Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T09:31:09.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bilingualism reveals fundamental variation in language processing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2018

MELINDA FRICKE ,
MEGAN ZIRNSTEIN ,
CHRISTIAN NAVARRO-TORRES  and
JUDITH F. KROLL
MELINDA FRICKE*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh
MEGAN ZIRNSTEIN
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside
CHRISTIAN NAVARRO-TORRES
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside
JUDITH F. KROLL
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University
*
Address for correspondence: Melinda Fricke, Department of Linguistics, 2822 Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260USA[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although variation in the ways individuals process language has long been a topic of interest and discussion in the psycholinguistic literature, only recently have studies of bilingualism and its cognitive consequences begun to reveal the fundamental dynamics between language and cognition. We argue that the active use of two languages provides a lens through which the interactions between language use, language processing, and the contexts in which these take place can be fully understood. Far from bilingualism being considered a special case, it may provide the common basis upon which the principles of language learning and use can be modeled.

Keywords

Bilingualismindividual differences in language processingcognitive control
Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 200 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The writing of this paper was supported in part by NSF Postdoctoral Research Grants SMA-1409636 to M. Fricke and J.F. Kroll and SMA-1409973 to M. Zirnstein and J.F. Kroll, by an NSF Graduate Fellowship to C. Navarro-Torres, and by NSF Grants BCS-1535124, OISE-0968369, and OISE-1545900, and NIH Grant HD082796 to J.F. Kroll.

References

Alladi, S., Bak, T. H., Mekala, S., Rajan, A., Chaudhuri, J. R., Mioshi, E., Krovvidi, R., Surampudi, B., Duggirala, V., & Kaul, S. (2015). Impact of bilingualism on cognitive outcome after stroke. Stroke, 47, 258–261.Google Scholar
Bak, T. H., Vega-Mendoza, M., & Sorace, A. (2014). Never too late? An advantage on tests of auditory attention extends to late bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 485.Google Scholar
Baum, S., & Titone, D. (2014). Moving toward a neuroplasticity view of bilingualism, executive control, and aging. Applied Psycholinguistics, 35, 857–894.Google Scholar
Baus, C., Costa, A., & Carreiras, M. (2013). On the effects of second language immersion on first language production. Acta Psychologica, 142, 402–409.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2017). The bilingual adaptation: How minds accommodate experience. Psychological Bulletin, 143, 233–262.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Kroll, J. F., Green, D. W., MacWhinney, B., & Craik, F. I. M. (2015). Publication bias and the validity of evidence: What's the connection? Psychological Science, 26, 944–946.Google Scholar
Bice, K., & Kroll, J. F. (2015). Native language change during early stages of second language learning. NeuroReport, 26, 966–971.Google Scholar
Boudewyn, M. A. (2015). Individual differences in language processing: Electrophysiological approaches. Language and Linguistics Compass, 9/10, 406–419.Google Scholar
Boudewyn, M. A., Long, D. L., & Swaab, T. Y. (2012). Cognitive control influences the use of meaning relations during spoken sentence comprehension. Neuropsychologia, 50, 2659–2668.Google Scholar
Braze, D., Tabor, W., Shankweiler, D. P., & Mencl, W. E. (2007). Speaking up for vocabulary reading skill differences in young adults. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 226–243.Google Scholar
Caramazza, A., & Yeni-Komshian, G. H. (1974). Voice onset time in two French dialects. Journal of Phonetics, 2, 239–245.Google Scholar
Chambers, C. G., & Cooke, H. (2009). Lexical competition during second-language listening: Sentence context, but not proficiency, constrains interference from the native lexicon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35 (4), 1029–1040.Google Scholar
Chang, C. B. (2012). Rapid and multifaceted effects of second-language learning on first-language speech production. Journal of Phonetics, 40, 249–268.Google Scholar
Chang, C. B. (2013). A novelty effect in phonetic drift of the native language. Journal of Phonetics, 41, 520–533.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). Grammatical processing in language learning. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 3–42.Google Scholar
Costa, A., & Santesteban, M. (2004). Lexical access in bilingual speech production: Evidence from language switching in highly proficient bilinguals and L2 learners. Journal of Memory and Language, 50 (4), 491–511.Google Scholar
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450–466.Google Scholar
De Bruin, A., Treccani, B., & Della Sala, S. (2015). Cognitive advantage in bilingualism: An example of publication bias? Psychological Science, 26, 99–107.Google Scholar
