Bilingual Performance Research Articles

Ibsen, Power and the Self: Postsocialist Chinese Experimentations in Stage Performance and Film

Ibsen, Power and the Self: Postsocialist Chinese Experimentations in Stage Performance and Film

Switching between newly learned languages impacts executive control.

Previous research has explored the relationship between language control and executive control based on performance in bilinguals' skilled languages. However, this relationship between bilingualism and executive control has not been examined at the very initial stage of language learning. In the present study, we trained Chinese speakers to learn words in German and Japanese, two languages with which they had no prior experience. In pre- and post-training, we measured participants' electrophysiological data to investigate how switching between these two newly learned languages affected executive control. We observed that, while lacking the language switching effect in the behavioral data, a flanker task elicited larger N2 and P3 amplitudes in the post-training session when participants were required to switch between German and Japanese compared to when they responded to only German or Japanese. These results provided evidence of language control of newly learned languages on domain-general executive control, specifically at the (very) initial period of language learning. Our findings support the adaptive nature of the relationship between bilingual language control and executive control.

Interaction and Interference of Languages in Bilingual Germans of the Vyatka Region of Russia

The article examines the interaction of the German and Russian languages in the speech of bilingual Germans who were born and live in a Russian-speaking environment in the Vyatka region of Russia. This task involves the study of their usage, interference (including phonetic, lexical and syntactic assimilation), as well as borrowings and code-switching. The dialects of the Russian Germans of the Vyatka region have a status of migrant and belong to a category of vanishing supraregional linguistic entities. The function of this variety of language is to provide a link between the native German language of the immigrants (L1) and Russian, their major surrounding language (L2). In addition, the German language of the Vyatka region reflects new linguistic contacts caused by multiple forced migrations during the Second World War. As a result of these mass relocations, some new processes in interaction of dialects arose, not observed in their mother colonies. The resulting variety of usage can be referred to as a German-Russian interlanguage. Before the World War II, all German dialects for more than two centuries have been confined in Russia to enclaves (or dialect islands). After mass deportations, they transformed both geographically and, for certain dialects, in terms of social composition. Taking this into account, the study of their interactions acquires greater importance for understanding similar processes associated with modern intercultural language contacts, in general. These changes in the language environment boosted linguistic interference at all levels; they also account for the tendency to bilingual behavior common both for speakers of standard and dialectal German. Our analysis of these processes is based on the interviews with bilingual Germans of the Vyatka region of Russia recorded during dialectological trips to this enclave. The study identifies and describes phonetic interactions (both segmental and supersegmental), morphological and syntactic interferences in the Russian and German speech of the Germans of this dialect island. All these processes in L1 and L2, as well as their distortion and mixing, are typical for the mechanisms governing their bilingual performance as well as the degree of its stability.

Performance of Korean-English bilinguals on an adaptation of the screening bilingual aphasia test.

