English Bilinguals Research Articles

Flipped classroom and creative learning resources for teaching history

The study aims to analyse the perceptions and pedagogical skills of university students in the implementation of the flipped classroom in the degree of primary education. The sample consists of 209 students following the bilingual English programme at the University of Córdoba, Spain. The study is described as a non-experimental quantitative research, which means that it focuses on the collection and analysis of data without intervention or manipulation of variables. A fifteen-item Likert-type questionnaire was used to collect the data. The questionnaire appears to be on a scale of 1 to 5, where participants rate their answers according to the options given. The findings suggest that new electronic learning strategies need to be incorporated into teaching methodology. There is an emphasis on the importance of providing practical approaches to digital teaching and didactic resources. Students have shown a positive attitude towards their training needs, particularly in consolidating historical thinking and integrating active learning methods with good teaching practice.

Nepali English creative writing: historical trajectory and strategies adopted by Nepali English creative writers

ABSTRACT The paper sets out to trace the history of Nepali English creative writing and identify the strategies used by Nepali English creative writers in creating Nepali English literature. The first section of the paper chronicles the historical trajectory of Nepali English creative writing, illustrating Nepali English bilinguals’ increased use of English as an alternative medium of creative expression. The second section of the paper analyzes four contemporary Nepali English literary works in light of bilinguals’ creativity and notions of abrogation and appropriation processes. The analysis revealed the writers’ adoption of four nativizing strategies: leaving cultural references untranslated, cultural references accompanied by explicitation/English translation, hybrid innovations, and syntactic meshing. Through these strategies, the writers inscribed and foregrounded Nepali-specific linguistic and cultural features in their English literary works, resourcing their bi/multilingual creativity. These findings imply further recognition of emerging literatures in English and their use as resources in ESL/EFL pedagogy.

Sociolinguistic Style, Awareness, and Agency among Southern California Latinx Spanish–English Bilinguals

This study examined different degrees of awareness regarding the stigmatization of Southern California (SoCal) Spanish across four groups of Spanish–English bilinguals from Southern California (n = 87). The participants were presented with Spanish sentences and asked to decide which profile of speaker would likely express that sentence, given six options, such as: “someone living in Los Angeles/SoCal who grew up in Mexico” or “a Spanish-English bilingual who grew up in Los Angeles/SoCal”. Experimental stimuli included seven different linguistic categories of stigmatization, including English contact forms. The participants tended to attribute the stigmatized forms to bilinguals who grew up in Southern California. Central Colloquial and Taboo categories were more salient and perceived as forms used by people in Mexico. In contrast, English borrowings and redundancies seemed to be recognized by the participants, particularly for simultaneous bilinguals who grew up in Southern California, as salient forms of an identified Southern California Spanish variety. The results are interpreted within Exemplar Theory, with certain stigmatized forms indexing “Mexican Spanish” exemplars, and English borrowings identified as exemplars of SoCal Spanish. We advocate for usage-based approaches to understanding language perceptions and critical approaches to interrogating academic discourses.

Oscillatory features of German–English sentence processing: Evidence from an EEG study

Aims and objectives: In this study, we investigated the neural oscillatory patterns occurring during sentence-level overt bilingual processing tasks on 46 German–English bilinguals with the intention of finding out if there were task-specific oscillations for this language pair. Methodology: Four tasks, including Language 2 (L2) listening, Language 1 (L1) speaking, L2 shadowing (i.e., repeating a segment of an utterance), and backward interpreting (i.e., orally translating L2 sentences to L1), were implemented with the technique of electroencephalography (EEG). Data and analysis: Data included demographic indices, neural oscillation metrics, and oral production scores from participants. Static spectral analysis, time–frequency analysis, principal components analysis, cross-frequency coupling, and inferential statistics were applied to the data. Findings: The sensory task and articulatory tasks differed greatly in the delta–theta band and the beta–gamma band in terms of time–frequency dynamics. Analyses also revealed variations in a frontal/prefrontal theta component and a distinct gamma component across the four tasks. Moreover, we found a right fronto-temporal theta–gamma coupling unique to backward interpreting. Originality: The task-wise comparison experiment paradigm has rarely been implemented in neuroimaging research on language, especially so in EEG research on bilingualism. Significance: The findings provide novel insights for the understanding of language conversion mechanism and may benefit the training of professional interpreters.

