How do bilinguals and monolinguals differ? Flashcards
What are the advantages of being bilingual?
Overlap between brain areas that control language and cognitive functioning - this means they should be better at cognitive tasks such as:
executive function/inhibitory control
theory of mind
memory
Why should bilinguals have good cognitive skills?
Because their mind has to lots of things
Why would bilinguals have better executive function/inhibition?
Bilinguals must manage two competing overlapping language systems so they must be better at executive function/inhibitory control (inhibiting control/responses)
Executive control/inhibition evidence
Bilingual children better at: finding embedded figures
identifying correct grammar in odd sentences
Bilingual adults better at:
stroop task, Simon task -interaction with age, older showed a greater benefit
When is executive control/inhibition disadvantageous?
Trilinguals had to name. number 2
Naming slowed down when English/German/English - because had to inhibit English to access German response
compared to French/German/English - because didn’t have to suppress any responses
negative priming slows down responses
Why would bilinguals have a better theory of mind?
Bilinguals must realise that different people speak different languages - learning that everyone is different, other people must think differently than they do
Evidence for a better theory of mind
Bilingual children better on perspective taking and false belief tasks
three tasks:
standard TOM - false belief
modified TOM - mimic language scenarios
control - check it want just individual differences
Why would bilinguals have a better memory?
They have to learn and remember multiple words for the same/similar concepts/ideas
so they may be better at remembering
Evidence for a better memory
Evidence is mixed depending on who you test and how
some show a bilingual advantage for Simon task
some show no advantage on pointing task
Why do bilinguals show improved performance on particular cognitive tasks?
Due to increased demand for managing two language systems
A note on disadvantages of bilingualism
Research does not happen in a void - cultural, social, politial, emotional aspects
long history of suppressing and discouraging bilingualism - framing it as a bad thing to stop people communicating with their culture
language control and cultural, society and personal control - an inform policies
Disadvantages of bilinguals
Language acquisition Understand less words Slower at lexical retrieval Semantic fluency Phonological fluency
Language acquisition in children
Both monolinguals and bilingual children achieve 50 words by bout 1.5 years in total
however, bilingual children know fewer words in each language
subject to usual difficulty of counting words
Receptive vocab in children
Receptive - words they can understand
monolinguals scored higher - indicating larger vocal
depending on type of word
words from school - no difference
words from home - lower scores for bilinguals, could be that they know the words but only in own language
Lexical retrieval
Slower at lexical retrieval (picture naming) - think of a word
more tip of the tongue states - due to interference of other language
