Bilingualism and 2nd Language Acquisition

Contact Information

• Email: Jeremy.Goslin@plymouth.ac.uk
• Office: PSQ B221
• Office appointment: Tuesdays 3-4

Bilingualism

• Definition: Fluent in two languages.
  • Paradis (1986): ‘Habitual, fluent, correct and accent-free use of two languages’.
  • Extends to trilingualism and multilingualism.
• Complete Bilinguals: Few individuals fully qualify.
  • Vocabulary: Might have more restricted vocabulary in one language.
  • Abilities: Vary in speaking, listening, reading, and writing across languages.
• Domain-Specific Language Use
  • One language used at home, another in a professional setting.
• Grosjean (1982) Definition
  • Bilingualism is defined by language use rather than proficiency.
  • A bilingual is someone who needs and uses two or more languages in everyday life.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Bilingualism

• Disadvantages:
  • No Long-Term Disadvantages: Snow (1993) found no long-term negative effects.
  • Initial Delays: Possible initial delays in vocabulary acquisition in one language compared to monolinguals, but this is soon compensated.
  • Total Vocabulary: Bilinguals often have a greater total vocabulary than monolinguals.
  • Cognitive Processing: Slight deficit in cognitive and memory processing in the second language.
  • Interference Effects: Potential interference between languages.

Interference Between Languages

• Levels of Interference:
  • Phonological: Least interference.
  • Lexical: Mixing words from different languages.
    • Initial Strategy: One word per thing.
    • Later: Simultaneous use of words from both languages as awareness develops.
  • Syntactic:
    • Until Year Two: Use of a single syntactic system common to both languages.
    • Brief Period: Two sets of lexical items with a common syntax.
    • Eventually: Development of two separate lexicons and syntactic systems.

Additional Advantages of Bilingualism

• Cognitive Benefits:
  • Metalinguistic Awareness: Enhanced understanding that names are arbitrary.
  • Verbal Fluency: Improved verbal fluency.
  • Creativity: More creative thinking.
  • Cognitive Aging: Potential to slow down cognitive aging.
  • Cognitive Flexibility: Better cognitive flexibility.
• Common Underlying Processing
  • The ability to control operations in two languages.

Code Switching

• Definition
  • Substituting words or phrases from one language with another.
  • Example: “Va chercher Jean-Philippe and bribe him avec une glace with sauce on top.”
• Systematic Switching
  • Switching follows grammatical rules.
  • Example: “I want a motorcycle VERDE” is correct because in Spanish, the adjective follows the noun.
  • Incorrect Example: “I want a VERDE motorcycle” (violates Spanish grammar).
• Communicative Device
  • Used to convey linguistic and social information.

Code Switching - Processing

• Processing Cost
  • Bilinguals generally take longer to read and comprehend code-switched sentences.
  • Mental Switch Mechanism: A mechanism that determines which mental dictionary is active.
  • Asymmetric Switch Cost: More inhibition may be required to suppress a more dominant language.
• Advantages
  • Impact on Cognition: Bilingualism affects cognition outside of language.
  • Task Switching and Inhibition: Bilinguals excel at switching and suppressing inappropriate language.
  • Performance in Tasks: Advantage in Stroop, flanker, card sort, and Simon tasks.

Improving Chances of Becoming Bilingual

• Frequency of Usage
  • How often and in what contexts languages are used.
  • “Use it or lose it” principle - language attrition.
• Mode of Acquisition
  • Native Bilingualism: Growing up in a two-language environment.
  • Immersion: Schooling provided in a non-native language.
  • Submersion: Being surrounded by non-native speakers.

Language Exposure and Order

• Language Exposure:
  • Early Exposure: Critical period exists.
    • Simultaneous: Learning both languages at the same time early in life.
    • Early Sequential: Learning one language shortly after another early in life.
  • Late Sequential: Second language learned later in life, post-adolescence.
• Interdependence of Languages:
  • L1 (First Language): Increasing L2 may impair L1.
  • L2 (Second Language): Deficit in L2 compared to L1; languages may interchange.

Critical Period in Bilingual Acquisition

• Biological Basis
  • Pinker (1994): Language acquisition circuitry is not needed once used; it should be dismantled if it incurs cost.
  • Aitchison (1998): Language is a biologically triggered behavior sharing characteristics with other such behaviors.
    • Emerges before necessary
    • Development is unintentional
    • Not triggered by external events but needs appropriate environment
    • Teaching and practice have limited effect
    • Goes through stages
    • Optimal period for development
• Non-Human Critical Periods
  • Imprinting in ducks (Lorenz)
  • Visual orientation selectivity in cats (Hubel & Wesel)
  • Song learning in birds (Marler)
  • Visuo-motor coordination in barn owls (Knudson)
• Curious Case of the Chaffinch
  • Basic tune is innate; rhythm and pitch are learned.
  • If a chaffinch doesn't hear adult song in first 15 months, it doesn't acquire the full song.