Effects of the French grammatical gender system on bilingual adults' perception of objects

Abstract This study extends the line of linguistic relativity research by assessing the effect of the French grammatical gender system on French speakers' and learners' perception of objects. Four groups of 140 adults (English monolinguals, French monolinguals, English–French bilinguals and French–English bilinguals; N = 35 each) rated 32 selected objects' gender by assigning them a masculine/feminine voice on a slider. We also assessed the participants' second-language (L2) proficiency. Multilevel modelling results revealed that French monolinguals and English–French bilinguals rated objects' gender in line with the French grammatical gender system. The effect of French on perception was not reduced by acquiring English, as French–English bilinguals performed on par with French monolinguals. Moreover, the effect was independent of L2 proficiency. These findings suggest that learning a gendered L2 affects the perception of objects – thus supporting the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

Translating le vrai americain: Multilingualism in Henry James’s The Ambassadors and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room

Drawing upon work from translation studies that posits the precariousness of living between languages, this article explores how the French–English bilingualism in Henry James’s The Ambassadors (1909) and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (1956) foregrounds the identity fissures that arise in their American protagonists when they arrive in Europe. In both novels, language plays a key role in mining the inner worlds of protagonists preoccupied with lives they fear they haven’t lived; these preoccupations intersect with race, nationality, sexuality, and class. Although other scholars have previously used these four identity markers as entry points into exploring these novels, this article includes multilingualism in the nexus to argue that language offers a visible and textual platform through which the mediation of identity can take place.

Development of L1-L2 naming skills in a monolingual context: Evidence from children and adolescents

Adolescence is marked by significant developmental changes that can influence language processing and control. This study aimed to uncover developmental differences in language co-activation and control in unbalanced Spanish (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals. Children and adolescents attending bilingual schools within a L1 monolingual context completed a picture-naming task including cognates and non-cognates nouns, with collection of behavioral and ERP data. The study consistently found a cognate facilitation effect (CFE) in L2, evident in enhanced accuracy, faster reaction times, and reduced N400 negativity for cognates in comparison with no-cognate nouns. However, in L1, CFE was only observed in the N400 component, indicating weaker transfer from L2 to L1. Additionally, children exhibited greater N200 negativity when naming cognates in L1, while adolescents showed no N200 modulations, suggesting differences in frontal control region involvement and potential differences in control strategies. Language co-activation appears independent of maturation, while language control depends on development.

Sub-Lexical Processing of Chinese-English Bilinguals: An ERP Analysis.

Previous research has established that bilinguals automatically activate lexical items in both of their languages in a nonselectivemanner, even when processing linguistic information in the second language (L2) alone. However, whether this co-activation extends to the sub-lexical level remains debated. In this study, we investigate whether bilinguals access sub-lexical information while processing in their L2. Thirty-two Chinese-English bilinguals and thirty-one English monolinguals completed an EEG-based semantic relatedness task, during which they judged whether pairs of English words were related in meaning or not (±S). Unbeknownst to the participants, the form (±F) of the Chinese translations in half of the pairs shared a sub-lexical semantic radical. This leads to four conditions: +S+F, +S-F, -S+F, and -S-F. This design, along with the comparison to English monolinguals, allows us to examine if bilinguals' native language is activated at the sub-lexical level when they are exposed only to L2. The results revealed that both groups showed sensitivity to semantic relatedness, as evidenced by a greater N400 for semantic unrelated pairs than related pairs, with monolinguals eliciting a more pronounced difference. Bilinguals, on the other hand, exhibited a greater P200 difference compared to monolinguals, indicating greater sensitivity to the hidden Chinese radical/form manipulation. These results suggest that highly proficient bilinguals automatically engage in lexical co-activation of their native language during L2 processing. Crucially, this co-activation extends to the sub-lexical semantic radical level.

