Bilingualism and the Bilingual Mind
This topic studies how people who know more than one language represent, control, and switch between their languages, and how bilingualism interacts with cognition.
Definition
The study of the mental representation, control, and use of two or more languages in bilingual and multilingual individuals.
Scope
It covers evidence that a bilingual's languages are jointly active rather than fully separable, the control processes that select the intended language and inhibit the other, code-switching, and the much-debated question of whether bilingualism confers cognitive advantages. It describes the processing and cognitive findings rather than advising on language choices.
Core questions
- Are a bilingual's two languages activated jointly or kept separate during use?
- How do bilinguals select one language and control interference from the other?
- Does managing two languages reshape executive control or other cognition?
Key concepts
- language non-selectivity
- language control
- code-switching
- inhibitory control
- bilingual advantage
Key theories
- Language non-selectivity
- Evidence that both languages are activated in parallel during comprehension and production, so bilinguals must continually manage cross-language competition.
- Adaptive control hypothesis
- Green and Abutalebi's proposal that the demands of language control vary with the interactional context and recruit domain-general control networks, shaping bilingual cognition.
History
Psycholinguistic study of bilingualism grew through work on lexical organization (such as the revised hierarchical model) and on bilingual language control. Claims of a bilingual executive advantage, prominent from the 2000s, have since been the subject of vigorous methodological debate.
Debates
- The bilingual cognitive advantage
- Whether lifelong bilingualism enhances executive control or delays cognitive decline, a claim challenged on grounds of replication and publication bias.
Key figures
- Judith Kroll
- Ellen Bialystok
- David Green
- Jubin Abutalebi
Related topics
Seminal works
- krollbialystok2013
- greenabutalebi2013
Frequently asked questions
- Do bilinguals turn one language off when using the other?
- Largely no: research indicates both languages remain active to some degree even in a single-language context, so bilinguals rely on control processes to select the intended language.