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What bilinguals tell us about language and the mind
Judith F. KrollDepartment of Psychology
Program in LinguisticsCenter for Language Science
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16803
NSF Workshop on A Science of Broadening ParticipationJune 23, 2008
Acknowledgments
Teresa Bajo Susan Bobb Cari Bogulski Kate Cheng Ingrid Christoffels Dorothee Chwilla Albert Costa Annette De Groot Franziska Dietz Ton Dijkstra Giuli Dussias Chip Gerfen Tamar Gollan
David Green Taomei Guo Noriko Hoshino April Jacobs Niels Janssen Debra Jared Wido La Heij Jared Linck Pedro Macizo Erica Michael Natasha Miller Maya Misra Scott Payne
Collaborators:
Research Support:• NSF Grants, BCS-0111734 and BCS-0418071 • NSF Dissertation Grants to Sunderman, Schwartz, Hoshino, and Bobb• NIH Grants MH62479 and R56HD053146; NIH Fellowship F33HD055003• Open Project Grant at State Key Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China• NSF Advance Leadership Award for Women in Cognitive Science, BCS-0317678 with Suparna Rajaram and Randi Martin
Pilar Piñar Tyler Phelps Carmen Ruiz Rosa Sánchez-Casas Mikel Santesteban Herbert Schriefers Ana Schwartz Bianca Sumutka Gretchen Sunderman Natasha Tokowicz Madelon Van Den Boer Janet Van Hell Zofia Wodniecka
More people in the world are bilingual than monolingual. But until very recently, most research on language and cognition examined only monolingual speakers of a single language and typically speakers of English as the native language.
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There are many reasons to learn a second language…
Some reasons are more positive than self defense…
Current research suggests that both of a bilingual’s languages are active regardless of the intention or requirement to use one language alone.
The parallel activity of the two languages is hypothesized to produce competition.
Skilled bilinguals rarely make the error of speaking the wrong language yet they often code switch with other similar bilinguals in the middle of a sentence, suggesting that they possess an exquisite mechanism of cognitive control.
A life of resolving cross-language competition appears to confer positive consequences for cognitive function.
Bilingualism provides a lens for researchers to examine aspects of the underlying cognitive architecture that are obscured by native language skill when investigating language performance in the first or dominant language only.
A research program on bilingual language processing:
1. How do adult language learners establish representations in the L2 and howdo those representations change with increasing skill? Why do some adultsfind it easy to learn a second language and others difficult?
2. Is it possible for bilinguals to switch off one of the two languages to use theother? If not, how is the parallel activation of the two languages manifest incomprehension and production?
3. What linguistic properties and cognitive abilities modulate the activity of the bilingual’s two languages to allow the intended language to be selected?
4. To what extent is language processing in the L2 determined by structuralconstraints imposed by the L1 or by the availability of cognitive resources?
5. What are the consequences of bilingualism for language representation and
processing and more generally for cognition?
Approach and Methods
1. Who are the bilinguals we study?We adopt a broad definition of bilingualism to include all individuals who use more than one language regularly. We distinguish bilingual groups with respect to their proficiency in the L2, their relative language dominance, the age of acquisition, and the degree to which the context of language use supports each of the two languages.
2. What languages?
Unless a study requires that we exploit the properties of a particular language pair(e.g., script differences in Japanese and English), we examine many differentbilingual groups (e.g., native English speakers at different levels of proficiency in Spanish, French, or German, Spanish-English, French-English, German-English,Dutch-English, Japanese-English, and Chinese-English bilinguals, and deaf readersof English who use ASL to communicate).
3. Methods
Behavioral: Response times, accuracy, eye-tracking, acoustic properties of speechNeurocognitive: Event-related potentials
4. Contexts
Classroom vs. immersed learnersBilinguals in their L1 vs. L2 environment in the US, Europe, and Asia*
Talk Outline
Illustrate the empirical research that reveals the presence of cross-language activity, its resolution, and the consequences for cognition more generally
Consider the consequence of assuming that bilinguals are the norm for cognitive and linguistic research rather than the exception
Discuss ways to increase the diversity of participation in research in environments that offer little diversity themselves
“bike” “beek”Dutch-English reader
“bike” “fiets”
Dutch-English speaker
bike
Reading Speaking
Back to the juggler…
Exploit the presence of cross-language ambiguity:
Interlingual cognates:
hotel (English)- hotel (means hotel in Dutch)
Interlingual homographs (false friends):
room (English)- room (means cream in Dutch)
If a bilingual can function as two monolinguals in one, thenperformance in one language alone should be independentof the sense of meaning of the word in the other language.
Result: Bilinguals are typically faster to recognize cognates but slower to recognize false friends; these effects can be seenin the native language as well as the L2. It is not possible to simply switch off one of the two languages.
The phonology of the language not in use modulates the time to read words in each language.
Cognates with identical/similar orthography but similar or different phonology:
English Spanish Cross-language phonology
piano piano Similar [+p]
base base Different [-p]500
520
540
560
580
600
620
Mean Naming
Latency (ms)
Type of Cognate
+P-P
Schwartz, Kroll, & Diaz (2007): Out-of-context facilitation for naming cognates in L2 when the phonology converges from L1 to L2: But the same result for reading in the dominant L1.