The use of standardized tests specifically designed for and normed on bilingual groups is crucial for the accurate diagnosis and language profiling of bilingual speakers with aphasia. Currently, there is a dearth of norms and supporting psychometric data for the few available bilingual aphasia assessments. The only available aphasia test for Korean-English (KE) bilinguals is the Korean-English Bilingual Aphasia Test (KE-BAT). The absence of bilingual normative data for the KE-BAT limits its clinical and research utility. (1) To revise the original screening KE-BAT to clarify ambiguities in its instructions and stimuli; and (2) to examine subtest and item performance across the two languages for the revised screening KE-BAT with a local sample of highly proficient KE bilinguals. The original screening KE-BAT was first revised to replace unrecognizable drawings, address ambiguities in the instructions and stimuli, and increase the number of items on naming subtests. This revised test is henceforth referred to as the adapted screening KE-BAT (AS KE-BAT). A total of 21 neurologically healthy, highly proficient and college-educated KE bilinguals (19-34 years old) were recruited from a large city in the United States. Participants completed three measures of language proficiency and the AS KE-BAT including the KE translation test (Part C). Total and subtest scores were compared across the two languages, and individual item accuracy was calculated. Incorrect responses of low scoring items were examined. Performance was comparable across Korean and English for all subtests, except for the spontaneous speech subtest. The item accuracy of 17 items (7% of total items) in the AS KE-BAT fell to < 80%, and four items (1.6% of total items) had an accuracy < 60%. Incorrect responses of low scoring items were caused by phoneme misperception, lexical substitution and morphosyntactic L2 patterns. The results of the study highlight the importance of empirically examining the performance of neurotypical bilinguals on bilingual aphasia assessments to establish their psychometric properties. Based on the small-sized local bilingual normative sample obtained in this study, appropriate cut-off criteria, recommendations for clinical interpretation and further modifications of the AS KE-BAT are proposed. What is already known on the subject The pair of English and Korean aphasia assessments (e.g., Western Aphasia Battery-Revised; WAB-R) (Kertesz 2012) and Korean Western Aphasia Battery (Kim and Na 2001) cannot be used to assess language impairments in KE bilinguals with aphasia since these tests have not been designed for and normed on the bilingual group. Clinical utility of the Korean-English Bilingual Aphasia Test (KE-BAT), which is the only resource currently available to assess KE bilinguals with aphasia, is greatly compromised by the lack of KE bilingual normative data. What this study adds to existing knowledge This study provides cut-off scores, comparability of test performance and item difficulty metrics and it identifies additional ways in which items and spontaneous speech scoring of the adapted screening KE-BAT (AS KE-BAT) could be modified. Suggested guidelines allow improved interpretations of the linguistic performance of local KE bilinguals with aphasia who have a similar demographic and linguistic background. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The AS KE-BAT with cut-off criteria of 95% for Part B and 80% for Part C is suitable for the language assessment of highly proficient and young KE bilinguals with a high level of education and it yields comparable performance across the two languages. Clinicians may decide to adjust spontaneous speech scoring criteria if the client's language history is suggestive of code-switching and use the item difficulty data to guide test item selection for this group of bilinguals.

Bilingualism and Its Implications for Neuropsychological Evaluation.

In the background of a large population of bilinguals globally, the study aimed to develop standards of neuropsychological testing in the context of bilingualism. Because bilingualism is known to affect cognitive processes, bilinguals and monolinguals were compared on their performance on cognitive tests, to investigate the possibility of the need for separate normative data for the two groups. A comprehensive neuropsychological test battery, standardized across five Indian languages: the Indian Council of Medical Research-Neuro Cognitive Tool Box (ICMR-NCTB) was administered to 530 participants (267 monolingual and 263 bilinguals matched for age and education). A systematic method of testing cognition in bilinguals was developed; to identify the appropriate language for testing, ensure language proficiency of examiner, and to interpret the bilingual responses. Additionally, the performance of bilinguals on the ICMR-NCTB was compared with monolinguals. Cognitive testing in the bilingual context was performed in the most proficient language of the participants, by examiners well versed with the language. Results from the language-based tests suggested that the frequent occurrence of borrowed- and language-mixed words required consideration while scoring. The reported bilingual effect on cognitive processes did not reflect as differences in the performance between bilinguals and monolinguals. Observations from the study provide robust recommendations for neuropsychological testing in the context of bilingualism. Results indicate that separate normative data may not be required for bilinguals and monolinguals. The study will be relevant and provide a reference framework to address similar issues in the large population of bilinguals in other societies.

Do Cross-Language Script Differences Enable Bilinguals to Function Selectively When Speaking in One Language Alone?

The present study examined the role of script in bilingual speech planning by comparing the performance of same and different-script bilinguals. Spanish-English bilinguals (Experiment 1) and Japanese-English bilinguals (Experiment 2) performed a picture-word interference task in which they were asked to name a picture of an object in English, their second language, while ignoring a visual distractor word in Spanish or Japanese, their first language. Results replicated the general pattern seen in previous bilingual picture-word interference studies for the same-script, Spanish-English bilinguals but not for the different-script, Japanese-English bilinguals. Both groups showed translation facilitation, whereas only Spanish-English bilinguals demonstrated semantic interference, phonological facilitation, and phono-translation facilitation. These results suggest that when the script of the language not in use is present in the task, bilinguals appear to exploit the perceptual difference as a language cue to direct lexical access to the intended language earlier in the process of speech planning.

