| Summary: | Bilinguals have been known to perform poorly at linguistic processing tasks as compared to monolinguals. This paper compares the reaction time and accuracy in lexical word retrieval at a picture naming task between balanced and unbalanced bilinguals. 31 English dominant English-Mandarin bilinguals were recruited. 16 participants were classified as balanced bilinguals while the remaining 15 participants were considered to be unbalanced bilinguals. The results showed no significant overall advantage in picture naming between balanced and unbalanced English-Mandarin bilinguals. However, both balanced and unbalanced bilinguals were found to be able to name the object in English with significantly fast reaction time and higher accuracy if the are also able to name to object in Mandarin. The paper concludes that the level of negative interference of the L2 does not appear to increase with the increase in proficiency in the L2, while the increase in proficiency in the L2 can increase the chances of reaping the benefits of a positive facilitation effect. Hence, there appears to be an incentive for a bilingual to increase in proficiency in the L2.
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