Unbalanced Bilinguals Research Articles

Neuroanatomical profiles of bilingual children.

The goal of the present study was to examine differences in cortical thickness, cortical surface area, and subcortical volume between bilingual children who are highly proficient in two languages (i.e., English and Spanish) and bilingual children who are mainly proficient in one of the languages (i.e., Spanish). All children (N = 49) learned Spanish as a native language (L1) at home and English as a second language (L2) at school. Proficiency of both languages was assessed using the standardized Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery. Five-minute high-resolution anatomical scans were acquired with a 3-Tesla scanner. The degree of discrepancy between L1 and L2 proficiency was used to classify the children into two groups: children with balanced proficiency and children with unbalanced proficiency. The groups were comparable on language history, parental education, and other variables except English proficiency. Values of cortical thickness and surface area of the transverse STG, IFG-pars opercularis, and MFG, as well as subcortical volume of the caudate and putamen, were extracted from FreeSurfer. Results showed that children with balanced bilingualism had thinner cortices of the left STG, left IFG, left MFG and a larger bilateral putamen, whereas unbalanced bilinguals showed thicker cortices of the same regions and a smaller putamen. Additionally, unbalanced bilinguals with stronger foreign accents in the L2 showed reduced surface areas of the MFG and STS bilaterally. The results suggest that balanced/unbalanced bilingualism is reflected in different neuroanatomical characteristics that arise from biological and/or environmental factors.

Is language interference (when it occurs) agradedor anall-or-noneeffect? Evidence from bilingual reported speech production

Do cross-lingual interactions occur even with structures of different word order in different languages of bilinguals? Or could the latter provide immunity to interference of the contrasting characteristics of the other language? To answer this question, we examined the reported speech production (utterances reporting what just happened; e.g.,Holly asked what Eric ate) of two groups of proficient, unbalanced bilinguals with varying similarity between their native (L1-Spanish/L1-Dutch) and second language (L2-English). The results showed that both groups of bilinguals produced word order errors when formulating indirectWhat-questions in L2, regardless of how similar the L1 was to the L2 in that respect. Our findings suggest that in the case of reported speech production in the examined bilingual groups, cross-linguistic syntactic differences by themselves suffice to induce language interference, and that the degree of similarity between the L1 and the L2 does not seem to modulate the magnitude of this effect.

Target accessibility contributes to asymmetric priming in translation and cross-language semantic priming in unbalanced bilinguals

The current study examined within- and cross-language connectivity in four priming conditions: repetition, translation, within-language semantic and cross-language semantic priming. Unbalanced Hebrew–English bilinguals (N = 89) completed a lexical decision task in one of the four conditions in both languages. Priming effects were significantly larger from L1 to L2 for translation priming and marginally so for cross-language semantic priming. Priming effects were comparable for L1 and L2 in repetition and within-language semantic priming. These results support the notion that L1 words are more effective primes but also that L2 targets benefit more from priming. This pattern of results suggests that the lower frequency of use of L2 lexical items in unbalanced bilinguals contributes to asymmetrical cross-language priming via lower resting-level activation of targets and not only via less efficient lexical activation of primes, as highlighted by the BIA+ model.

Can monolinguals be like bilinguals? Evidence from dialect switching

Bilinguals rely on cognitive control mechanisms like selective activation and inhibition of lexical entries to prevent intrusions from the non-target language. We present cross-linguistic evidence that these mechanisms also operate in bidialectals. Thirty-two native German speakers who sometimes use the Öcher Platt dialect, and thirty-two native English speakers who sometimes use the Dundonian Scots dialect completed a dialect-switching task. Naming latencies were higher for switch than for non-switch trials, and lower for cognate compared to non-cognate nouns. Switch costs were symmetrical, regardless of whether participants actively used the dialect or not. In contrast, sixteen monodialectal English speakers, who performed the dialect-switching task after being trained on the Dundonian words, showed asymmetrical switch costs with longer latencies when switching back into Standard English. These results are reminiscent of findings for balanced vs. unbalanced bilinguals, and suggest that monolingual dialect speakers can recruit control mechanisms in similar ways as bilinguals.

