Proficient Bilinguals Research Articles

Grammatical processing in two languages: How individual differences in language experience and cognitive abilities shape comprehension in heritage bilinguals.

Recent studies have demonstrated variation in language processing for monolingual and bilingual speakers alike, suggesting that only by considering individual differences will an accurate picture of the consequences of language experience be adequately understood. This approach can be illustrated in ERP research that has shown that sentence contexts that traditionally elicit a P600 component in response to a syntactic violation, elicit an N400 response for a subset of individuals. That result has been reported for monolingual speakers processing sentences in their L1 and also for bilinguals processing sentences in their L2. To date, no studies have compared variation in L1 and L2 ERP effects in the very same bilingual speakers. In the present paper, we do that by examining sentence processing in heritage bilinguals who acquired both languages from early childhood but for whom the L2 typically becomes the dominant language. Variation in ERPs produced by the non-dominant L1 and dominant L2 of heritage bilinguals was compared to variation found in monolingual L1 processing. The group-averaged results showed the smallest N400 and P600 responses in the native, but no longer dominant, L1 of heritage bilinguals, and largest in the monolinguals. Individual difference analyses linking ERP variation to working memory and language proficiency showed that working memory was the primary factor related to monolingual L1 processing, whereas bilinguals did not show this relationship. In contrast, proficiency was the primary factor related to ERP responses for no longer dominant L1 for bilinguals, but unrelated to monolingual L1 processing, whereas bilinguals' dominant L2 processing showed an intermediate relationship. Finally, the N400 was absent for bilinguals performing the task in the same language in which they initially learned to read, but significantly larger when bilinguals performed the task in the other language. The results support the idea that proficient bilinguals utilize the same underlying mechanisms to process both languages, although the factors that affect processing in each language may differ. More broadly, we find that bilingualism is an experience that opens the language system to perform fluidly under changing circumstances, such as increasing proficiency. In contrast, language processing in monolinguals was primarily related to relatively stable factors (working memory).

Managing trouble spots in conversation

AbstractThis study examines other-initiated repair sequences in everyday conversations between a bilingual youth with autism and his family members. The analysis is centered on the types of repair initiators produced by the youth, the targets of his repair elicitations, and his family members’ subsequent actions. Findings include two dominant patterns in the data that indicate marked differences in the ways the youth’s parents interact with him. The discussion highlights the youth’s ability to shift the participation framework to facilitate his understanding of a previous utterance; the analysis also reveals the strategies employed by some of his family members to encourage interactional progressivity. The concluding section addresses implications of the study for understanding how bilingual youth with autism target trouble sources, enact alignment, and draw from their bilingual proficiencies in everyday conversations.

The sensitivity to context modulates executive control: Evidence from Malayalam–English bilinguals

AbstractIn two experiments, we examined the hypothesis that bilingual speakers modulate their cognitive control settings dynamically in the presence of different interlocutors, and this can be captured through performance on a non-linguistic attention task. We introduced Malayalam–English bilinguals to interlocutors with varying L2 dominance through a pre-experiment familiarisation and interaction phase. Later, participants did the Flanker task while the interlocutors appeared before each trial. While in experiment one participants did the Flanker task with equal distribution of trials, in experiment two we manipulated the monitoring demands by changing the frequency of trials. Results showed that high-L2 proficient bilinguals had lower conflict effect on the Flanker task in the presence of balanced interlocutors in both the experiments. The results provide strong evidence of dynamic adaptation of control settings in bilinguals with regard to different passively present interlocutors. The results further extend the predictions of the adaptive control hypothesis with novel manipulation.

Highly proficient, balanced bilingualism is related to thinner cortex in two cognitive control regions.

Whereas some bilinguals have one language that is dominant, others attain high proficiency in both languages. This variation is likely explained by a combination of environmental and genetic factors; however, there is a lapse in research on the neural underpinnings of bilingual proficiency. No study to date has examined how highly proficient bilingualism that is balanced relates to brain morphology in adults. Our present study analyzed the brains of 200 Spanish-English bilingual adults. Bilingual proficiency was measured and weighted by the degree of balance across the two languages. It was found that having higher dual language proficiency was related to thinner cortex in two regions: the left anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Neither English nor Spanish proficiency alone could account for neuroanatomical differences. Our findings suggest that thinner cortex of the left anterior PFC and the right ACC in adults with highly proficient, balanced bilingualism is how the adult brain reflects a lifetime of learning to flexibly adapt and utilize both languages and suggests the involvement of these structures in maintaining and increasing dual language proficiency.