Cognitive Control Performance as Measured by Clustering and Switching in Nepali – English Bilingual Verbal Fluency Task

Verbal fluency task is a simple yet powerful neuropsychological tool for measuring linguistic and cognitive processing. In this research article we report the clustering and switching, as identified by Troyer and colleagues (1997), as cognitive control measured through semantic and phonetic verbal fluency task. We tested 25 Nepali (L1) - English (L2) bilingual adults with mean age of 22 years on f, a, s for English phonemic fluency, s, k, d for Nepali phonetic fluency and animals, cloths, vegetables, fruits and flowers for semantic fluency in both Nepali and English. The participants performed better in L2 phonetic fluency compared to L1 phonetic fluency, whereas, there was mixed results in semantic output in both the languages. They exhibited more clusters in phonetic fluency compared to semantic fluency in both L1 and L2 which indicates participants needed to disengage from the previous strategy or subcategory and move on to the next strategy or subcategory, thus, reflecting more cognitive demand imposed by the phonetic fluency compared to semantic fluency. This is the first such study with Nepali – English bilinguals. This study may further be extended to include more diversified population in terms of age, language family, typicality and ethnicity as independent variables.

Screens and Preschools: The Bilingual English Language Learner Assessment as a Curriculum-Compliant Digital Application.

The increase in digital tools in early childhood education highlights the need for evidence-based assessments that support cognitive development and align with educational requirements and technological advances. This study contributes to the evaluation of the Bilingual English Language Learner Assessment (BELLA), designed to enhance early learning through curriculum-aligned tasks in preschool-aged children. Data were collected from 17 schools, including 506 preschool children, using a mixed-model approach to assess BELLA's capacity to appraise early numeracy, literacy, science, and social/emotional development. Analyses included a three-way ANOVA to examine the effects of sex, age, and sub-domain on pass rates and mixed-effects models to evaluate interactions between age and domain. The results indicated a significant effect of age on performance across all domains, with older children demonstrating higher pass rates (p < 0.0001). No significant gender bias was detected. The interaction between age and domain was also significant (p < 0.0001), suggesting domain-specific age-related performance trends, which aligns with internal validity requirements. These findings position BELLA within the growing body of literature on digital media use in early childhood assessment and education, highlighting its potential as a curriculum-compliant digital assessment tool that evaluates and supports cognitive development without a gender bias. This study contributes to the field by providing empirical evidence of BELLA's effectiveness and suggesting future research directions, including the exploration of its bilingual (and potentially multilingual) applications and external validation against existing evidence-based assessments.

Operating in a second language lowers cognitive interference during creative idea generation: Evidence from brain oscillations in bilinguals

Tasks measuring human creativity overwhelmingly rely on both language comprehension and production. Although most of the world's population is bilingual, few studies have investigated the effects of language of operation on creative output. This is surprising given that fluent bilinguals master inhibitory control, a mechanism also at play in creative idea evaluation. Here, we compared creative output in the two languages of Polish(L1)-English(L2) bilinguals engaged in a cyclic adaptation of the Alternative Uses Task increasing the contribution of idea evaluation (convergent thinking). We show that Polish-English bilinguals suffer less cognitive interference when generating unusual uses for common objects in the L2 than the L1, without incurring a significant drop in idea originality. Right posterior alpha oscillation power, known to reflect creative thinking, increased over cycles. This effect paralleled the increase in originality ratings over cycles, and lower alpha power (8–10 Hz) was significantly greater in the L1 than the L2. Unexpectedly, we found greater beta (16.5–28 Hz) desynchronization in the L2 than the L1, suggesting that bilingual participants suffered less interference from competing mental representations when performing the task in the L2. Whereas creative output seems unaffected by language of operation overall, the drop in beta power in the L2 suggests that bilinguals are not subjected to the same level of semantic flooding in the second language as they naturally experience in their native language.

The extraction method used for English–Chinese machine translation corpus based on bilingual sentence pair coverage

Abstract To improve the effect of corpus extraction in bilingual English–Chinese machine translation (ECMT), this article combines a machine learning algorithm with the ECMT corpus extraction method based on bilingual sentence pair coverage. Aiming at the propagation characteristics of medium- and short-range speeches, and employing multi-band speech waveforms in the troposphere, the actual requirements of remote machine translation are combined with the free-space, 1546, and the dual-path models, respectively, to analyze three typical air-to-ground wave propagation models. A simulation is conducted for both predictions and comparisons. In addition, a radio wave propagation model within the line of sight in the troposphere is established. The results suggest that the improved dual-path model is consistent with the propagation characteristics of radio waves in the troposphere. Moreover, the experiments show that the proposed ECMT corpus extraction method based on bilingual sentence pair coverage can play an important role in more accurate English–Chinese translations.