이중 언어자의 언어 전환 비용: 언어 산출을 중심으로

In this article, we review studies which investigated the language process of bilinguals by examining how switch costs were incurred in the language switch processes, particularly in language production. We included not only the studies of unbalanced bilinguals and balanced bilinguals, but also voluntary language switching studies. In language production studies, larger costs are observed when switching from a non-dominant language to a dominant language than vice versa in cued language switching studies. However, symmetry language switch costs were observed in the studies of balanced bilinguals and voluntary language switching studies. This paper also deals with theories about the language switch costs: the language inhibition account vs. the response selection account. We tried to apply the results of the studies we reviewed to these theories and to figure out the limitations of these theories.

Sustained inhibition of the native language in bilingual language production: A virtual reality approach

Bilinguals often switch languages as a function of the language background of their addressee. The control mechanisms supporting bilinguals' ability to select the contextually appropriate language are heavily debated. Here we present four experiments in which unbalanced bilinguals named pictures in their first language Dutch and their second language English in mixed and blocked contexts. Immersive virtual reality technology was used to increase the ecological validity of the cued language-switching paradigm. Behaviorally, we consistently observed symmetrical switch costs, reversed language dominance, and asymmetrical mixing costs. These findings indicate that unbalanced bilinguals apply sustained inhibition to their dominant L1 in mixed language settings. Consequent enhanced processing costs for the L1 in a mixed versus a blocked context were reflected by a sustained positive component in event-related potentials. Methodologically, the use of virtual reality opens up a wide range of possibilities to study language and communication in bilingual and other communicative settings.

The Roles of Relative Linguistic Proficiency and Modality Switching in Language Switch Cost: Evidence from Chinese Visual Unimodal and Bimodal Bilinguals.

The current study investigated the mechanism of language switching in unbalanced visual unimodal bilinguals as well as balanced and unbalanced bimodal bilinguals during a picture naming task. All three groups exhibited significant switch costs across two languages, with symmetrical switch cost in balanced bimodal bilinguals and asymmetrical switch cost in unbalanced unimodal bilinguals and bimodal bilinguals. Moreover, the relative proficiency of the two languages but not their absolute proficiency had an effect on language switch cost. For the bimodal bilinguals the language switch cost also arose from modality switching. These findings suggest that the language switch cost might originate from multiple sources from both outside (e.g., modality switching) and inside (e.g., the relative proficiency of the two languages) the linguistic lexicon.

Modulation of language switching by cue timing: Implications for models of bilingual language control.

The current study examines the interplay between global and local processes in bilingual language control. We investigated language-switching performance of unbalanced Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals in cued picture naming, using 5 different cuing parameters. The language cue could precede the picture, follow it, or appear simultaneously with it. Naming latencies were reduced with precuing, demonstrating bilinguals' ability to globally modulate language activation, and more strongly reduced with postcuing, demonstrating bilinguals' ability to locally activate lemmas in both languages. Precuing reduced switching costs in reaction time (RT), and postcuing significantly reduced switching costs in accuracy, but not in RT. Switching costs were mostly symmetric for both languages, although participants were unbalanced bilinguals. These results support the notion that both global language selection and resolution of competition between activated lemmas are involved in bilingual language control. They further demonstrate that persisting language schema activation and local lemma selection and inhibition are equal across both languages of unbalanced bilinguals. Finally, results demonstrate that experimental manipulations of cuing parameters can have dissociable influences on overall RTs, and switch costs in latency and accuracy, suggesting that language-switching performance reflects complex interactions of bilingual profiles and task demands. (PsycINFO Database Record

The plasticity of lexical selection mechanism in word production: ERP evidence from short-term language switching training in unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals

The present study examined the plasticity of the lexical selection mechanism in bilingual word production by training a group of unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals with a language switching task. The experimental group received an 8-day language switching training, while the control group received no training. Before and after training, the behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data of both groups in a cued picture naming task were collected. ERP results revealed a training effect such that after training, the N2 peak latency in cue-locked ERPs was shortened only in the experimental group. These results suggest that short-term language switching experience could improve the efficiency to establish the target language task schema, and that the language control mechanism of word production in unbalanced bilinguals could be modulated by language switching experience.