Executive functions in French-Greek early bilinguals: In search of the suggested bilingual advantage

Bilinguals must manage two languages on a daily basis, which requires, among other things, dealing with cross-linguistic interference. Such cognitive training is assumed to underlie better performance of bilinguals, relative to monolinguals, in non-verbal cognitive tasks. Ηowever, the suggested advantage has recently been questioned. The present study aimed at shedding light into this debate, focusing on French-Greek early bilingual adults. Exposure to two languages from the first few years of life has been suggested to favour the demonstration of an advantage. Bilinguals were compared to Greek-speaking monolingual adults (matched for age, gender, non-verbal intelligence, and SES) on executive function tasks, tapping switching, inhibition, and updating processes. Task demands were also manipulated. In line with the suggested advantage and as expected, in the switching paradigm, bilinguals performed faster overall and demonstrated a smaller mixing cost; this can be assumed to reflect better general monitoring and top-down processing for bilingual participants. In contrast, the groups did not differ on switching cost, neither on the inhibition and updating measures. Moreover, contrary to what was expected, the cognitive measures did not correlate with an index of how balanced bilingualism was. Findings do not support a general and robust cognitive advantage in a sample of early bilinguals. Factors that might influence its observation are discussed, along with lines of future research.

The Effect of Bilingualism on Cue-Based vs. Memory-Based Task Switching in Older Adults.

Findings suggest a positive impact of bilingualism on cognition, including the later onset of dementia. However, it is not clear to what extent these effects are influenced by variations in attentional control demands in response to specific task requirements. In this study, 20 bilingual and 20 monolingual older adults performed a task-switching task under explicit task-cuing vs. memory-based switching conditions. In the cued condition, task switches occurred in random order and a visual cue signaled the next task to be performed. In the memory-based condition, the task alternated after every second trial in a predictable sequence without presenting a cue. The performance of bilinguals did not vary across experimental conditions, whereas monolinguals experienced a pronounced increase in response latencies and error rates in the cued condition. Both groups produced similar switch costs (difference in performance on switch trials as opposed to repeating trials within the mixed-task block) and mixing costs (difference in performance on repeat trials of a mixed-task block as opposed to trials of a single-task block), but bilinguals produced them with lower response latencies. The cognitive benefits of bilingualism seem not to apply to executive functions per se but to affect specific cognitive processes that involve task-relevant context processing. The present results suggest that lifelong bilingualism could promote in older adults a flexible adjustment to environmental cues, but only with increased task demands. However, due to the small sample size, the results should be interpreted with caution.

Measuring Verbal Fluency Task Performance of Indonesian Bilinguals

Verbal fluency (VF) task is a tool that has been utilized in bilingual studies to measure executive performance of bilingual individuals. While many of the previous studies compared bilingual speakers’ performance in VF to their monolingual counterparts, this descriptive study compares exclusively the cross-linguistic VF performance of Indonesian bilinguals in their first (L1), second (L2), and third language (L3). The aim of this study was to see whether or not there were any differences in the result of their performance in each of their languages. The participants of the current study were 25 non-native bilingual university students in Indonesia who speak English in at least intermediate level. Javanese is the L1 of the participants. Indonesian is their L2, whereas English is their L3. In the VF task, the participants were requested to generate, in a rapid fashion, semantic category and phonemic category in their L1, L2, and L3. The results showed that the participants’ VF performance in English and standard Indonesian were significantly higher (p &lt; .05) than Javanese. However, no significant difference was indicated when comparing the semantic category and phonemic category in all three languages. The findings of this study will be used as a basis for a forthcoming study on VF performance of Indonesian bilinguals.

