To examine the combined effects of ageing and bilingualism in language processing, we tested young and older mono- and bilingual speakers in L1 comprehension and production. In Experiment 1, bilinguals were slower to detect words than monolinguals in sentences with a low-constraint context, but not when a high-constraint context was provided. Older adults tended to outperform younger adults in high-constraint sentences. In Experiment 2, older speakers were slower than younger speakers to produce small-scope prepositional phrases (e.g., ‘the cone above the grape), suggesting more extensive planning. Bilingual disadvantages were observed in larger-scope complex phrases (e.g., ‘the cone and the pink grape’). Individual differences in language proficiency did not modulate the effects. The results support bilingual disadvantages in syntactic processing and age-preserved syntax, alongside semantic processing unaffected by either bilingualism or age. We found no interactions between age and bilingualism, suggesting that these two factors independently impact language processing.

中文翻译：

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双语和衰老对语言处理的独立影响：来自理解和生产的证据

为了研究衰老和双语对语言处理的综合影响，我们测试了年轻和年长的单语和双语使用者的母语理解和表达能力。在实验 1 中，在低约束上下文的句子中，双语者检测单词的速度比单语者慢，但在提供高约束上下文时则不然。在高限制性句子中，老年人往往比年轻人表现更好。在实验2中，年长的说话者比年轻的说话者更慢地产生小范围的介词短语（例如，“葡萄上方的圆锥体”），这表明有更广泛的计划。在较大范围的复杂短语（例如“圆锥体和粉红葡萄”）中观察到双语缺点。语言能力的个体差异并不能调节效果。结果支持双语在句法处理和年龄保留句法方面的缺点，以及不受双语或年龄影响的语义处理。我们发现年龄和双语之间没有相互作用，这表明这两个因素独立影响语言处理。