Bilingual education through a pluri-centric approach: A case study of the effects of simultaneously learning two languages on L1 and L2 reading and writing proficiency

Language education has often been conducted based on monoglossic ideologies that keep L1 and L2 separate, a practice that receives growing criticism as out of sync with today’s multilingual globalized world. Informed by interdependence hypotheses and translanguaging theory, this research study explored the effects of a pluri-centric approach to learning L1 and L2 simultaneously. Through a bilingual intervention course with data collected from interviews, parents’ logbooks, observation field notes, questionnaires, and L1 and L2 reading and writing tests, this case study (n = 9) revealed that the approach effectively improved learners’ L1 and L2 proficiency, learning behaviour outside the classroom, self-efficacy, and confidence. Overall, the participants also perceived the bilingual course as effective, efficient, and innovative. The study provides a basis to reflect upon transferrable skills and core underlying proficiency as powerful concepts to draw upon in enhancing bilingual proficiency and effecting positive changes in learners’ behaviour and psychological well-being.

Language proficiency, sociolinguistic factors and inhibitory control among bilinguals

Bilingualism interacts with cognitive control mechanisms, particularly inhibitory control. It is believed that language proficiency as a measure of the degree of bilingualism may influence inhibitory control. However, this interaction is modulated by sociolinguistic factors associated with bilingual experience. We examined the relationship between language proficiency and inhibitory control and the influence of sociolinguistic factors by comparing high and low proficient Hindi–English bilinguals, and by using a correlational design. A standard go/no-go task with varying proportions of go and no-go trials was used. Study-1 showed that age of acquisition, language use in formal/informal setting, and bilingual switching influenced the interaction between L2 proficiency and inhibitory control. In general, high proficient bilinguals were better at regulating inhibitory control when the demand on inhibition was high compared to that of low proficient bilinguals. Study-2 showed that contextual switching and setting-based use of L2 predicted inhibitory control in a high monitoring condition while use of L1 predicted inhibitory control irrespective of inhibitory demands. However, contextual switching strengthened the interaction between L2 proficiency and inhibitory control whereas use of L1 moderated the relationship between L1 proficiency and inhibitory control. We did not find a significant effect of non-language variables such as fluid intelligence, socioeconomic status, and participation in skilled activities on the relationship between language proficiency and inhibitory control. We emphasize on the role of both L1 and L2 proficiency and the use of a correlational design to investigate the relationship between bilingualism and inhibitory control.

Temporal dynamics of free recall: The role of rehearsal efficiency in word frequency and bilingual language proficiency effects.

Under a recall model in which presentations and rehearsals are treated as equivalent encoding events, we investigated whether rehearsal efficiency differences explain the effects of word frequency and bilingual proficiency on the temporal dynamics of rehearsal and free recall. Experiments 1 and 3 were conducted with monolingual English speakers, and Experiments 2 and 4 were conducted with Spanish-English bilinguals with matched age, education, and socioeconomic status. In Experiments 1 and 2, lower word frequency, lower proficiency, and bilingualism were associated with less accurate free recall of items from early serial positions, beginning recall with items from later serial positions, and making fewer transitions to items from later or adjacent serial positions. These effects were replicated and rehearsal-based explanations were validated in Experiments 3 and 4 using a rehearse-aloud protocol. With lower frequency words or lower language proficiency, rehearsal was less efficient with fewer rehearsals between item presentations. As a result, items from early serial positions had fewer rehearsals that stopped earlier in the study sequence, less spacing between repeated rehearsals, and fewer transitions to items from later or adjacent serial positions. Rehearsal-contingent analyses revealed that these rehearsal patterns were associated with less accurate recall, beginning recall with items from later serial positions, and consistent transition patterns from rehearsal to recall. These patterns support a model in which presentations and rehearsals are treated as equivalent encoding events and the effects of word frequency and language proficiency on recall accuracy are mediated by less efficient rehearsal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Interference and facilitation in phonological encoding: Two sides of the same coin? Evidence from bilingual aphasia