An Interaction Between the Effects of Bilingualism and Cross-linguistic Similarity in Balanced and Unbalanced Bilingual Adults' L2 Mandarin Word-Reading Production.

We conducted three experiments investigating in more detail the interaction between the two effects of bilingualism and L1-L2 similarity in the speech performance of balanced and unbalanced bilinguals. In Experiment 1, L1 Mandarin monolinguals and two groups of Hakka and Minnan balanced bilinguals (Hakka: more similar to Mandarin) performed a non-contextual single-character reading task in Mandarin, which required more inhibitory control. The two bilingual groups outperformed the monolinguals, regardless of their L1 background. However, the bilingual advantage was not found in a contextual multi-word task (Experiment 2), but instead the effect of cross-linguistic similarity emerged. Furthermore, in Experiment 3, the Hakka unbalanced bilinguals showed an advantage in the non-contextual task, while their Minnan counterparts did not, and the impact of L1-L2 similarity emerged in both tasks. These results unveiled the way the two effects dynamically interplayed depending on the task contexts and the relative degrees of using L1 and L2.

Unbalanced bilingualism, diglossia and class division in postcolonial law

AbstractA number of postcolonial jurisdictions function bilingually as a result of policies to open up law to indigenous languages. Planned bilingualism is typical of Asian polities that inherited English-based common law, with Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Myanmar and Pakistan all use languages other than English in legal documents and courtroom proceedings. There are also bilingual practices in the hybrid law of Sri Lanka and the Philippines and the civil law of former Portuguese colonies such as Timor Leste and Macao. Bilingualisation typically begins with innovation in the legal lexicon and proceeds to the translation or bilingual drafting of legal texts in order to facilitate use of a second language in litigation and jurisprudence. It may be an interim process ushering in comprehensive vernacularisation, but more often it results in the long-term cohabitation of two or more languages within the legal domain. This study is interested in the implications of such cohabitation for legal practitioners. Focusing primarily on Malaysia while making comparisons with other Asian jurisdictions, it considers the largely political motivations behind language-in-law policies, reviews the process and reception of planning and explores how language choice in legal education may affect career paths. Despite the empowering agendas behind much of the language planning that has gone on, in most cases a balanced bilingual profession remains an elusive goal.

Inhibitory control predicts quasi language switching performance: evidence from face-to-face dialogue

ABSTRACTThe present study adopted a face-to-face dialogue approach to investigate the modulatory role of inhibition during quasi language switching. Pairs of Chinese–English unbalanced bilinguals with measured inhibitory control (IC) abilities took turns to talk about assigned conversational topics in three conditions: L2 only (L2-only order), switching from L1 to L2 (L1-L2 order), and switching from L2 to L1 (L2-L1 order). The dependent measure was the number of morpho-syntactic content- and function-word errors made in L2 in each condition. In addition to the conversations, participants completed a Simon switch task to measure IC abilities. Results showed that better IC ability predicted high accuracy in morpho-syntactic content and function words in the L1-L2 order relative to L2-only order. Further analysis revealed that better IC ability predicted fewer morpho-syntactic content-word errors in quasi within-person switching. Hence, IC benefits quasi language switching within dialogue contexts by suppressing non-target morpho-syntax.

L2 primes L1 – translation priming in LDT and semantic categorisation with unbalanced bilinguals

ABSTRACTThe aim of the study was to test whether proficient L2 users living in an L1-dominant environment would exhibit significant L2–L1 translation priming in a lexical decision task (LDT) and in a sematic categorisation task (SCT). Only a few previous studies have found significant L2–L1 priming in LDT whereas significant results have often been recorded in SCT but only for exemplars. In the present study, significant L2–L1 priming has been found in both tasks. Furthermore, in SCT L2–L1 priming was significant not only for exemplars but also for non-exemplars. However, the effect was stronger for exemplars than for non-exemplars. Such a pattern of results is discussed with respect to current models of lexical representation and language processing in bilinguals.

