Abstract
This paper presents an eyetracking study on language reception in a multilingual society. It focuses on the reading behavior of 23 trilingual participants from South Tyrol, Italy, who speak and understand Italian, German and Ladin, the latter a minority language in that area. The eyetracking data show whether all three languages displayed on informational signs are read and processed, and whether processing depends on specific influential factors dependent of the participants or presentation of the language versions. This type of eyetracking application poses several methodological issues which are discussed in the paper. The eyetracking data are triangulated with data from a speech production task and a self-assessment of language skills. The initial results, show that Ladin is preferred over German and Italian in terms of overall fixation duration, that the order of processing follows the marked position top to bottom and left to right, and that participant's language used to describe the processed signs matches that of the language with the most attention per stimulus. Concerning specific language processing strategies initial interpretations are given which must be followed up on.