Supplemental Material for Sprinting in Two Languages: Picture Naming Performance of Older Spanish–English Bilinguals on the Multilingual Naming Test Sprint 2.0

Supplemental Material for Sprinting in Two Languages: Picture Naming Performance of Older Spanish–English Bilinguals on the Multilingual Naming Test Sprint 2.0

A one-man bilingual cocktail party: linguistic and non-linguistic effects on bilinguals’ speech recognition in Mandarin and English

Multilingual speakers can find speech recognition in everyday environments like restaurants and open-plan offices particularly challenging. In a world where speaking multiple languages is increasingly common, effective clinical and educational interventions will require a better understanding of how factors like multilingual contexts and listeners’ language proficiency interact with adverse listening environments. For example, word and phrase recognition is facilitated when competing voices speak different languages. Is this due to a “release from masking” from lower-level acoustic differences between languages and talkers, or higher-level cognitive and linguistic factors? To address this question, we created a “one-man bilingual cocktail party” selective attention task using English and Mandarin speech from one bilingual talker to reduce low-level acoustic cues. In Experiment 1, 58 listeners more accurately recognized English targets when distracting speech was Mandarin compared to English. Bilingual Mandarin–English listeners experienced significantly more interference and intrusions from the Mandarin distractor than did English listeners, exacerbated by challenging target-to-masker ratios. In Experiment 2, 29 Mandarin–English bilingual listeners exhibited linguistic release from masking in both languages. Bilinguals experienced greater release from masking when attending to English, confirming an influence of linguistic knowledge on the “cocktail party” paradigm that is separate from primarily energetic masking effects. Effects of higher-order language processing and expertise emerge only in the most demanding target-to-masker contexts. The “one-man bilingual cocktail party” establishes a useful tool for future investigations and characterization of communication challenges in the large and growing worldwide community of Mandarin–English bilinguals.

Individual differences in L2 proficiency moderate the effect of L1 translation knowledge on L2 lexical retrieval

Abstract The effect of translation knowledge on bilingual lexical production is mixed, with some studies showing translation interference and others showing facilitation. We considered the roles of first-language (L1) translation knowledge and second-language (L2) proficiency in lexical retrieval, testing predictions of the competition for selection, frequency lag and activation boosting accounts. In experiment 1, 54 highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals named pictures of low-frequency nouns in English (L2). Spanish (L1) translation knowledge and English proficiency had an interactive effect on tip-of-the-tongue experiences with increased L1 translation interference at low levels of L2 proficiency and facilitation at high levels of L2 proficiency, consistent with combined predictions of competition for selection and activation boosting accounts. Experiment 2 confirmed that confounding lexical variables did not drive translation effects. By examining individual differences within bilinguals, we found support for multiple mechanisms that play a role in bilingual lexical retrieval that were not evident at the group level.

A multimodal contrastive analysis of regulations and instructions during the COVID-19 lockdown in the context of the Island of Madeira and the United Kingdom

Abstract The paper analyses aspects of multilingual and multimodal narratives employed during the COVID-19 lockdown, attempting to identify how they were used in professional and public environments. More specifically, the paper looks at editing choices, photography, design, drawing, colour, and writing to get a better understanding of multimodal communication, semiotics, image analysis, and their correlation with the written text and the way it has been perceived and interpreted, be it in online or print-based contexts. Methodologically, this is a contrastively inspired research project, looking specifically at Portuguese-speaking contexts of the Island of Madeira and English-speaking contexts of the United Kingdom, taking into account instructions about the COVID-19 pandemic. These are mainly bilingual English–Portuguese and multilingual texts, multimodal manifestations, and communicative and semiotic effectiveness.

Phonetic shifts in bilingual vowels: Evidence from intersentential and intrasentential code-switching

