Chapter 9 Flashcards
Adaptive control hypothesis
A proposal suggesting that bilinguals’ constant need to monitor and control their languages leads to benefits in nonverbal cognition
Age of arrival
The time when the learner receives the first intensive exposure to the second language in the country where it is spoken
Balanced bilingual
A person who grows up speaking two languages and can communicate equally well in either language
Bilingual
Someone able to speak two or more languages
Bilingual accommodation
Sensitivity to the identity or ethnic background of the interlocutor in selecting a language to use
Bilingual disadvantage
The observation that bilinguals have smaller vocabularies in each of their languages and more difficulty retrieving words compared with monolinguals
Cerebral plasticity
The brain’s ability to modify its structure in response to new experiences
Codeswitching
A change from one language to another within a single interaction
Cognates
Words in two languages that have similar form and meaning
Cognitive reserve
The notion that engaging in stimulating mental or physical activity on a regular basis helps maintain cognitive functioning as we age and protects against dementia
Critical period hypothesis
The idea that children have a biological predisposition to learn languages that they lose around puberty
Cross-language priming
The situation in which a word in one language aids the retrieval of a word with a related meaning in another language
Dominant language
The language of political and economic power within a bilingual society
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
An area of the brain involved in executive control
English language learners
Children entering school whose native language is not English
Executive control
The management of cognitive resources to perform tasks efficiently
First language attrition
The situation where a bilingual favors the second language to the extent that first language ability is lost
Flanker task
An experimental procedure in which participants respond to the direction of the central arrow in an array, regardless of direction the other arrows are pointing
Heritage language
The language spoken in an immigrant’s country of origen
Incomplete first-language acquisition
The failure to attain full native-speaker proficiency of the first language
Interference hypothesis
The proposal that the bilingual disadvantage can be explained in terms of interference from translation equivalents in the unused language
Interference inhibition
The ability to ignore distracting or misleading information
Interlingual homographs (False cognate)
Words in two languages that have similar form but different meanings
Language negotiation
A process in which bilingual interlocutors work together to decide which language to use
Length of residence
The number of years the learner has lived in the country where the second language is spoken
Lingua franca
A second language in common to all ethnic groups in a given region
Mental flexibility
The ability to rapidly switch from one cognitive task to another
Metalinguistic awareness
An understanding about how language works
Monolingual
The ability to speak only one language
Mutual intelligibility
The degree to which speakers of two different languages or dialects can understand each other
One-language-at-home-one-language-outside approach
A strategy for raising bilingual children in which the heritage language is learned from family members and the societal language is learned at school
Receptive bilingualism
The ability to understand a second language without being able to speak it
Revised hierarchical model
A theory of bilingual language processing that assumes separate lexicons for each language connected by a common underlying conceptual level
Selective attention
The ability to direct and focus attention on the current task
Semantic categorization task
An experimental procedure that asks participants to name members of a given category
Sense model
A theory of bilingual language processing that takes into account the fact that most words have multiple meanings that do not fully overlap across languages
Sensitive period
The time early in life when language learning is more likely to be successful
Simon task
An experimental procedure that requires participants to respond to the color of a stimulus regardless of its location
Societal language
The language spoken by the majority of people in a given society
Speech learning model
The proposal that a foreign accent is the result of an imbalance between the amounts of time spent usung the first and second languages
Transitional program
A form of bilingual education that is intended to assimilate heritage-language students into the mainstream language and culture
Translation equivalents
Words in two different languages that refer to the same concept
Two-way immersion program
A form of bilingual education that is intended to develop fully bilingual and biliterate students
Ultimate attainment
Second language acquisition that typically falls short of full mastery
Unbalanced bilingual
A person who has limited ability in a second language
Weaker links hypothesis
The proposal that the bilingual disadvantage can be explained in terms of lower word frequencies