Auditory processing and high task demands facilitate the bilingual executive control advantage in young adults

Although bilingual children and elderly have been observed to outperform monolinguals in typical executive control tasks, this bilingual advantage is not consistently found in the young adult population. Proponents of the bilingual executive control advantage argue the reason for this is that task demands in the typical tasks used are not high enough, since young adults perform at ceiling level, whereas critics of the effect argue it has benefited from publication bias. Here we test the task-load hypothesis using a standard and a difficult version of the arrow-flanker task and identify stimulus processing characteristics underlying greater bilingual executive control. We increased task demands by using an “Opposite” task in which participants were to respond to the central arrow indicating its opposite direction whilst a task cue indicated which task was to be performed at each trial. Further increase in task difficulty was expected to arise from reducing the task preparation time by using different stimulus-onset-asynchronies between cue and target stimuli. As predicted, we observed no language group differences in the normal flanker task, whereas bilinguals displayed less errors than monolinguals and were less hampered by the difficult task than monolinguals when auditory task cues were used. Event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed that the bilinguals' conflict monitoring response occurred much earlier than the monolinguals’ when the task cue was auditory but less so when the cue was visual. Indeed, bilinguals appeared to prioritize the cue signal when it was auditory, but not when it was visual. Further ERP results showed bilinguals displayed greater attentional responses to the target stimulus than monolinguals. Finally, the behavioral and conflict-monitoring ERP responses correlated with language proficiency and usage scores. Together, these results show that when tasks demands are high and auditory processing is part of the task, bilingual adults outperform monolinguals due to better stimulus identification and greater efficiency in managing task demands. Highlights of: Kuipers & Westphal. Auditory processing and high task demands facilitate the bilingual executive control advantage in young adults. • A new variant of an arrow-flanker task increases task load • Bilingual adults outperform monolinguals in difficult task conditions • Greater bilingual performance is mediated by auditory processing • Language proficiency in bilinguals is related to behavioral performance • Learning a second language facilitates managing different task demands

Factors Affecting Color-Term Performance in Bilinguals and Relevant Pedagogical Implications

This paper examines bilingual color-term performance in Mandarin Chinese and English in order to offer relevant pedagogical implications. Forty native speakers of Chinese who learned English as a foreign language participated in the current study. They were further divided into two groups, the advanced and the intermediate group, based on their English proficiency levels. These participants took a free-listing task and a color-naming task, in Mandarin Chinese and in English. Their response types and color terms were analyzed and discussed. Several factors underlying the discrepancy between English and Mandarin color-term performance were identified, including language factors, task factors, and English proficiency factors. Results also showed a developmental pattern for Chinese-speaking learners acquiring English color terms. Overall, this study clearly demonstrated a significant interaction effect among these factors. Finally, this paper offers pedagogical implications for English vocabulary teaching and directions for further study.

Kungkarangkalpa Inma Alatjila Kuwari Palyani: Dancing the Seven Sisters Songline Today!

The focus of this article is the cross-cultural translation space of bicultural bilingual performance of Inma, traditional Pitjantjatjara song and dance. The article structure reflects the two languages and cultural concepts of storytelling, song and dance in which the Kungkarangkalpa Inma—Seven Sisters performance was presented at the Centenary of Canberra Indigenous Festival in 2013. This method of bilingual bicultural translation of words, song, dance and choreography was intrinsic to the many acts of translation involved in communicating the power, passion and meaning of a traditional Indigenous Inma performance to a western city audience. Inma song and dance conveys the connectivity of people to their Tjukurpa, the Law and Dreaming of their country. The performance space of translation is one in which people choose to share their culture by performing it in language, written or spoken, song, dance or mime, and translation occurs through intermediaries with some knowledge of both cultures who translate each to the other. The authors acknowledge that the acts of translation involved in translocating the desert Inma to the Canberra stage and the presentation of this in the secondary formats of a dialogue at an academic conference and now in a written article are all abstractions from the real performance of meaning in country of the Tjukurpa. Translation is but a reflection of meaning, a narrowing of the breadth of cultural referends of language, time and place. In this case, through several portals: a condensed city performance, a film of this performance, an oral bilingual conference dialogue and now a written account. This article references these portals and incorporates direct and indirect bilingual speech and reflection in an attempt to convey the importance of Inma song and dance in the cross-cultural communication of Indigenous knowledge of country.

