Bilingual Prefabs: No Switching Cost Was Found in Cantonese–English Habitual Code-Switching in Hong Kong

Previous studies on the comprehension of code-switched sentences often neglected code-switching habit specific community, so that processing difficulty might not have resulted from change in language but unnatural switching. This study explores cost habitual and nonhabitual code-switching. Thirty-one young adults participated sentence-reading task with their eye movement tracked. A two-by-two factorial design was used, Habit (habitual/nonhabitual) Language (unilingual/code-switched) as factors. The main effect observed only First Fixation Duration, suggesting membership already identified an early stage. However, for switches, no switching overall effort found, reflected by Total Duration Visit Counts. Our results indicate cognitive load larger when switch occurred nonhabitually, regardless membership. In light this finding, we propose promote formation bilingual collocations, or prefabs, which are then integrated into mental lexicon dominant language. Despite a conscious tag foreign origin, these prefabs processed lexicon.