Switching costs are context dependent. The language suppression hypothesis posits that the linguistic context of the immediate environment influences switching (Green, 1998). For example, exposure to an English-dominant environment may lead to higher switch costs for the other language, even if the speaker is dominant in the other language. In immersion (L2) contexts, it may be more difficult to switch into the more dominant (L1) language because resources are allocated to inhibiting L1 to allow for second language (L2) learning. In this context, when L2 learners are then asked to uninhibit L1, L1 may be more difficult to access, as compared with those learning an L2 in a nonimmersion context (Linck, Kroll, & Sunderman, 2009). For English language learners in the U.S. context, immersion is often the method by which they learn English. Thus, when being tested in English, they may not readily switch into the native language. Yan and Nicoladis (2009) suggest that low expressive vocabulary scores in bilinguals may not reflect small expressive vocabularies but rather a difficulty accessing and retrieving the appropriate word in the moment of the assessment. These findings suggest that lexical representations in the nontarget language are suppressed, thereby supporting separate administration of expressive vocabulary tests in each language rather than requiring children to respond in both languages during a single administration. It is hypothesized that this method of obtaining a conceptual score would yield higher scores, which better represent their lexical knowledge. Given that vocabulary tests applied to monolinguals are known to have poor sensitivity and specificity, however, we expect that similar patterns will emerge even if conceptual scores are used with bilinguals.

Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test Manual