De Groot, A. M. (2011). Language and Cognition in Bilinguals and Multilinguals: An Introduction. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Dussias, P. E., & Sagarra, N. (2007). The effect of exposure on syntactic parsing in Spanish–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10, 101–116.Google Scholar
Dussias, P. E., Perrotti, L., Brown, M., & Morales, L. (2014). Re-learning to parse a first language: The role of experience in sentence comprehension. Presented at the 27th Annual CUNY Conference Human Sentence Processing, Columbus, OH.Google Scholar
Emmorey, K., Luk, G., Pyers, J. E., & Bialystok, E. (2008). The source of enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals: Evidence from bimodal bilinguals. Psychological Science, 19, 1201–1206.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102, 211.Google Scholar
Ferreira, F. (2003). The misinterpretation of noncanonical sentences. Cognitive Psychology, 47, 164–203.Google Scholar
Festman, J., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., & Münte, T. F. (2010). Individual differences in control of language interference in late bilinguals are mainly related to general executive abilities. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 6, 1.Google Scholar
Flege, J. (2007). Language contact in bilingualism: phonetic system interactions. In Cole, J. & Hualde, J. I. (Eds.), Laboratory Phonology, 9th edition, pp. 353–82. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Flege, J., & Davidian, R. (1984). Transfer and developmental processes in adult foreign language speech production. Applied Psycholinguistics, 5, 323–347.Google Scholar
Flege, J., & Eefting, W. (1987). Cross-language switching in stop consonant production and perception by Dutch speakers of English. Speech Communication, 6, 185–202.Google Scholar
Flege, J., Munro, M., & MacKay, I. (1995). The effect of age of second language learning on the production of English consonants. Speech Communication, 16, 1–26.Google Scholar
Franceschina, F. (2001). Against an L2 morphological deficit as an explanation for the differences between native and non-native grammars. In Foster-Cohen, S. H. & Nizegorodcew, A. (Eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook, vol. 1, pp. 143–58. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Franceschina, F. (2005). Fossilized Second Language Grammars: The Acquisition of Grammatical Gender. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Fricke, M., Kroll, J. F., & Dussias, P. E. (2016). Phonetic variation in bilingual speech: A lens for studying the production–comprehension link. Journal of Memory and Language, 89, 110–137.Google Scholar
García-Pentón, L., García, Y. F., Costello, B., Duñabeitia, J. A., & Carreiras, M. (2016) The neuroanatomy of bilingualism: how to turn a hazy view into the full picture. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 303– 327.Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, M. A. (1996). The structure-building framework: what it is, what it might also be, and why. In Britton, B. K., & Graesser, A. C., (Edss), Models of text understanding (pp. 289–311). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, M. A. (1997). Two decades of structure building. Discourse processes, 23, 265–304.Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, M. A., & Faust, M. E. (1991). The mechanism of suppression: A component of general comprehension skill. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 17, 245–262.Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, M. A., Varner, K. R., & Faust, M. E. (1990). Investigating differences in general comprehension skill. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 16, 430–445.Google Scholar
Gold, B. T., Kim, C., Johnson, N. F., Kryscio, R. J., & Smith, C. D. (2013). Lifelong bilingualism maintains neural efficiency for cognitive control in aging. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33, 387–396.Google Scholar
Green, D. W., & Abutalebi, J. (2013). Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25, 515–530.Google Scholar
Green, D. W., & Li, W. (2014). A control process model of code-switching. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29, 499–511.Google Scholar
Gullifer, J. W. (2015). Using syntactic priming to identify cross-language constraints in bilingual language processing. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.Google Scholar
Gullifer, J. W., Kroll, J. F., & Dussias, P. E. (2013). When language switching has no apparent cost: Lexical access in sentence context. Frontiers in psychology, 4, 278.Google Scholar
Gustafson, E., Engstler, C., & Goldrick, M. (2013). Phonetic processing of non-native speech in semantic vs non-semantic tasks. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 134, EL506–EL512.Google Scholar
Hamilton, S. T., Freed, E. M., & Long, D. L. (2013). Modeling reader- and text-interactions during narrative comprehension: A test of the lexical quality hypothesis. Discourse Processes, 50, 139–163.Google Scholar
Hancin-Bhatt, B. (1994). Segmental transfer: a natural consequence of a dynamic system. Second Language Research. 10, 242–270.Google Scholar
Hatzidaki, A., Branigan, H. P., & Pickering, M. J. (2011). Co-activation of syntax in bilingual language production. Cognitive Psychology, 62,123–150.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Chan, C. Y. (1997). The partial availability of universal grammar in second language acquisition: The ‘failed functional features hypothesis’. Second Language Research, 13, 187–226.Google Scholar