Abstract In the present study, we explored the underlying mechanisms of lexical retrieval in two languages when modulated by phonological context. To do so, we investigated the performance of bilingual patients with aphasia and healthy bilingual individuals on a blocked cyclic naming task as a measure of lexical activation and phonological encoding within their two languages. Highly proficient Catalan-Spanish bilinguals with aphasia (n = 13) and controls (n = 15) were recruited for this study, all with language profiles consistent with early and balanced usage of their two languages. Participants completed a phonological blocked cyclic naming task where reaction times, word duration, and accuracy in naming were measured in each of their languages. Three main results were obtained: (1) overall, patients were slower and less accurate than controls; (2) in patients with aphasia, phonologically related items were named with less accuracy than unrelated ones, suggesting an interference effect of phonological overlap within lexical retrieval; (3) performance in terms of naming latencies showed no effect of phonological context and this was similar across both languages for patients and controls; and (4) word durations were unaffected by phonological context and item repetition, suggesting that phonological encoding may not have a cascading effect onto speech-motor planning. Additionally, individual level analyses confirmed that most of the patients were less accurate in naming pictures within the homogenous compared to the heterogeneous condition (9/13 patients in their dominant language and 11/13 in their non-dominant language). These findings are discussed within the context of language production theories that have attempted to explain facilitation and interference in blocking naming and their implications for bilingualism.

Investigating the Effects of Language-Switching Frequency on Attentional and Executive Functioning in Proficient Bilinguals.

Recent studies have proposed that the executive advantages associated with bilingualism may stem from language-switching frequency rather than from bilingualism per se (see, for example, Prior and Gollan, 2011). Barbu et al. (2018) showed that high-frequency switchers (HFLSs) outperformed low-frequency switchers (LFLSs) on a mental flexibility task but not on alertness or response inhibition tasks. The aim of the present study was to replicate these results as well as to compare proficient (HFLSs and LFLSs) to a control group of monolingual participants. Two groups of proficient bilingual adults (30 HFLSs and 21 LFLSs) and a group of 28 monolinguals participated in the study. The results showed superior mental flexibility skills in HFLSs compared to (LFLSs) and monolinguals; furthermore, the two latter groups showed no difference in mental flexibility skills. These results provide novel support for the hypothesis that the so-called bilingual advantage is, in fact, a result of language-switching habits.

High proficient bilinguals bring in higher executive control when encountering diverse interlocutors

We examined if bilinguals are sensitive to contextual factors with regard to the presence of interlocutors and if this reflects in how they modulate their executive control. First, we introduced Telugu–English bilinguals to monolingual, bilingual and neutral interlocutors in the form of cartoon characters through an interactive session. Following this, they performed the attention network task (ANT) with the image of interlocutors appearing on every trial before the flankers. High proficient bilinguals (in L2) were overall faster on the ANT (indicating higher executive control) when different interlocutors appeared randomly in a mixed block compared to the low proficient bilinguals. However, this effect was not found when the appearance of the interlocutors along-side the ANT task was blocked. These data demonstrate that high proficient bilinguals brought in higher executive control when the context required higher monitoring (different interlocutors appearing randomly) compared to the low proficient bilinguals. We interpret the findings with regard to the adaptive control hypothesis.

Reactions of Arab-Palestinians in Israel Toward an In-group Member Mixing Hebrew or English With Arabic

Code-mixing with a dominant language can appeal to members of linguistic minorities because it signals bilingual proficiency, modernity, and social mobility. However, it can also pose a threat to the minority’s group vitality and distinctiveness. In Study 1 ( N = 208), Palestinian citizens of Israel (a linguistic and national minority) listened to a recorded message by a fellow group member, either in pure Arabic or in Arabic mixed with Hebrew or English. Code-mixing elicited negative evaluations. In Study 2 ( N = 276), Arabic mixed with Hebrew was crossed with messages on the relations with the Jewish–Israeli majority. Speakers who advocated full independence from the majority or an impartial view, but expressed linguistic dependency on Hebrew through code-mixing lost credit. Identification with the national group affected the effects in both studies. The implications of code-mixing for identity-related processes and its potential use as a social barometer for intergroup relations are discussed.