Translation of Ambiguous Words by Translation Trainees

Ambiguity has attracted the attention of researchers from many disciplines. With the aim of providing a perspective from translation, this psycholinguistic study investigated ambiguity in the translation performance of late bilinguals from English (L2) into Turkish (L1). We employed an oral translation task in which the participants (N= 51) translated 30 ambiguous words, (polysemes and homonyms) in contextualized sentences. First, we investigated whether word frequency affects the participants’ translation accuracy. We found no significant difference between high and low frequency words, which is attributable to the proficiency of the participants, and the facilitating role of sentential context. Secondly, we aimed to explore whether the nature of the ambiguous words made any difference to the participants’ translation performance. The results showed that polysemous words were translated with greater accuracy than homonymous words, in line with the data in the literature regarding the differences in the representation and processing of polysemy and homonymy.

THE INTERPLAY OF BILINGUALISM, EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS AND CREATIVITY IN PROBLEM SOLVING AMONG MALE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

The present study explores the interplay among bilingualism, executive functions and creativity in problem solving among adult male university students. In this context, the associations between two factors critical for understanding the topic, i.e. type of bilingualism (i.e. balanced versus non-balanced bilingualism) and type of creative thinking (i.e. convergent versus divergent thinking) are examined, as well. 28 Russian/Hebrew/English trilinguals (balanced Russian/Hebrew bilinguals), and 25 non-balanced Hebrew/English bilinguals participated in the study. All participants performed several standard tasks on executive functions (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Eriksen flanker task, digit span test, Corsi block-tapping test) and two tests on creativity: Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Figural Form A) and Remote Associates Test (in appropriate languages). The findings showed that the Russian-speaking participants performed better on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, particularly in flexibility and fluency measures. On the Remote Associates Test, balanced bilinguals outperformed non-balanced bilinguals in the English version and exhibited the same results in the Hebrew version of the test. In this case, there were significant correlations between the Remote Associates Test results in all three languages in the Russian group. Thus, balanced bilingualism seems to be also characterized by a well-organized language system in which all of the individual’s languages are interconnected. This appears to be a significant factor in the performance of balanced bilinguals on the Remote Associates Test in the different languages. In addition, the findings seem to confirm the hypothesis that balanced bilingualism positively influences divergent thinking. The hypothesis that performance of bilinguals on creativity tasks is linked to distinctions in the development of their executive functions was not confirmed.

Latent variable evidence on the interplay between language switching frequency and executive control in Spanish-Catalan bilinguals

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: We characterized the impact of several bilingualism-related factors on the executive control of Spanish-Catalan bilinguals. Design/methodology/approach: Participants self-reported information regarding their age of acquisition, second language proficiency and frequency of natural language switching, and performed non-linguistic tasks tapping into specific executive control subcomponents, including inhibition, switching and updating. Data and analysis: Data were analyzed by means of a structural equation model (SEM) approach. Findings/conclusions: Results revealed that the frequency of natural language switching positively modulated the executive control performance of Spanish-Catalan bilinguals, while neither age of acquisition nor second language proficiency had an effect. Moreover, we found that the impact of natural language switching exerted general-processing influences, affecting all subcomponents of executive control. Findings are discussed in relation to context-specific effects on the cognitive system of a particular bilingual population. Originality: The current study applied an SEM approach to provide new evidence on the previously ambiguous relation between bilingualism-related factors and executive control. Significance/implications: Our findings suggest that the frequency of natural language switching does globally influence the executive control of Spanish-Catalan bilinguals.

Age-related effect on language control and executive control in bilingual and monolingual speakers: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

Research suggests that bilingual language control and executive control (EC) have similar mechanisms and share common brain networks. Managing two languages presumably reinforces these networks and enhances the level of general executive functioning in bilinguals. Despite a huge amount of research, there is not yet any consensus on the nature of the potential bilingual advantage. The overall purpose of the present research was thus to gain insights into the influence of bilingualism on executive functions, by exploring aging-related changes. The domain-general tasks approach consisted in comparing young and older bilinguals with their monolingual peers on tasks that were deliberately chosen to assess different aspects of inhibition (Stroop, Antisaccade, and Stop Signal tasks) and cognitive flexibility (Berg Card Sorting Test, Trail Making Test and verbal fluency). Our goal was to ascertain whether bilinguals outperform monolinguals, and whether this advantage is greater for older bilinguals. Results provided some evidence of a bilingual advantage in verbal tasks involving language processing, such as verbal fluency and the Stroop test, but did not support the hypothesis of a general executive advantage, as bilinguals and monolinguals did not differ on nonlinguistic executive tasks. The language switch task approach consisted in studying the performance of young and older bilinguals on picture naming while switching between their dominant and nondominant languages, and comparing their performance with monolingual speakers in an equivalent switching paradigm. The effects of aging on mixing and switch costs were investigating by analyzing behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data. Results of these tasks did not reveal any effect of aging on mixing cost in bilinguals. Furthermore, ERP data pointed to a degree of flexibility in older bilinguals, who were able to allocate resources according to task difficulty. Taken together, our results suggest that a bilingual advantage is only observed in language-based tasks.