Herd, W. J., Walden, R. L., Knight, W. L., & Alexander, S. N. (2015). Phonetic drift in a first language dominant environment. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 23, 060005.Google Scholar
Hopp, H. (2014). Working memory effects on the L2 processing of ambiguous relative clauses. Language Acquisition, 21, 250–278.Google Scholar
Hopp, H. (2016). The timing of lexical and syntactic processes in second language sentence comprehension. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37, 1253–1280.Google Scholar
Huffman, M. K., & Schuhmann, K. (2015). Effect of early L2 learning on L1 stop voicing. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 23, 060007.Google Scholar
Jacobs, A., Fricke, M., & Kroll, J. F. (2016). Cross-language activation begins during speech planning and extends into second language speech. Language Learning, 66, 324–353.Google Scholar
Johnson, J. S., & Newport, E. L. (1989) Critical period effects in second language learning: the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 60–99.Google Scholar
Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1992). A capacity theory of comprehension: Individual differences in working memory. Psychological Review, 99, 122–149.Google Scholar
Kim, J. H. (2010). The influence of sentence complexity and working memory on relative clause ambiguity resolution. Language and Linguistics, 48, 1–26.Google Scholar
Kleinman, D., & Gollan, T. H. (2016). Speaking two languages for the price of one: Bypassing language control mechanisms via accessibility-driven switches. Psychological Science, 1, 15.Google Scholar
Kousaie, S., & Phillips, N. A. (2017). A behavioural and electrophysiological investigation of the effect of bilingualism on aging and cognitive control. Neuropsychologia, 94, 23–35.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S. C., & Wodniecka, Z. (2006). Language selectivity is the exception, not the rule: Arguments against a fixed locus of language selection in bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 119–135.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25, 497–514.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Dussias, P. E., Bice, K., & Perrotti, L. (2015). Bilingualism, mind, and brain. In Liberman, M. & Partee, B. H. (Eds.), Annual Review of Linguistics, 1, 377–394.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Gullifer, J., & Zirnstein, M. (2016). Literacy in adulthood: Reading in two languages, Chapter 12. In Montanari, S., & Nicoladis, E. (Eds.), Bilingualism across the lifespan: Factors moderating language proficiency. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Li, P., Legault, J., & Litcofsky, K. A. (2014). Neuroplasticity as a function of second language learning: anatomical changes in the human brain. Cortex, 58, 301–324.Google Scholar
Linck, J. A., Kroll, J. F., & Sunderman, G. (2009). Losing access to the native language while immersed in a second language: Evidence for the role of inhibition in second language learning. Psychological Science, 20, 1507–1515.Google Scholar
Long, D. L., Johns, C. L., & Morris, P. E. (2007). Comprehension ability in mature readers. In Traxler, M. & Gernsbacher, M. (Eds.), Handbook of Psycholinguistics (pp. 801–834). Burlington, MA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Luk, G., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Bilingualism is not a categorical variable: Interaction between language proficiency and usage. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25, 605–621.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2005). A unified model of language acquisition. In Kroll, J. F. & de Groot, A. M. B. (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 49–67). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, J., Tanner, D., Pitkanen, I., Frenck-Mestre, C., Inoue, K., Valentine, G., & Osterhout, L. (2010). Brain potentials reveal discrete stages of L2 grammatical learning. Language Learning, 60, 123–150.Google Scholar
Misra, M., Guo, T., Bobb, S. C., & Kroll, J. F. (2012). When bilinguals choose a single word to speak: Electrophysiological evidence for inhibition of the native language. Journal of Memory and Language, 67, 224–237.Google Scholar
Morgan-Short, K., Steinhauer, K., Sanz, C., & Ullman, M. T. (2012). Explicit and implicit second language training differentially affect the achievement of native like brain activation patterns. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24, 933–947.Google Scholar
Namjoshi, J., Tremblay, A., Spinelli, E., Broersma, M., Martínez-García, M. T., Connell, K., Cho, T., & Kim, S. (2015). Speech segmentation is adaptive even in adulthood: Role of the linguistic environment. In the Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress on Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, Scotland: University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
Novick, J. M., Hussey, E., Teubner-Rhodes, S., Harbison, J. I., & Bunting, M. F. (2014). Clearing the garden-path: Improving sentence processing through cognitive control training. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29, 186– 217.Google Scholar