Differences in Working Memory With Emotional Distraction Between Proficient and Non-proficient Bilinguals.

The impact of bilingual education and bilingual experience on working memory has been an important and controversial issue in the field of psycholinguistics. Taking Chinese-English bilinguals as an example, this study aims to investigate the differences in emotional working memory between proficient and non-proficient bilinguals by using delayed matching-to-sample task paradigm and the more complex N-back task in emotional contexts. The results show that proficient bilinguals may have better performance on both of these two working memory tasks than non-proficient bilinguals, and the advantage effects can be more apparent under high memory load conditions. In addition, the negative emotion context could have a positive impact on complex N-back tasks. This study supports the notion that bilingual experience can promote the development of an individual’s cognitive ability and enable individuals to possess more advantages in working memory even in the presence of emotional contexts.

Interactional context mediates the consequences of bilingualism for language and cognition.

Proficient bilinguals use two languages actively, but the contexts in which they do so may differ dramatically. The present study asked what consequences the contexts of language use hold for the way in which cognitive resources modulate language abilities. Three groups of speakers were compared, all of whom were highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals who differed with respect to the contexts in which they used the two languages in their everyday lives. They performed two lexical production tasks and the "AX" variant of the Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), a nonlinguistic measure of cognitive control. Results showed that lexical access in each language, and how it related to cognitive control ability, depended on whether bilinguals used their languages separately or interchangeably or whether they were immersed in their second language. These findings suggest that even highly proficient bilinguals who speak the same languages are not necessarily alike in the way in which they engage cognitive resources. Findings support recent proposals that being bilingual does not, in itself, identify a unique pattern of cognitive control. An important implication is that much of the controversy that currently surrounds the consequences of bilingualism may be understood, in part, as a failure to characterize the complexity associated with the context of language use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Using Temporary Interpreters in Mock Forensic Interviews

This study investigated the use of temporary interpreters in forensic interviews. Chinese–Japanese proficient bilinguals (N = 30) were asked to interpret a victim statement (Chinese to Japanese) and then attend a mock suspect interview where the investigator’s utterances (Japanese to Chinese) and suspect’s utterances (Chinese to Japanese) were interpreted. The cognitive load of interpreting (the length of utterances) and workload of interpreting (comparing one-interpreter and two-interpreter conditions) were investigated. In addition, the categories of information (time, place, agent, object, and action) were analyzed. Results indicated that the longer the utterances, the more often omissions occurred; however, no differences were found between one-interpreter and two-interpreter conditions, suggesting that the cognitive load is responsible for omission during interpreting. In addition, orienting information (i.e., time and place) was more likely to be omitted than other kinds of information. Problems encountered when using temporary interpreters are discussed.

Bilingual novel word learning in sentence contexts: Effects of semantic and language variation

Abstract Research on word learning demonstrates that meanings of novel words are better recalled when those words are encountered in a variety of semantic contexts than when encountered in the same repeated context. The present study examines how semantic and non-semantic contextual variations in word learning encounters impact learning the meanings of novel words. Across two experiments, highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals studied rare words in repeated or varied semantic contexts, presented in only one language or in both languages. Participants recalled more word meanings when semantic context was varied rather than repeated at study, and this effect did not differ for the more and less proficient languages. However, varying the language context provided no benefit relative to studying words in only one language. Performance patterns were consistent for visual and auditory study modalities, and in both recall and recognition tasks, performance was less accurate overall in the less proficient language than in the more proficient language. These findings replicate the advantage of semantic variation observed in monolingual studies and is the first to directly compare learning from varied and repeated semantic contexts for more and less proficient languages in bilinguals.

