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21 - Multilingualism and Cognitive Reserve

from Part V - L3/Ln and Cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2023

By
Noelia Calvo  and
Ellen Bialystok
Edited by
Jennifer Cabrelli ,
Adel Chaouch-Orozco ,
Jorge González Alonso ,
Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares ,
Eloi Puig-Mayenco  and
Jason Rothman
Jennifer Cabrelli
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Chicago
Adel Chaouch-Orozco
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Jorge González Alonso
Affiliation:
Universidad Nebrija, Spain and UiT, Arctic University of Norway
Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Eloi Puig-Mayenco
Affiliation:
King's College London
Jason Rothman
Affiliation:
UiT, Arctic University of Norway and Universidad Nebrija, Spain
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Summary

During the last decades, different concepts of reserve have been postulated to account for the brain’s capacity for resilience in the face of neurodegeneration. Lifelong bilingualism may be a reserve factor, delaying the onset of dementia by approximately four years. Nonetheless, the evidence remains inconsistent and the trajectory of the effects is not clear. For instance, it is unclear whether multilinguals have more cognitive benefits than bilinguals. This review aims to critically examine this question to delineate the major trends in the field. We first describe the overlap in the operationalization of reserve/resilience in order to provide a clear definition in support for such an approach in the field. We then review the bi-/multilingual literature to evaluate the current evidence for the question of whether bi-/multilingualism leads to increased reserve. Such considerations may lead to a re-evaluation of the construct in the bilingual literature and its implication in clinical studies.

Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge Handbook of Third Language Acquisition , pp. 555 - 576
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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