Bilingualism

Chapter 9: The Bilingual Experience

Learning Outcomes - Ch. 9.1

Discuss what it means to be bilingual.
Explain the difference between language and dialect in both political and linguistic terms.
Discuss patterns of language use among immigrants and in multilingual societies.
Discuss the pragmatics of selecting which language to use when bilinguals converse.

Defining Bilingualism

Monolingual: A person able to speak only one language.
Bilingual: A person able to speak two or more languages.
Generally, most people in the world are bilingual. - Balanced Bilingual: A person who grows up speaking two languages with equal competency in both. - Unbalanced Bilingual: A person with limited ability in a second language, typically favoring one language over the other.

Languages & Dialects

Political vs Linguistic Perspectives

Languages are often viewed as discrete entities bounded by national borders (e.g., French in France, Spanish in Spain).
However, many languages exist on a continuum, such as the Dutch-German continuum from Amsterdam to Berlin.
The distinction between "language" and "dialect" often has political implications rather than purely linguistic ones. - Example: Although Dutch and German are separate languages, they are linguistically related.
The concept of mutual intelligibility: - Mutual Intelligibility: The degree to which speakers of two languages or dialects can understand one another.

Linguistic Maps

Figure 9.1: Linguistic boundaries in Europe blur despite clear political borders.
Figure 9.2: In China, there are a dozen mutually unintelligible dialects despite it being a single political unit.

Social Attitudes on Mutual Intelligibility

Figure 9.3 illustrates how implicit social attitudes can influence the mutual intelligibility between Danish and Swedish. - Swedish adults struggle to decode Danish more than vice versa, although both preschoolers perform equally.

Immigration to the United States

Language Dynamics

Heritage Language: A language spoken in the immigrant’s country of origin.
Societal Language: The language spoken by the majority in a given society.

Three-Generation Language Pattern

First Generation: Dominance of the heritage language, varying proficiency in the societal language.
Second Generation: Learns heritage language at home but prefers the societal language.
Third Generation: Primarily speaks the societal language with little proficiency in the heritage language. - Incomplete First-Language Acquisition: Common among children of immigrants, leading to native proficiency in societal language only.

Multigenerational Bilingualism

Key Concepts

Lingua Franca: A second language common to all ethnic groups in a society. - Example: In Singapore, English serves as a lingua franca among Chinese, Malay, and Tamil ethnic groups.
Dominant Language: The language of political and economic power, which in Singapore is English. It also serves as the main medium for education and government.

Codeswitching

Dynamics of Bilingual Conversations

Bilinguals often associate different languages with specific contexts. - Heritage language for daily life and societal language for broader issues.
Codeswitching: The practice of alternating between two or more languages within a single conversation or even a single utterance. - Bilinguals are typically adept at gauging their interlocutor's language proficiency to maximize understanding. - Pressure exists to use the dominant language in conversations outside the home.

Concepts of Accommodation and Negotiation

Bilingual Accommodation: Sensitivity to the ethnic identity of the interlocutor when choosing a language.
Language Negotiation: Bilinguals decide collaboratively which language to use.
Receptive Bilingualism: The ability to understand a second language without being able to speak it (observed in various ethnic groups across generations).

Language & Identity

The Role of Language in Identity

Language forms a crucial part of an individual's identity.
First-generation immigrants often maintain their heritage language and cultural identity, while second-generation individuals identify more with the societal language and culture.
Language memory also plays a role in emotional recall: - Childhood experiences are usually recalled more vividly in one's first language.

Bilingual Psychotherapy

Clients may find it easier to discuss early traumatic events in their second language.

Learning Outcomes - Ch. 9.2

Discuss evidence supporting the activation of both languages in the brains of bilinguals during speech.
Explore the concept of bilingual disadvantage and the hypotheses explaining it.
Discuss the Revised Hierarchical Model and the Sense Model involving bilingual language processing.

Cognitive Processing in Bilingualism

Activation of Languages

Balanced Bilinguals activate both languages every time they speak, regardless of the language in use.
Lexical Decision Task: Demonstrates that bilinguals cannot entirely deactivate their first language when making judgments in their second language. - Example: A Spanish-English bilingual takes longer to react to the English word "night" given that it has a Spanish counterpart "noche."

Cross-Language Priming

Words in one language can prime retrieval of related meanings in another language. - Example: A German-English bilingual's knowledge of the word "Arzt" (doctor) primes the word "nurse" in English.
Eyetracking Data: Indicates that bilinguals might look at multiple objects when given a word that exists in both languages due to activated meanings.

Links Between Two Languages

Translation Equivalents and Cognates

Translation Equivalents: Words in two languages that refer to the same concept (e.g., dog in English and chien in French).
Mutual Exclusivity Principle: Young children typically believe a new word refers to a novel concept but apply this differently when learning in another language.

Cognates

Cognates: Words in two languages with similar forms and meanings, more prevalent in languages with common ancestry (e.g., English and German).
Interlingual Homographs: Words that share a similar form but have different meanings (known as false friends). - Example: In German, "Chef" means "boss," while "Gift" means "poison."

Table of Cognates

Examples of English cognates with German and French are provided, showing the lexical similarities stemming from shared roots and historical borrowing.

The Bilingual Disadvantage

Observations of Bilinguals

Compared to monolinguals, bilinguals show: - Smaller vocabularies in each language. - Greater difficulty retrieving words, evident in both children and adults. - Measurable differences in lab settings but minimal impact in daily communication.
Semantic Categorization Task: Bilinguals name fewer examples from a category compared to monolinguals.

Lexical Decision Task

Bilinguals assess familiarity differently than monolinguals due to their exposure to multiple languages.
Bilinguals experience more instances of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon when trying to retrieve less common words.

Hypotheses Explaining the Bilingual Disadvantage

Weaker Links Hypothesis: Suggests lower word frequency as bilinguals split time between languages, leading to less practice and difficulty in retrieval.
Interference Hypothesis: Proposes that similar words in both languages interfere when retrieving terms, exemplified by a French-English bilingual retrieving "dog" but facing interference from "chien."

The Revised Hierarchical Model

Overview of the Model

Proposes that bilinguals have separate lexicons for each language linked by a common conceptual level.
Separate Lexicons: Each language has its lexicon, and their conceptual understanding connects them.
Link strength is influenced by the bilingual’s proficiency in both languages. - Balanced Bilingual: Strong links that facilitate cross-linguistic priming. - Unbalanced Bilingual: Easier to translate from L2 to L1, but not vice versa.

Translation Equivalents Revisited

Conceptual Divergence

Translation equivalents can have differing nuances.
Example: Russian words "chashka" (cup) and "stakan" (glass) encapsulate different meanings beyond a direct translation.

Abstract vs Concrete Meaning

Abstract concepts in different languages often diverge more than concrete concepts, leading to complex translations.

Sense Model of Bilingual Processing

Theory Overview

Recognizes that words have multiple meanings that may not fully overlap between languages. - Priming activates all meanings of a word, influencing retrieval across languages.
Cross-Linguistic Priming: Dependent on shared meanings, even if some senses overlap less clearly.

Empirical Evidence

Picture Naming Task: Chinese-English bilinguals respond faster to culturally relevant images according to the language context used.

Figure Overview

Figure 9.6: Illustrates how bilingual understanding operates through overlapping senses between different languages while acknowledging the limitations of each language's scope.