week 10 - language - bilinguals Flashcards
bilingualism
background
the default state in the global context
over 50% of the world
- most are naturalistic child bilinguals
bilingualism
the norm?
yes
many people speak more than one language
(tucker 1999)
bilingualism
what
an individual who has the mental representation (knowledge) of more than one language for the purpose of understanding and/or speaking these languages
bilingualism
variation?
lots of room for variation
- native biliguals are those that have two native languages
- some are more proficient in the L2 than L1
- some become bilingual later in life (after age 4 considered 2nd language learner)
bilingual language acquisition
contexts of childhood bilingualism
simultaneous
sequential
bilingual language acquisition
simultaneous acquisition
both languages acquired at the same time
bilingual language acquisition
sequential acquisition
the second language is learned after a 1st language
when the L2 is acquired is important
- early vs late learning (johnson and newport)
bilingual language acquisition
frequency of usage of both languages
how often and what context
use it or lose it
- language attrition
bilingual language acquisition
mode of acquisition
native –> growing up in a two language environment
immersion –> schooling provided in a non-native language
submersion –> one learner surrounded by non-native speakers
bilingual language acquisition
language dominace effects
relative fluency of L1 and L2 may impact processing
how does the mind and brain accommodate the presence of two languages?
mental juggler
both languages are active regardless of the requirement to use one language alone
how does a bilingual select a given language to be used at any moment?
spoken language bilinguals cant turn off either language
dual language activation found in listening, speaking and reading tasks even in single language tasks where only one language is used
priming effect
monolingual study
cow door -> no priming effect
Dog Glid -> nonsense word
Dog Door -> priming effect
priming effect
bilingual study
dog pear -> priming effect
dog semantically related to spanish word perro
pear is phonologically related to perro
this is evidence that bilingual lexicons are not separate
how does the brain accommodate the presence of two languages
both of bilinguals languages are active even when only using one
parallel activity of the two languages is thought to produce competition
skilled bilinguals rarely make of error of speaking the wrong language
- yet they often code switch with other similar bilinguals in the middle of a sentence, suggesting that they possess an exquisite mechanism of cognitive control