Abstract
AbstractThe multidimensionality of the bilingual experience makes the investigation of bilingualism fascinating but also challenging. Although the literature distinguishes several aspects of bilingualism, the measurement methods and the relationships between these aspects have not been clearly established. In a group of 171 relatively young Polish–English bilinguals living in their first-language environment, this study investigates the relationships between the multiple measures of bilingualism. The study shows that language entropy – an increasingly popular measure of the diversity of language use – reflects a separate aspect of the bilingual experience from language-switching and language-mixing measures. The findings also indicate that language proficiency is not a uniform aspect of the bilingual experience but a complex construct that requires appropriately comprehensive measurements. Collectively, the findings contribute to the discussion on the best practices for quantifying bilingualism.
Highlights
There is a growing understanding in the literature that bilingualism is not a zero-one phenomenon: it is a multifaceted experience, and each aspect should be treated as a continuous rather than binary variable (Antoniou, 2019; Kroll, 2015; Luk, 2015; Luk & Bialystok, 2013; Luk & Esposito, 2020)
In a group of 171 relatively young Polish–English bilinguals living in their first-language environment, this study investigates the relationships between the multiple measures of bilingualism
The onset of bilingualism was quantified as the age of L2 acquisition (L2 AoA) and age of active communication in L2 (L2 AoAC); daily use of L2 was represented as the percentage of time spent using L2; L2 proficiency was assessed by means of self-ratings and two objective L2 proficiency tasks (i.e., LexTALE and semantic fluency)
Summary
There is a growing understanding in the literature that bilingualism is not a zero-one phenomenon: it is a multifaceted experience, and each aspect should be treated as a continuous rather than binary variable (Antoniou, 2019; Kroll, 2015; Luk, 2015; Luk & Bialystok, 2013; Luk & Esposito, 2020). The fact that the bilingual experience is complex (Grosjean, Grosjean & Li, 2013) makes investigations of bilingualism both fascinating and challenging. It has been argued recently that it is exactly the complexity of the bilingual experience that is responsible for the “phantom-like quality” of bilingual effects on cognitive functioning (Bialystok, 2017; Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2018; de Bruin, 2019; Leivada, Westergaard, Duñabeitia & Rothman, 2020; Luk, 2015; Luk & Bialystok, 2013; Luk & Esposito, 2020; Pliatsikas, DeLuca & Voits, 2020). Efforts have been made in recent years to investigate which aspects of the bilingual experience affect cognitive- and language-related processes. The goal of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on the best practices for quantifying bilingualism
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