Does reading in sentence context reduce or eliminatethe effects of cross-language competition?
Schwartz & Kroll (2006): Take words that have been shown to elicit activation of both languages and put them in full sentence context.
Cognates with identical/similar orthography but similar or different phonology:
English Spanish Cross-language phonology
piano piano Similar [+p]
base base Different [-p]500
520
540
560
580
600
620
Mean Naming
Latency (ms)
Type of Cognate
+P-P
Perhaps the inability to switch off one of the two languages only occurs inthe absence of meaningful sentence context.
RSVP: Method for naming words in sentence context
Follow along with sentence.
homeWho ran home?
+
The
boy
ran
home
for
dinner.
(250ms/word)
Say red word out loud.
Answer questions when asked.
time
RSVP: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation
Does the facilitation for naming cognates disappear insentence context? If the sentence provides a cue to languagemembership, then no cognate effects should be observed.
Type of Sentence Example
High constraint The composer sat at the benchand began to play the piano asthe lights dimmed.
Low constraint As we walked through the roomwe noticed there was a largepiano by the window.
620
640
660
680
700
720
Mean Naming
Latency (ms)
Type of Cognate
+P-P
620
640
660
680
700
720
Mean Naming
Latency (ms)
Type of Cognate
+P-P
Result: When bilinguals read, sentence constraint but not language per se eliminates the cognate effect (Schwartz & Kroll, 2006)
High
Low
Naming in the L2
Logic: force both languages to be active and to ask whether there areconsequences. If both languages are normally active, then forcing them to be active should not disrupt spoken performance.
Picture Tone cue
High tone
Low tone
“bike”
“fiets”
Spoken name
SOA RT
time
Cued picture naming: Language of naming depends on an auditory cue(Kroll, Dijkstra, Janssen, & Schriefers, in preparation)
English
Dutch
L1 L2
600
650
700
750
800
850
900
Mixed
Blocked
Overall Mixed vs. Blocked Naming Latencies
Language
Mean Naming Latency (ms)
Cost of Language Mixing in Cued Picture Naming: Dutch-English Bilinguals (Kroll et al., in preparation)
These results suggest that L1 is normally active during lexicalization into the L2. Requiring L1 to be active does not affect L2 picture naming performance.
Speaking the L2is independent of the requirementto have L1active as well
In a recent study (Guo, Misra, Kroll, & Bobb, in preparation) we haveextended this investigation to examine the time course of cross-languageactivation using event-related potentials (ERPs)
Many studies demonstrate persistent activity of the L1 in using the L2, not only at the level of the lexicon but also for the grammar. They show further that the L1 becomes sensitive to the influence of the L2.
Dussias (2003): How do the structural commitments of one language influencethe processing of the other language?
Peter fell in love with the daughter of the psychologist who studied in California.
Who studied in California?
Native English speakers: the psychologist
Native Spanish speakers: the daughter
Critical result: Native Spanish speakers immersed in an English dominantenvironment begin to parse sentences in Spanish, their native language, likeEnglish, their L2!
The interaction between the two languages suggest a high degree of plasticity.
Can bilinguals exploit language cues and context to minimize cross-language influences?
More likely to be aa fiets than a bike?
Even more likely to bea fiets?
Definitely Dutch!
Either a bike or a fiets?
Consequences of bilingualism for language and cognitive processing
For development: L2 skill modulates the activation of the translationequivalent in L1 but there is activation of lexical form relatives for even highly proficient bilinguals (Sunderman & Kroll, 2006). These effects can beobserved not only in speakers of languages that share the same alphabet but also in different script languages (e.g., Chinese and English) and in deaf signers who use American sign language to communicate but read in English.
For L1: Not only L2, but also L1 changes with increased L2 skill andby the nature of the context in which the L2 is acquired and maintained(Kroll et al., 2002; Kroll et al., 2006; Linck & Kroll, in preparation).
For cognitive skill: The requirement to negotiate the competition acrossthe two languages places demands on working memory resources andenhances the attentional abilities of skilled bilinguals (Kroll et al., 2002;Tokowicz, Michael, & Kroll, 2004)
What is the consequence of parallel activity and competitionacross the bilingual’s two languages?
Bilingualism may confer a specific set of cognitive benefits to executive function and attention.
Bilingualism may offer protection against the normal declines in attentional control associated with aging.
Bialystok et al. (2005): Older bilinguals outperform age-matched monolingual counterparts on non-linguistic measures ofinhibitory control.
Bialystok et al. (2007): Bilingualism delays on the onset of dementia by four years.
Increasing the breadth of participation in environments that offer little diversity themselves: Creating collaborativenetworks for research and training
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Leiden, The NetherlandsPenn State
English-Spanish learners
Dutch-English bilinguals
Penn State’s Center for Language Science: http://www.lsrg.psu.edu
Benefits of collaborative networks for research and training:
1. Data collection (in both directions: we assist our colleagues who work in locations in which bilingualism is more prevalent by providing monolingual controls)
2. Professional development for graduate students: Visit host laboratories, give research talks, interact with research mentors, acquire complementary technical skills, establish an international
network of young researchers
3. Exchanges in both directions: Steady stream of visitors increases diversity at the home institution
4. Diversity breeds diversity: Undergraduate research students who are themselves bilingual are likely to seek out research opportunities in this context