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The Multilingual Mind and Multilingual Societies: In Search of Neuropsychological Explanations of the Spatial Behavior of Ethno-Linguistic Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

J. A. Laponce
J. A. Laponce*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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Abstract

Languages are territorial. They tend to occupy homogeneous, well bounded areas. When they do not, they lessen their chances of survival, especially if they are languages of minority groups. Reaching beyond the usual sociological causes of this phenomenon, this article searches the neurophysiological and the psychological literature for explanation of the tendency of closed, equalitarian systems with a high density of communication to move toward unilingualism. The search is guided by the questions: are bilinguals less brain-lateralized than unilinguals? Are different languages stored in different “containers” in the bilingual memory? Are the reaction times for coding and encoding slower in a second language than in a dominant language, slower in multilingual compared to unilingual settings? What are the psychological costs and benefits of bilingualism?

The hypothesis that the bilingual brain is different from the unilingual brain is not supported by the literature, but some fascinating studies keep the question open. Only two sets of findings emerge to offer likely explanations of language territoriality: the findings that measure the declining level of performance in a second as compared to a first language when the complexity of the task is increased, and the findings that show multilingual communication to be less efficient, due to interferences and delayed reaction times, than the same communication in a single language.

Type
Articles and Commentaries
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , August 1985 , pp. 3 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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References

Notes

1. For the distinction between compound and coordinate bilingualism, see among others Fergusson (1950), and Fishman (1967). In a coordinate system each term refers to its own signified; in a compound system, two signifiers refer to the same signified. In a coordinate system the two languages are not truly synonymous, each term having its own distinctive context and association of ideas, hence its own meaning—in the Osgood sense of ‘meaning’ (Osgood, 1957).Google Scholar

2. The age at which a language is learned was, however, found to be a significant variable.Google Scholar

3. To avoid repetition I shall henceforth say “bilingual” where I should say “bilingual and multilingual.”Google Scholar

4. They also tested the factor “proficiency” that appeared unrelated to the explanation.Google Scholar

5. Along similar lines, see studies of the laterality effect of pictorial and nonpictorial languages; for exampleNguy, et al. (1980) and Endo, et al. (1981).Google Scholar

6. According to the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State, elementary proficiency (the ability to satisfy routine travel requests and minimum courtesy requirements) in an easy language (such as French for an anglophone) requires 220 hours of training while the next level (limited work requirement) requires 700 hours.Google Scholar