Aims and objectives: While previous research on code-switching, defined as the alternation between two languages in a single interaction, has focused on syntactic sociopragmatic patterns, significantly less work has focused on the impact of code-switching on phonetics. Distinct types of code-switching have been previously identified, with the distinction between intersentential and intrasentential code-switches being among the most basic. Yet, existing work on the phonetics of code-switching has largely relied on single feature (i.e., voice onset time) and has exclusively examined one type of code-switch (i.e., intrasentential). The current study investigates the potential for cross-linguistic interference in vowel production and examines the potential role of different code-switch types: intersentential and intrasentential code-switching. Design/Methodology: Thirty-seven Korean–English bilinguals participated in a controlled reading paradigm, producing monolingual English, monolingual Korean, intersentential code-switches, and intrasentential code-switches. Data and analysis: Analysis leveraged differences in the Korean and English vowel inventories and focused on the production of English [æ] and the corresponding Korean vowel [e~ε]. Findings/Conclusions: Results indicated that code-switched English vowels shifted in the direction of Korean vowels with respect to both height and backness. Code-switch type was shown to be significant, with a greater degree of vowel shift for intrasentential than intersentential code-switching. Originality: This study adds to the limited prior literature examining the effect of code-switching on vowel quality and is one of the first studies to systematically examine the role of code-switching typology on cross-linguistic interference in the phonetic domain. Significance/Implications: First, this study adds to the limited prior research that specifically examines the effect of code-switching on phonetic production of vowel quality. Second, this study highlights the nuances of short-term cross-linguistic interference, and notably the possibility for differential outcomes of interference across different linguistic domains (e.g., phonetics and syntax), showing a clear role for code-switching typology at the phonetic level.

Bilingual Language Dominance and Code-switching Patterns

Abstract Code-switching, the alternation between two languages in an interaction, is a salient characteristic of bilingual speech, but there is substantial variability in code-switching patterns among bilinguals. Language dominance, the relative strength of a bilingual’s languages, has been suggested as a key factor that impacts both the frequency with which a bilingual engages in code-switching and the directionality of code-switching. This study examines the relationship between language dominance and code-switching engagement and directionality. A total of 454 Spanish–English bilinguals completed questionnaires regarding language dominance, code-switching engagement, and code-switching directionality. Results demonstrated an impact of language dominance on code-switching engagement, with more balanced bilinguals reporting greater code-switching, although significant individual variation remained. A weak link between language dominance and directionality was also found. These findings suggest that while language dominance may serve to constrain a bilingual’s range of possible engagement with code-switching, it represents a distinct characteristic of a bilingual’s language profile.

The word frequency effect in first- and second-language reading by Chinese and Dutch bilinguals

Abstract High-frequency words are processed faster than low-frequency words, known as the word frequency effect (FE). Although the FE has been studied in various writing systems as well as in first- (L1) and second-language (L2) reading, existing theoretical hypotheses are mainly based on findings in alphabetic languages. To date, no study has investigated theoretical explanations of the FE such as the learning hypothesis, the lexical entrenchment hypothesis and the rank hypothesis apply to Chinese–English bilinguals. The present study, therefore, compared the FEs in Chinese– and Dutch–English bilinguals during natural paragraph reading in their L1 and L2, using eye-tracking measures. Chinese bilinguals exhibited a larger FE in L2 than in L1. They displayed smaller L1 FEs and much steeper L2 FE curves than Dutch bilinguals. These findings are not entirely consistent with the existing FE hypotheses, and the present study discusses theoretical accounts in light of the observed results.

Morphophonemic analysis boosts orthographic and semantic learning of academic words for Spanish–English bilinguals

BackgroundUpper elementary grade students encounter increasingly complex texts with abundant morphologically complex words. Despite the positive effects of morphology‐based vocabulary instruction, emergent bilinguals with limited word reading skills may need additional support.MethodsThis study investigated the effects of morphological analysis and morphophonemic analysis instruction on the orthographic and semantic learning of morphologically complex academic words. Fourth‐ and fifth‐grade Spanish–English bilingual students (N = 30) in the United States participated in two learning tasks. In learning task one, participants learned two sets of carefully matched derivational words under morphological and whole‐word learning conditions. In learning task two, the same participants learned two other sets of words under morphophonemic and whole‐word learning conditions. Each learning task included two learning sessions interweaved by meaning recall and spelling production assessments. Cross‐classified multilevel regression was used to assess the effects of intervention conditions, child and item predictors, as well as cross‐level interactions.ResultsFindings showed no significant difference in meaning recall and spelling measures between morphological and whole‐word conditions. Students performed significantly better in the morphophonemic condition than in the whole‐word condition for both meaning and affix spelling outcomes. The effect of morphophonemic intervention over whole word condition was stronger for younger students and words of lower base frequencies. Student meaning and spelling performance was significantly predicted by their word reading skills.ConclusionsMorphophonemic analysis instruction enhances word meaning recall and spelling of complex derivative words.