what is bilingualism?
the knowledge and use of two languages
different aspects of bilingual profiles
- language history and relationship
- language stability
- language use
- language competence
- language modes
- biographical data
what are the different types of bilinguals?
- early vs. late
- simultaneous vs. sequential
- proficient vs. non-proficient
- balanced vs. dominant
- additive (usually balanced) vs. subtractive (attrition of L1, usually minority language)
what factors affect bilingual language acquisition?
- relative amount of input in both languages
- linguistic distance
- sources of input
- number and order of siblings
- quality of input
- socioeconomic status
- gender
floccia et al (2018) showed importance of relative amount of native language compared to…
the additional language in terms of child-directed and parental overheard speech
what is the critical period hypothesis?
consists of an ideal time window of brain development to acquire a language
johnson and newport’s (1989) findings on age-of-acquisition
earlier AOA can improve performance on grammatical judgement tasks testing morphology and syntax
- native speakers and those younger than 7yo had similar mean scores
- those past 7yo significantly declined scores
linguistic disadvantages of early bilingualism
hoff et al (2012) found bilinguals have poorer english vocabulary than monolinguals, despite similar levels of total vocabulary
what is english vocabulary predicted by?
the proportion of english input, which should be at least 60% of vocabulary to fall within the monolingual normal range
linguistic advantages of early bilingualism
- metalinguistic awareness
- advanced communicative skills
- flexibility in learning language patterns
metalinguistic awareness
galambos and hakuta (1988) found an effect of native and L2 proficiency in the detection of ambiguity and ungrammatical sentences
is growing up bilingual confusing?
there is no evidence of negative effects of language development on neurodiverse children
benefits of growing up bilingual
- enriching communication with family
- creating opportunities for social interaction with community
- developing sense of identity
disadvantages of growing up bilingual
lexical access tasks and increased TOT
evidence of failures in lexical access tasks
- boston naming test found bilinguals were slower and made more errors when naming pictures if they did not know the translation equivalent (gollan, 2005)
- bilinguals named fewer members of a category, struggling with verbal fluency tasks (gollan, 2002)
evidence of more TOT states
gollan and acenas (2004) reported bilingual speakers experience more TOT states than monolinguals
non-cognitive advantages of bilingualism
- social identity
- social wellbeing at home and abroad
- travel and work
- intercultural understanding and interactions
- economic and political advantages
cognitive advantages of bilingualism
- executive functions
- creative thinking
- cognitive reserve
improvements in executive function
- inhibition/attention
- flexibility/task shifting
- memory
inhibition/attention
improvements can be seen in bilinguals having a reduced incongruency effect during the flanker task (costa et al, 2008)
flexibility/task shifting
show better flexibility and task shifting through reduced switching costs, compared to monolinguals (prior and macwhinney, 2010)
memory
wodniecka (2010) found older adults had bilingual advantage of better recollection of words and faces
creative thinking
leikin (2013) showed bilingual children produce more unique solutions and solutions from more categoriesc
cognitive reserve
bilinguals have delayed onset of dementia by around 5 years and better cognitive outcomes following stroke (woumans, 2015; alladi, 2016)