Bilingual children and adult heritage speakers: The range of comparison

This paper compares the language of child bilinguals and adult unbalanced bilinguals (heritage speakers) against that of bilingual native speakers of their home language (baseline). We identify four major vectors of correspondence across the language spoken by these three groups. First, all varieties may represent a given linguistic property in a similar way (child bilinguals = adult heritage speakers = bilingual native speakers of their home language). This occurs when either (i) the property in question is highly robust and is acquired by learners without difficulty or (ii) the property is already in decline in the baseline. We illustrate scenario (i) with data from Russian count forms, which are morphologically quite complex. The preservation of these forms in child bilinguals and adult heritage speakers suggests that simplicity of encoding is not the only factor determining robustness of retention. Second, child and heritage speakers may share a linguistic structure that differs from the one found in the baseline (bilingual native speakers of their home language ≠ child bilinguals = adult heritage speakers). This scenario occurs when incipient structural changes in the baseline become amplified in the language of next-generation bilinguals, or when a given structure is rare, confined to a specific register, and/or reinforced through literacy. Third, a structure may be acquired by bilingual children faithfully, but undergo reanalysis/attrition in the adult heritage language (bilingual native speakers of their home language = child bilinguals ≠ adult heritage speakers). Russian relativization illustrates this scenario; child bilinguals show native-like performance on relative clauses but adult heritage speakers show an exaggerated subject preference in the interpretation of gaps. Finally, a structure that is not fully learned by child speakers may be reanalyzed by adult heritage speakers following general principles, thus bringing the adult heritage representation closer to that of the baseline (bilingual native speakers of their home language = adult heritage speakers ≠ child bilinguals). Heritage speakers’ production and comprehension of psychological predicates in Spanish illustrates this possibility.

Editorial: Bridging Reading Aloud and Speech Production.

Editorial: Bridging Reading Aloud and Speech Production.

Can Lextale-Esp discriminate between groups of highly proficient Catalan-Spanish bilinguals with different language dominances?

Researchers have recently introduced various LexTALE-type word recognition tests in order to assess vocabulary size in a second language (L2) mastered by participants. These tests correlate well with other measures of language proficiency in unbalanced bilinguals whose second language ability is well below the level of their native language. In the present study, we investigated whether LexTALE-type tests also discriminate at the high end of the proficiency range. In several regions of Spain, people speak both the regional language (e.g., Catalan or Basque) and Spanish to very high degrees. Still, because of their living circumstances, some consider themselves as either Spanish-dominant or regional-language dominant. We showed that these two groups perform differently on the recently published Spanish Lextale-Esp: The Spanish-dominant group had significantly higher scores than the Catalan-dominant group. We also showed that the noncognate words of the test have the highest discrimination power. This indicates that the existing Lextale-Esp can be used to estimate proficiency differences in highly proficient bilinguals with Spanish as an L2, and that a more sensitive test could be built by replacing the cognates.

Asymmetric Switch Costs in Numeral Naming and Number Word Reading: Implications for Models of Bilingual Language Production.

One approach used to gain insight into the processes underlying bilingual language comprehension and production examines the costs that arise from switching languages. For unbalanced bilinguals, asymmetric switch costs are reported in speech production, where the switch cost for L1 is larger than the switch cost for L2, whereas, symmetric switch costs are reported in language comprehension tasks, where the cost of switching is the same for L1 and L2. Presently, it is unclear why asymmetric switch costs are observed in speech production, but not in language comprehension. Three experiments are reported that simultaneously examine methodological explanations of task related differences in the switch cost asymmetry and the predictions of three accounts of the switch cost asymmetry in speech production. The results of these experiments suggest that (1) the type of language task (comprehension vs. production) determines whether an asymmetric switch cost is observed and (2) at least some of the switch cost asymmetry arises within the language system.