Understanding Second Language Anxiety: Feedback from ESL Learners in TVET

Anxiety in language classrooms has been acknowledged by local scholars as detrimental to Malaysian learners' English proficiency. Part of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions' mission is to provide immediate workforce of holistic and great communicators. However, language learning anxiety lent support to the poor English performance among learners and is misaligned with the vision by the government as stipulated in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015–2025 (Higher Education). The blueprint was developed in 2013 to keep the education system in line with the global trends to help prepare Malaysian youth to survive in the rapidly-changing future. One of highlights is the government's aspiration for high bilingual proficiency among the people. Thus, understanding the types of anxiety in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms is pertinent to customised efforts for pedagogical intervention. Adapting the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), the current study aims to investigate the factors of learning anxiety in ESL classrooms among 236 respondents from various TVET institutions from the Southern states of Malaysia. The questionnaire was distributed online with the items reflective of three types of anxiety in ESL classrooms: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. Findings of the study indicated that the respondents suffered from anxiety across the components which confirm the perpetual concern by educators over the reasons why most Malaysian learners still grapple with English proficiency despite years of learning it in formal settings. The study also revealed interesting insights from a psychological perspective by reporting constant anxiety about speaking and presenting in the presence of an audience as well as anxiety when receiving negative feedback from teachers and peers. Implications of the study for practice, subsequent research, and policy are presented with some recommendations for future research to mitigate language anxiety in ESL classrooms.

Bilinguals processing noun morphology: Evidence for the Language Distance Hypothesis from event-related potentials

Abstract Evidence shows that second language (L2) processing depends on the Age of Acquisition (AoA), proficiency and differences between L1 and L2 grammar. Here we focus on the influence of the latter factor on L2 processing. To this end, we tested early (AoA = 3 years) and highly proficient Spanish-Basque and Basque-Spanish bilinguals by means of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) while processing noun morphology in Basque (Experiments 1 and 2) and Spanish (Experiments 3 and 4). Both behavioral and electrophysiological results revealed significant differences between L1 and L2 speakers: non-natives made more errors and elicited a smaller P600 for violations than natives when processing ergative and allative morphology in Basque and accusative, dative and allative in Spanish. These findings reveal that, even for early and highly proficient bilinguals, (a) L2 processing is modulated by L1 grammar and (b) native vs. non-native differences obtain only when L1 and L2 morphological categories differ but not otherwise.

Contributions of semantic and contextual diversity to the word frequency effect in L2 lexical access.

Word frequency has long been viewed as the best predictor of lexical access. However, recent findings have suggested that other corpus-derived metrics (i.e., contextual diversity, semantic diversity) can better explain the word frequency effect in both native speakers and in proficient bilinguals. However, little is known about the contributions of these variables to second language lexical access, where the word frequency effect is purportedly larger than in native speakers. Results from a lexical-decision task with second language learners and a comparison group of native speakers revealed that both contextual diversity and semantic diversity were just as good, if not better, at explaining variance in lexical decision latencies as word frequency. These findings are broadly consistent with that of monolinguals and proficiency bilinguals. The results also underscore the need for more theoretical and empirical focus on different corpus metrics in modelling lexical access. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Temporal Dynamics of Free Recall: The Role of Rehearsal Efficiency in Word Frequency and Bilingual Language Proficiency Effects

Supplemental Material for Temporal Dynamics of Free Recall: The Role of Rehearsal Efficiency in Word Frequency and Bilingual Language Proficiency Effects

Bidirectional Transfer in Korea-Chinese Children’s Language Acquisition

With the development of economy, international trade and commerce frequently boomed, multicultural families are gradually increasing, so developing children’s bilingual competence has become a focused issue. This thesis collects 38 Korean-Chinese children’s bilingual proficiency test paper to research language bidirectional transfer in the process of K-C children bilingual acquisition. There are two types of children involved, that one is bilingual children who born in china, with a Korean parent and a Chinese parent; the other type is early second acquisition children who came to China before the age of three, and their parents are both Korean. Early second acquisition children have lived in a Chinese environment since childhood. Based on the influence of bilingual language community and early childhood education intervention, they input Chinese signals implicitly, and started to learn Chinese systematically in kindergarten at around age of three. Two types of children are affected by language transfer from Korean and Chinese. As far as the pronunciation is concerned, K-C children have difficulty in identifying Pinyin, recognition of tone labeling, and pronunciation of speech cross languages; in terms of syntax, K-C children show object-verb inversion and shift of topic focus of prepositional verb. This thesis mainly involves error analysis of speech and syntactic structure, classification of error item, to study the cross-lingual impact between Chinese-Korean in children’s bilingual acquisition who are under the Chinese environment, which will help to build dynamic schema of bidirectional transfer in K-C children language acquisition, and final finally give some suggestions.