Language proficiency, reading comprehension and home literacy in bilingual children: the impact of context

ABSTRACT Numerous studies on reading comprehension with monolingual children have shown that oral language, such as vocabulary, is an important factor in predicting reading comprehension success. However, few studies have looked at the reading comprehension performance of bilinguals, and less is known about the contributors to its success, linguistic or otherwise. Based on previous research showing weaker oral language among bilingual children, the goals of the present study are to examine how bilinguals perform in reading comprehension, along with possible contributors such as oral language and home literacy practices, in comparison with their monolingual peers. Participants were 82 children in the third grade who completed standardized language measures assessing vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension and whose parents completed a home literacy questionnaire. Bilingual children’s reading comprehension was comparable to monolinguals despite having lower language, and bilingual parents reported reading rate was higher than that of the monolinguals. Moreover, the contributors to this success in reading comprehension were different for the bilingual group, with oral language and home literacy playing a role. Overall, this suggests bilinguals are unique from monolinguals in the manner in which they make use of the resources available to them, linguistic and otherwise, to achieve reading comprehension success.

The impact of brief exposure to the second language on native language production: Global or item specific?

AbstractBilinguals routinely shift between their languages, changing languages between communicative settings. To test the consequences of such changes in language use, 48 Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals named pictures in Arabic (L1) before and after a brief exposure manipulation, including either reading a list of Hebrew (L2) words aloud or performing a nonlinguistic task. Half of the items post-exposure were new and half were translation equivalents of the words presented during the L2 exposure task. Further, half of the items were very low-frequency L1 words, typically replaced by borrowed L2 words. Results show that across word types bilinguals were less accurate and produced more L2 cross-language errors in their dominant L1 following brief L2 exposure. Error rates were comparable for translation equivalents and new items, but more cross-language errors were observed post-exposure on translation equivalents. These findings demonstrate the engagement of both global whole-language control mechanisms and item-based competitive processes, and highlight the importance of language context and the dynamic nature of bilingual performance.

Bilingual reference production

AbstractWe investigate reference production in bilingual children. Based onKibrik (2011), we analyze the production of referring expressions in discourse in terms of activation of a referent. We propose a novel approach, which calculates activation by taking into account different activation-lending factors and their respective weight. This allows us to compare the activation encoded by referring expressions across languages and groups of speakers, and to run correlational analyses with the speakers’ cognitive profiles. In particular, the study addresses the correlation between activation and lexical processing among bilinguals, based on the distribution of referring expressions in narratives by 20 German-Greek bilingual children, compared to their monolingual peers. We found that bilingual pronouns correspond to a lower activation than monolingual ones. Speed of lexical retrieval is a predictor of the bilingual performance. Our model of analysis accounts for how reference production varies across individuals and which cognitive mechanisms underlie this variation.

Psicolinguística do bilinguismo: implicações em processos formais de aquisição de línguas

In this article we discuss the interrelationships between contextual and individual variables in the acquisition and use of L2, based on researches developed by our team. We assume that in the late acquisition of L2 there is variability in the proficiency of the learners, and that it is necessary to (re)know the effects of the individual variables in the teaching-learning processes. The experiments, which were created according to the Psycholinguistics of bilingualism and carried out in formal contexts of acquisition, evaluated associations between attention and working memory systems and the performance of bilinguals in their L2. The results, although incipient, indicate that effects of pedagogical approaches can be affected by individual differences. In addition, they reveal the need of more experiments that focus these variables on L2 teaching-learning processes.