine the relationship between language proficiency and the total number of overlapped items (doublets) in each category and across categories. Twenty five Korean-English bilingual adults named as many different items as they could in 60 seconds in the categories of Food, Clothes, and Animals in Korean and English. Results indicated that the participants produced significantly more items in Korean than English in all categories. Participants named fewer items in the category of Clothes than in the categories of Food and Animals, suggesting that generating items for the Clothes category was more difficult than for the other categories. No significant correlations were found between participants’ language proficiency and the total number of items generated and the number of doublets. There is a need to develop more reliable measures of language proficiency for bilingual speakers.