Managing multiple languages

Question 1

What is multilingualism?

Answer 1

Speaking more than one language

Question 2

What are the challenges of bilingualism?

Answer 2

Don’t know how many people speak more than one language - general consensus is more than half
focusing on monolinguals ignores how majority of world speak

what does it mean to speak a language? - know words, have a convo etc. different languages have different cultural norms

language is complex

Question 3

Why is becoming a bilingual complicated?

Answer 3

Age acquired
context
type of learning - acquired, taught, studied
type of vocabulary
influence of other language
cultural and historical context

Question 4

Are languages separate or connected?

Answer 4

Overwhelming and consistent evidence for joint activation

Question 5

What is joint activation?

Answer 5

When both languages are active even when only one is being used

Question 6

What is the difference between balanced bilinguals and unbalanced bilinguals?

Answer 6

Balanced - equal ability in both languages

Unbalanced - dominant in one, most are unbalanced

Question 7

What is the influence of two languages?

Answer 7

Bidirectional influence between languages - language 1 influenced l2 and language 2 influenced language 1

Question 8

What does joint activation mean?

Answer 8

Doing a lot more even if it isn’t needed, has lots to manage

Question 9

What are cognates?

Answer 9

Words that mean the same thing in two different languages

e.g.. piano - same word, same meaning

Question 10

What are interlingual homographs?

Answer 10

Word that has the same form but doesn’t mean the same thing e.g. pie, in Spanish means foot

Question 11

Evidence of joint activation - lexical decision task

Answer 11

Tested dutch and English words
Deciding if it is a word or not
Bilinguals were faster at lexical decisions for cognates
Slower for interlingual homographs when the pronunciation was different - when they conflict

suggests they conflict with each other - lexical access is not language specific

Question 12

Evidence for joint activation - interlingual homophones in dutch and English

Answer 12

Homophones - words that sound similar
Interference found for both languages - influence occurs for auditory

second language can influence the native language

Question 13

Evidence for joint activation - simultaneous language use

Answer 13

Chinese-English bilinguals: are two words in English semantically related
no behavioural difference
but changes in ERP signal - indexes semantic priming
evidence of joint activation

Question 14

Evidence for joint activation: sign language

Answer 14

ASL/English bilinguals asked to judge whether two words were semantically related

judgements were faster when words were related and the signs were similar (match), slower when the words were unrelated and the signs were similar (mismatch)

shows it occurs cross modally - not just auditory

Question 15

How do bilinguals control one language?

Answer 15

Code switching - switching between languages, especially mid conversation or mid sentence

Question 16

Code switching - name pictures

Answer 16

Unbalanced German-english bilinguals to name pictures in either German, dutch or switching
cognates faster than non
mixed language condition (switching between German and dutch) - cognate effect was stronger for German than for dutch

in the no switching condition, cognate effect was stronger for dutch then German

in switching contexts, l2 has more of an influence on l1

Question 17

Code switching - verbal fluency task

Answer 17

Naming words starting with a particular letter
when bilinguals did this in l2 first, they were slower to do same task with same letter in l1
shows whole language vs lexical item inhibition