Olulade, O. A., Jamal, N. I., Koo, D. S., Perfetti, C. A., LaSasso, C., & Eden, G. F. (2016). Neuroanatomical evidence in support of the bilingual advantage theory. Cerebral Cortex, 26, 3196–3204.Google Scholar
Pakulak, E., & Neville, H. J. (2010). Proficiency differences in syntactic processing of monolingual native speakers indexed by event-related potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 2728–2744.Google Scholar
Perfetti, C. A. (2007). Reading ability: lexical quality to comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11, 357–383.Google Scholar
Pierce, L. J., Genesee, F., Delcenserie, A., & Morgan, G. (2017). Linking early language experiences and language learning outcomes. Applied Psycholinguistics, 38, 1265–1300.Google Scholar
Pivneva, I., Mercier, J., & Titone, D. (2014). Executive control modulates cross-language lexical activation during L2 reading: evidence from eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 40, 787–796.Google Scholar
Prat, C. S. (2011). The brain basis of individual differences in language comprehension abilities. Language and Linguistics Compass, 5/9, 635–649.Google Scholar
Sabourin, L., Stowe, L., & de Haan, G. J. (2006). Transfer effects in learning a second language grammatical gender system. Second Language Research, 22, 1–29.Google Scholar
Sabourin, L., & Stowe, L. (2008). Second language processing: When are first and second languages processed similarly? Second Language Research, 24, 397–430.Google Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., & Kroll, J. F. (2006). Bilingual lexical activation in sentence context. Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 197–212.Google Scholar
Schuhmann, K. S. & Huffman, M. K. (2015). L1 drift and L2 category formation in second language learning. In the Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (paper number 0850). Glasgow, UK: University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
Steinhauer, K. (2014). Event-related potentials (ERPs) in second language research: A brief introduction to the technique, a selected review, and an invitation to reconsider critical periods in L2. Applied Linguistics, 35, 393–417.Google Scholar
Tanner, D., Inoue, K., & Osterhout, L. (2014). Brain-based individual differences in online L2 grammatical comprehension. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 277–293.Google Scholar
Teubner-Rhodes, S. E., Mishler, A., Corbett, R., Andreu, L., Sanz-Torrent, M., Trueswell, J. C., & Novick, J. M. (2016). The effects of bilingualism on conflict monitoring, cognitive control, and garden-path recovery. Cognition, 150, 213–231.Google Scholar
Townsend, D. J., & Bever, T. G. (2001). Sentence comprehension: The integration of habits and rules. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Traxler, M. J., Long, D. L., Tooley, K. M., Johns, C. L., Zirnstein, M., & Jonathan, E. (2012). Individual differences in eye-movements during reading: Working memory and speed-of-processing effects. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 5 (1): 5, 1–16.Google Scholar
Ullman, M. T. (2005). A cognitive neuroscience perspective on second language acquisition: The declarative/procedural model. In Sanz, C. (Ed.), Mind and context in adult second language acquisition: Methods, theory and practice (pp. 141–178). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Whitford, V., & Titone, D. (2012). Second-language experience modulates first-and second-language word frequency effects: Evidence from eye movement measures of natural paragraph reading. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 73–80.Google Scholar
Whitford, V., & Titone, D. (2015). Second-language experience modulates eye movements during first- and second-language sentence reading: Evidence from a gaze-contingent moving window paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 1118–1129.Google Scholar
Valdés Kroff, J. R., Dussias, P. E., Gerfen, C., & Perrotti, L. (2012). The dynamic nature of real-time grammatical gender processing. Paper presented at the 37th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Valian, V. (2015). Bilingualism and cognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18, 3–24.Google Scholar
Van Assche, E., Drieghe, D., Duyck, W., Welvaert, M., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2011). The influence of semantic constraints on bilingual word recognition during sentence reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 64 (1), 88–107.Google Scholar
Van Assche, E., Duyck, W., & Gollan, T. H. (2013). Whole-language and item-specific control in bilingual language production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 1781–1792.Google Scholar
Van Dyke, J. A., & Johns, C. L. (2012). Memory interference as a determinant of language comprehension. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6, 193–211.Google Scholar
Van Hell, J. G., & Dijkstra, T. (2002). Foreign language knowledge can influence native language performance in exclusively native contexts. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9, 780–789.Google Scholar
Van Hell, J. G., & Tanner, D. (2013). Second language proficiency and cross-language lexical activation. Language Learning, 62, 148–171.Google Scholar