Unbalanced Bilinguals’ Asymmetric Associations Between L2 Words for Taxonomic Categories of Basic and Superordinate Levels

The revised hierarchical model seems different from the distributed conceptual feature model in predicting how unbalanced bilinguals would be aware of semantic relations between words for taxonomic categories of basic level (exemplar words) and words for those of superordinate level (category names) in L2. We did a series of four experiments to compare unbalanced bilinguals’ awareness of conceptual relations between exemplar words and between exemplar words and category names in their first (L1) and second language (L2). A priming task of semantic categorization was adopted, and the participants were 72 college students, who began to learn L2 in classroom settings at a late age and achieved an L2 proficiency between intermediate and advanced levels. The reaction times indicated that the participants could automatically process not only the exemplar-word but also the category-name primes in L2. Activations of semantic representations for the category names in L2 seemed to spread to those for the exemplar words in L1 and L2, but activations of semantic presentations for the exemplar words in L2 spread only to those for the example words in L1 for the participants. It was concluded that unbalanced bilinguals appear to have developed asymmetric associations between category names and exemplar words in L2. The implication is that L2 learners should learn L2 words mainly by means of using the language and not taking rote memory of isolated words.

„Serce mam jakby podzielone na dwie części…” Elementy kulturowe w zbiorze ćwiczeń dla użytkowników języka polskiego jako dziedziczonego Na końcu języka

Modern changes related to globalization and more intensive mobility of people, imply the increase of number of Poles living abroad. Bilingualism of children of Polish immigrants, who grow up in a foreign country, quite often remains unbalanced. Polish language then becomes their heritage language. However, growing up abroad not only makes someone bilingual, but also bicultural. Inheriting the culture of one’s parents and gaining knowledge about the culture from a limited number of sources (parents, Saturday School, stereotypes circulating in the country of residence) results in learning about it passively and selectively. Language exercises on the website At the tip of the tongue which develop language competence of Polish heritage speakers were designed for Poles living in Germany as a result of the project Linguistic and glottodidactic aspects of Polish-German unbalanced bilingualism. An integral part of the exercises are intra-, inter- and trans-cultural content. This article aims to discuss the role of cultural content in teaching Polish as a heritage language.

Reactive and proactive control in bilingual word production: An investigation of influential factors

The present study examined how reactive control (indexed by switching costs) and proactive control (indexed by mixing costs) during bilingual language production was modulated by three factors reflected by different time-courses of stimulus presentation. In three experiments, unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals named digits in Chinese or English according to a naming cue. In Experiment 1, switching costs reduced when participants had longer preparation time to select the target language to name digits (during the Cue-Stimulus interval, CSI), indicating that longer preparation time helps overcome reactive inhibition. In addition, mixing costs declined drastically at a longer preparation time, indicating that a tiny amount of preparation time allows bilinguals to overcome costs associated with proactively preparing two languages. In Experiment 2, the stimuli were presented prior to the cues, so that participants were given different amounts of time to activate the target lexical nodes in both languages before they were informed of the naming language (during the Stimulus-Cue interval, SCI). Symmetrical switching and mixing costs were observed, indicating that bilinguals can strategically boost activation of the target lexical item in the second language (L2) and attempt to equalize it with its translation equivalent in the native language (L1), when they know previously the specific lexical items to be prepared in two languages. In Experiment 3, different Response-Cue intervals (RCIs) were provided after participants named a digit. It was found that the switching cost asymmetry was more prominent when the time to resolve competition was shorter, while the mixing cost asymmetry emerged only with the longest waiting time. These findings provide the first piece of evidence for the dissipation of the reactive inhibition over time, and suggest that longer preparation would allow the proactive control mechanism to be sensitive the relative proficiency levels of the two languages, leading to stronger proactive control on the dominant language. Taken together, the findings in the present study suggest the dynamic nature of reactive and proactive control in unbalanced bilinguals and have important implications for the current models of bilingual language production, which do not explicitly distinguish the two types of control or address how they adapt to the fine-grained time course of the situation.