Effect of Age of Acquisition on Second Language

• Accent in L2 production (Flege et al. 1995).
• Tests of grammar in Korean immigrants to the USA (Johnson & Newport, 1998).

Age Effect on L2 Acquisition

• Loss of Plasticity: Crystallization occurs in neural circuits for language due to maturation.
• Interference: Competition from L1.
  • Active use of L1 prevents acquisition of L2.
  • Progressive stabilization of L1 learning.
  • Later L2 acquisition results in less system perturbation.

Language Attrition

• L1 Crystallization
  • If L1 is crystallized during acquisition, traces of L1 remain.
  • L2 is still processed as non-native.

Studies of Foreign Adoptees (Pallier et al. 2003)

• Study Group:
  • Young adults (mean age = 30 years) of Korean origin.
  • Adopted by French families between 3 and 10 years (mean = 6.5 years).

Recognition of Korean Sentences and Word Identification

• Tests included recognition of Korean sentences and word identification of possible translations.

fMRI Study of Adoptees

• Method
  • Adoptees and French subjects were scanned while listening to sentences in French, Korean, Japanese, and Polish.
• Results
  • No significant differences were found between the groups.

Interference or Crystallisation?

• Findings
  • Listening to Korean sentences did not yield specific activation in adoptees.
  • Activation patterns were similar in Korean adoptees and native French speakers.
  • No Traces: Little evidence of early Korean exposure.
  • Possible Issue: Methods might lack sensitivity.

Studies of Foreign Adoptees (Bowers et al. 2009)

• Study Group
  • Adults exposed to Zulu or Hindu in childhood with no explicit knowledge in adulthood.
• Control Group
  • English-speaking adults trained on perception of phonemic distinctions specific to Zulu/Hindu.
• Results
  • Only adults with prior language exposure showed significant retraining improvements.
• Conclusion
  • Ongoing debate between crystallization and interference hypotheses.

Losing Access to L1 While Studying L2 (Linck, Kroll, & Sunderman, 2009)

• Study
  • L2 learners (native English speakers studying Spanish).
  • One group studied abroad in Spain (immersion).
  • Another group studied in a classroom (monolingual environment).
• Tests
  • Semantic fluency tests in L1 & L2.
• Conclusion
  • Continued debate between crystallization and interference hypotheses.

Bilingual Lexicon

• How bilinguals represent multiple languages:
  • Separate lexica? (Separate-store models)
    • Connected at semantic levels.
  • Shared conceptual representations? (Common-store models)
    • One lexicon for both languages.
    • Connected directly.

Separate Store Models

• Concept Mediation Model (Potter, So, Von Eckardt, & Feldman, 1984)
  • Semantics in L1 and L2 are separate but linked
• Word Association Model (Potter et al., 1984)
  • Direct links between words in L1 and L2 without semantic mediation
• Mixed Model (de Groot, 1992, 1994)
  • Combination of concept mediation and word association
• Asymmetrical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994)
  • Asymmetric links between L1 and L2 depending on proficiency

Common Store Model

• Paivio, Clark, & Lambert (1988)
• Words from both languages in the same store.
• L1 & L2 share concepts.

Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) (Kroll & Stewart, 1994)

• Translation in Second Language Novices:
  • Lexical links are stronger in L2 to L1 than L1 to L2.
  • L1 to L2: Conceptual mediation; semantic access for translation is indirect and slower.
  • L2 to L1: Direct links between lexical entries; word association.
  • Asymmetry: Backward translation is faster than forward translation.

Experimental Evidence Against RHM

• Less fluent bilinguals are faster at forward than backward translation (De Groot & Poot, 1997).
• Bilingual STROOP (Altarriba & Mathis, 1997):
  • Across language stroop.
  • Semantic interference and concept mediation in L2.
• Asymmetry effects may vary based on:
  • Age of acquisition.
  • Relative proficiency.
• Effects may differ for:
  • Translation (production).
  • Word recognition (comprehension).

Development in Bilingual Interactive Activation (Grainger & Dijkstra, 1992)

• Development:
  • Links between L1 and L2.
  • Replacement of excitatory with inhibitory connections.
  • Integration into a common lexicon.
  • Development of language nodes.
    • Knowledge of the language of a particular word form.
  • Regulators for language activation.
    • Top-down control on language.
    • Strengthening excitatory connections between L2 and concepts.
• Shift from independent to integrated lexica with increased fluency.
• Early fluency:
  • Special status of L2 words form excitatory connections to L1 (as in RHM).

Reading Material

• Main Text:
  • The Psychology of Language: From Data to Theory by Trevor A. Harley.
  • Chapter 5: Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition.