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Recap Attitudes Evidence Explanations Critical age

Attitudes and aptitudes:Myths, facts, and controversies

about the bilingual mind

Devyani Sharma

[email protected] Mary, University of London

Lecture 2LSA 201, Berkeley

29 July 2009

Devyani Sharma Bilingual mind

Recap Attitudes Evidence Explanations Critical age

Key methodologies (summary from last lecture)

Experimental → naturalistic (Gass & Mackey 2007, Grosjean 2008)

� Prompted responses

reaction time, sentence interpretation, acceptability judgements,

magnitude estimation, word association, priming, lexical decision,

cross-modal priming, eye movement, moving window, stroop test

� Prompted production

elicited imitation, picture description, story telling, story completion,

sentence combining, map tasks, spot-the-difference

� Naturalistic data

role play, diary studies, narratives, semi-structured interviews, ethnography


Recap Attitudes Evidence Explanations Critical age Overview Early Contemporary

Today

Attitudes vs. evidence

� Attitudes

� Evidence of advantages (verbal, non-verbal)

� Evidence of disadvantages (verbal)

Explanations and controversies

� Explanations� Neurocognition� Lexical storage� Selective access

� The critical age controversy� Critical age claims and evidence� Interaction of social and individual factors



Early attitudes

Popular beliefs

� Views summarized in Weinreich (1953):mental retardation, low intelligence, split national loyalties,laziness, excessive materialism, stuttering, left-handedness,brooding, moral deterioration

Consequences

� Suppression of native language use in schools

� Early IQ tests aimed to identify “feeble-minded immigrants”



Early attitudes

Linguists

� S. S. Laurie (Cambridge 1890): “If it were possible for a child to live in twolanguages at once equally well, so much the worse. His intellectual and spiritualgrowth would not thereby be doubled, but halved. Unity of mind and characterwould have great difficulty in asserting itself.”

� Jespersen (1922): “It is, of course, an advantage for a child to be familiar withtwo languages: but without doubt the advantage may be, and generally is,purchased too dear. First of all the child in question hardly learns either of thetwo languages as perfectly as he would have done if he had limited himself toone... Secondly, the brain effort required... certainly diminishes the child’spower of learning other things which might and ought to be learnt.”

� Weinreich (1968): “the ideal bilingual switches from one language to the otheraccording to the appropriate changes in the speech situation (interlocutors,topic, etc.), but not in unchanged speech situations, and certainly not within asingle utterance.”



Contemporary attitudes

Attitudes among monolinguals (see Romaine 1995)

� Letter to the editor Sydney Morning Herald 13/2/81: “Nothing annoys memore than two or more ‘ethnics’ jabbering away in their native language in thecompany of English speaking people, particularly in a work environment. Is itreally too much to ask them to observe simple politeness by refraining fromresorting to their native language in the company of English speaking persons?”

� “Spanglish... consists primarily of English words for modern things, ideas andactivities hung on a sagging Spanish grammatical framework... The truth is,that’s how high-school dropouts confined to ethnic ghettos talk. Nobody else isgoing to find himself talking like this. Spanglish, like Ebonics, will tend toremain what it already is, a dialect of people who are not educated enough tomaster English.” (http://www.us-english.org)

� “Tragically, many immigrants these days refuse to learn English! They neverbecome productive members of society. They remain stuck in a linguistic andeconomic ghetto, many living off welfare and costing working Americans millionsof tax dollars every year.” (http://www.us-english.org)




Attitudes among bilinguals

� Norwegians on Norwegian migrants in U.S. (Haugen 1977):“Strictly speaking, it is no language whatever, but a gruesome mixture of

Norwegian and English, and often one does not know whether to take it

humorously or seriously.”

� Self-report by an English-Punjabi bilingual (Romaine 1995):“I’m guilty as well in the sense that we speak English more and more and then

what happens is that when you speak your own language you get two or three

English words in each sentence... but I think that’s wrong. I mean, I myself

would like to speak pure Panjabi.”

� Raising children bilingual:� Cognitive deficit or burden? → literacy, school performance� Fear of fused languages (NB: de Houwer, Romaine, Sorace, Meisel)




Attitudes among bilinguals (Hill 1993)

� Traditional Dyirbal, Young people’s Dyirbal, English:� Older TD speakers accuse young speakers of being ‘half

English’, ‘all mixed up’, ‘wrong’� Some concerned to have children ready for school� Belief that TD is more appropriate for older children (transition

from everyday language to ‘difficult’ heritage, ritual language):

� “we jus’ want them to grow up a bit more, then they knowwhat we talkin’ about [when we teach them Dyirbal].”

� “till he gets older, enough to understand...”




Researcher ideologies (Grosjean 2008)

� Monolingual or ‘fractional’ view of bilinguals� Causes:

� Linguistics by and for “normal” monolingual speaker-hearer� Influence of popular ideologies of ‘true’ speakers

� Effects:� ‘True’ bIlingual as two monolinguals (vs. complementarity)� Language skills assessment in terms of monolingual standards� Lack of attention to impact of monolingualism!� Separate analysis of each L1 or L2 language (vs. individually

variable continuum of speech mode)


Recap Attitudes Evidence Explanations Critical age Advantages Disadvantages

Early claims of disadvantage

Claims of negative effects (see Romaine 1995)

� English in home → higher ‘IQ’ (Goodenough 1926):“this might be considered evidence that the use of a foreign language inthe home is one of the chief factors in producing mental retardation asmeasured by intelligence tests. A more probable explanation is that thosenationality groups whose average intellectual ability is inferior do notreadily learn the new language” (Goodenough 1926)

� Study of Welsh/English communities and avg. IQ (Saer 1924):

urban ruralMonolingual English 99 96Bilingual Welsh/English 100 86

� Saer: Urban biling children resolve ‘emotional conflict’ early� Romaine (1995): Urban biling children have Eng contact

before and outside school; rural lack of Eng access (lg of test)� Morrison (1958): Factoring in SES eliminates effect



Early claims of disadvantage

Claims of negative effects (contd.)

� Sp-Eng bilinguals: 54% of reading vocabulary (Tireman 1955)

� Sp-Eng: reading handicap of 2.7 years (Kelley 1936)

� Singapore bilinguals less creative (Torrance et al. 1970)

� Poorer performance in IQ tests and motivation: Irish-Eng,U.S. It-Eng (Darcy 1946, Jones & Stewart 1951, Macnamara 1966)

Concerns:

� Sample selection errors (e.g. L1 Hokkien, two new school L2s)

� Testing concerns (e.g. cultural relativity and lg of IQ tests)

� Demographics and background

� Language mode



Counter-claims: Overall superiority

Peal & Lambert (1962)

(NB: Ronjat 1913, Leopold 1936, 1949)

� Minority language prestige (6 Montreal French schools)

� 364 monolingual and ‘true’ bilingual 10-year-olds

� Matched on SES, sex, age, language, intelligence, attitude� Verbal and non-verbal IQ tests:

� Bilinguals superior on symbol manipulation processes (Raven

Progressive Matrices)� Biling/monoling at par on spatial and perceptual processes

� Note: Possible bias in selection of bilinguals (Macnamara 1966)

Longitudinal confirmation of direction of effect (Hakuta & Diaz 1985)



Counter-claims: Verbal advantage

Arbitrariness of sign (Ianco-Worrall 1972):

30 Afrikaans, 30 English, 30 English-Afrikaans (Cf. Leopold 1936)

Q1: “3 words: cap, can, hat. Which is more like cap, can or hat?”

A1: ‘Hat’: younger bilinguals 68%; younger monolinguals 46%

‘Hat’: older bilinguals > 67%; older monolinguals < 60%

Q2: “Suppose you were making up names for things, could you then calla cow ‘dog’ and a dog ‘cow’?”

A2: ‘Yes’: younger bilinguals 38%; younger monolinguals 8%

‘Yes’: older bilinguals 59%; older monolinguals 38%




Arbitrariness of sign (Ben-Zeev 1977):

Piagetian ‘sun-moon’ task (Bialystok 1988: early & late bilingual advantage)

Q1: “You know that in English this is named ‘airplane’. In this game it’snamed ‘turtle’. Can the ‘turtle’ fly? etc.”

A1: ‘Yes’: bilinguals > monolinguals (Hebrew-English)

Q1: “Substitute the word spaghetti for we in sentences.”

A1: ‘Spaghetti are good children’: bilinguals > monolinguals




Arbitrariness of sign (Cummins 1978):

Q1: “Suppose you were making up names for things, could youthen call the sun “the moon” and the moon “the sun”?Justifications of answers:

A1: Empirical justification: ‘The names could be interchangedbecause both the sun and the moon shine.’

A2: Rigid conventional justification: ‘They are their right namesso you couldn’t change them.’

A3: Arbitrary assignment: ‘You could change the names because itdoesn’t matter what things are called.’ (bilinguals favouredthis response, particularly with age)




Syntactic/semantic awareness (Bialystok 1986, 7- and 9-yr-olds):

Q1: “Apples growed on trees.”

A1: Ungrammatical judgement: bilinguals = monolinguals

Q2: “Apples grow on noses.”

A2: Grammatical judgement: bilinguals > monolinguals

Phonological awareness� “Which is the odd one out? pat, pan, pal, pet”

� “Take away the first sound from cat and put in the first sound frommop. What is the new word?’

� bilinguals > monolinguals (Davine et al. 1971);� bilinguals = monolinguals (Bialystok et al. 2000)

� Bruck & Genesee (1995): monolinguals – phoneme counting,bilinguals – syllable counting (language-specific result?)

� Relationship to: reading, vocabulary size, script typeDevyani Sharma Bilingual mind


Reconciling early studies

Cummins (1976)

� Oldest studies:� subtractive (low L1 prestige) cases� poor selection criteria, poor task execution

� Early counter-claims:� additive (equal prestige) cases� careful selection, control, and execution

Hypotheses

� Developmental interdependence hypothesis: Competence(& literacy) in L2 is a function of competence in L1

� Threshold hypothesis: Bilinguals must achieve thresholdlevels of bilingual proficiency to avoid detrimental cognitiveeffects and potentially allow positive cognitive effects




Cummins (1976) contd.

Cummins’ levels: semilingual, dominant, additive




Critiques of Cummins (1976)(Martin-Jones & Romaine 1986, MacSwan 2000)

� Semilingualism vs. complementarity

� Hierarchical treatment of variation = prescriptivism

� Flaws in test design

� Literacy included as measure of proficiency (so “semilingualism” =poor performance on academic tests, i.e. “cause” = effect!)

� Causation assumed: bilingualism → cognitive development

� Bilingual situations treated as measurable, comparable

� Danger of unfounded deficit beliefs among teachers

� Alternative reconciliation: SES/class; special challenges ofimmigrant groups (simultaneous academic + English acq)

“it is not bilingualism in itself which causes cognitive advantages or

disadvantages, but certain social factors [SES, lg prestige, education] that

influence the levels of proficiency the bilingual attains.” (Appel & Muysken 2006)



Recent claims: Non-verbal advantages

� Hypothesis-formation and problem-solving (Kessler & Quinn 1980)

� Hypothesis formation in response to scientific phenomena� Bilinguals > monolinguals in quality, complexity of hypotheses

and syntactic complexity

� Sorting task (Zelazo et al. 1996, Bialystok 1999, Bialystok & Martin 2004)

� Dimensional change card sort task� Bivalent stimuli (colour, shape); quick switch in sorting task� Bilinguals master task sooner than monolinguals

� Theory of mind (Goetz 2003, Bialystok & Senman 2004, Kovacs 2009)

� Executive control and attention tasks (Carlson & Meltzoff 2008)

� Conflict tasks: Bilinguals > monolinguals (working memory)� Even prelingual 7-month-old ‘bilingual’ babies! (Kovacs & Mehler 2009)� Delay tasks: Bilinguals = monolinguals (STM)



Example 1: Flanker task (Costa, Hernandez and Sebastian-Galles 2008)

(flanker task activity)

2.2. Assessing the three attentional networks

In the following analyses, we assessed the three e!ects of the attentional networks(as indexed by the conflict e!ect, the alerting e!ect and the orienting e!ect) indepen-dently and their relationship with the variables ‘‘Block’’ (Block 1, 2 and 3) and‘‘Group of Participants’’ (monolinguals vs. bilinguals). In these analyses, an e!ectof bilingualism will be indexed by an interaction between the above mentionede!ects and the variable ‘‘Group of Participants’’ (see Fig. 3 for a summary of theresults).

2.3. Executive network

The ‘‘Conflict e!ect’’ (incongruent vs. congruent trials) was significant (F(1,198) = 1481, MSE = 2241, p = .0001), indicating faster reaction times for congru-ent than for incongruent trials. In this analysis, bilinguals were also faster than mon-olinguals [‘‘Group of Participants’’ (F (1,198) = 11.17, MSE = 25389, p = .001)] andreaction times decreased with repetitions [‘‘Block’’ (F (2,396) = 24.06, MSE = 1178,p = .0001)]. The crucial interaction between ‘‘Conflict e!ect’’ and ‘‘Group of Partici-pants’’ was significant (F (1,198) = 4.5, MSE = 2241, p = .035), revealing that thedi!erence between incongruent and congruent trials was larger for monolingualsthan for bilinguals. However, this di!erence was modulated by the variable ‘‘Block’’as revealed by the three-way interaction between ‘‘Group of Participants’’, ‘‘Con-flict’’ and ‘‘Block’’ (F (2,396) = 3.17, MSE = 453, p = .043).

As it can be appreciated in Fig. 4, this triple interaction reveals that the di!erencein the magnitude of the conflict e!ect between monolinguals and bilinguals is present

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Neutral Cong. Incong. Neutral Cong. Incong.

Bilinguals Monolinguals

RT

s (m

s)No Cue

Double Cue

Center

Spatial

Fig. 2. Overall RTs (ms) for Monolingual and Bilingual participants in the 12 conditions included in theexperiment.

72 A. Costa et al. / Cognition 106 (2008) 59–86



Example 2: Simon task (Bialystok et al. 2004)

(simon task activity)



Example 3: Stroop test

BLUE

YELLOW

GREEN

RED

Lower naming latencies for younger and older bilinguals comparedto monolinguals (Bialystok et al. 2008)



Summary of claimed advantages

Verbal

� awareness of arbitrariness of sign

� syntactic/semantic awareness

� phonological awareness

� perception of linguistic ambiguity

� analytic processing of verbal input

� verbal creativity

Non-verbal

� Analytic flexibility, particularly attention and executive control

� Ability to attend to new feature and neglect irrelevant data



Summary of claimed advantages

Further advantages

� Precocious reading skills (Pettito & Dunbar 2004)

� Favourable attitudes toward other groups (Peal & Lambert 1962)

� Participation, appreciation, maintenance of different cultures

� Enhanced family and community relationships



Disadvantage

Vocabulary:

� Peabody vocabulary test scores (monoling 105, biling 95)

� Bilingual children raised in English-speaking community

Issues:

� Balanced bilinguals?

� More specialised vocabulary domains?

� Language mode (Grosjean 2008)

� 50% vocab (bilingual) = 100% vocab (monolingual)



Disadvantage

Naming latencies in L1 and L2 (Ivanova & Costa 2008)

and, especially, ‘‘Group of Participants’’. Note, however,that caution needs to be exercised when interpreting theresults of this post-hoc analysis (especially those of the itemanalysis) because of the di!erent samples of cognate (22)and non-cognate words (28). As above, we carried outtwo comparisons: between the monolinguals (Group 1)and Spanish–Catalan bilinguals (Group 2), and betweenthe Spanish–Catalan bilinguals (Group 2) and the Cata-lan–Spanish bilinguals speaking L2 (Group 3).

In the first comparison, that between the monolinguals(Group 1) and the Spanish–Catalan bilinguals (Group 2),the di!erence between cognates and non-cognates was vir-tually identical for the two groups, revealing the absence ofa cognate e!ect (monolinguals: 2 ms; Spanish–Catalan bil-inguals: 5 ms) (see Fig. 3). Furthermore, the bilingual dis-advantage was very similar for both types of words(cognates: 32 ms; non-cognates: 35 ms). Thus, it appearsthat the bilingual disadvantage is not modulated by

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Bil L2 (Gr. 3)

Fig. 1. Panel A: Overall mean picture naming latencies for the Spanish Monolinguals (Group 1), the Spanish–Catalan Bilinguals (Group 2) and theCatalan–Spanish Bilinguals (Group 3), averaged across high-frequency and low-frequency picture names. Error bars represent the standard error. Panel B:Distribution of all naming latencies (in percentage) for the three groups of participants. The size of the interval is 50 ms. Mono – monolinguals (Group 1);Bil L1 – Spanish–Catalan bilinguals (Group 2); Bil L2 – Catalan–Spanish bilinguals (Group 3).

Monolinguals (Gr. 1)

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Fig. 2. Mean picture naming latencies for the Spanish Monolinguals (Group 1), the Spanish–Catalan Bilinguals (Group 2) and the Catalan–SpanishBilinguals (Group 3) for high-frequency and low-frequency picture names (HF – high frequency; LF – low frequency).

I. Ivanova, A. Costa / Acta Psychologica 127 (2008) 277–288 283

� Spanish picture-naming task: high and low frequency words (equal cognates)

� Latencies: Sp monolings < Sp-dominant bilings < Catalan-dominant bilings

� I.e. even dominant bilinguals show an effect

� Compounded frequency effect

� Gollan et al. (2005) found repetition removed effect



Disadvantage

Recall in bilinguals and L2 learners (Gathercole & Thorn 1998)

An experiment by A. Thorn and S. Gathercole

Methods:

Vocabulary knowledge: The child looked at four line drawings and was asked to point to the picture that corresponded to the word spoken by the experimenter.

Phonological short-term memory:

Digit span: was assessed in English and French. The child was required to repeat a sequence of digits immediately after presentation.

Nonword repetition: Nonwords included English and French.

An experiment by A. Thorn and S. Gathercole

Conclusion:

Early bilinguals�’ short-term memory of either of the two language materials is as good as monolinguals�’.

Early learning of two languages helps the development of mental abilities.

Spanish-English bilingual children aged five to seven years were recruited.

Children were asked to complete sentences:

The princess is beautiful, the monster is_____.

Snow is ice, rain is_______.

Results: children with stronger proficiency in both languages displayed stronger analogical reasoning ability.

A positive relationship between bilingualism and a wide range of other cognitive measures was also observed.

Diaz (1985) examined the effects of learning a second language on the ability to reason by analogy:



Disadvantage

L2 naming vs. L2 switching

(switching task activity)

� L1 strongly inhibited, longer reactivation time (Allport et al., 1994)

� Greater general activation for L2

fMRI evidence (Costa et al. in prep.)

� Greater general activation for L2 and L3 (disadvantage)

� Reduced added activity for incongruent tasks in balancedbilinguals (advantage)



Disadvantage

Early and late bilingual switching (Costa & Santesteban 2004)

� Learners: switch into L1 harder than switch into L2

� Proficient bilinguals: no added cost of switching into L1

� All: slightly more inhibition of L1 across tasks

� Even switches with weaker L3 of proficient bilinguals symmetric, suggestingfundamental advantage of balanaced bilinguals (contra Allport et al. 1994)



Disadvantage

Tip of the tongue effects

� “a metal device thrown

overboard for the purpose

of holding a boat in

place”

� jaundice, jury, mane,

bachelor, nostril,

colander, parachute,

dusk, echo, refugee,

safety pin, stethoscope,

funnel, tattoo, germ,

grater, tunnel, hoarse,

honeymoon



Disadvantage

Gollan & Silverberg (2001)

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Recap Attitudes Evidence Explanations Critical age Learning Storage Selection

Summary of evidence

Advantages and disadvantages:

� Advantages (esp. early bilinguals):� Arbitrariness and verbal awareness� Non-verbal executive control tasks

� Disadvantages (esp. late bilinguals):� Slower naming times and tip of the tongue effects� Slower switching-into-L1 times

Explanations:

� Why advantages? (types of memory, inhibitory control)

� Why disadvantages? (storage, inhibitory control)



Types of memory and learning

Effect: Verbal and non-verbal control (Abutalebi & Green 2007)

� Cognitive control results from integration of separable neural systems� Cognitive (not strictly linguistic) control used in selection and sequencing of

linguistic representations� Advantage: Greater skill in these regions through bilingual activity




Procedural and declarative memory(Fabbro 2001, Paradis 1994, Ullman 2001)

Early language acquisition:

Left hemisphere, subcortical:

Frontal lobe Basal ganglia

Inferior parietal regions

Procedural memory: • early motor and cognitive

• + executive functions

• implicit, unconscious learning

Later language acquisition:

Left and right, cerebral cortex: Medial structures

Temporo-parietal lobes

Declarative memory: • semantic and episodic memory functions • explicit, conscious learning

� Procedural (early) vs. declarative (late) memory in language learning

� Selective advantage: Only ‘early regions’ = Abutalebi & Green’s effect




Phenomena accounted for by procedural/declarative distinction

� Non-verbal control advantages among early but not latebilinguals

� L1/L2 differences in grammatical behaviour (next week)

� Aphasic language recovery (see Ijalba et al. 2004 for summary)

� Example: E.M. mother tongue Venetian, L2 Italian: subcortical lesion involving

left basal ganglia. Increased difficulty in spontaneous L1 use and translating into

L1, despite L1 being her most frequently used language (Aglioti et al. 1996)

What about disadvantages?

� Storage

� Activation and selection



Storage

Compound / coordinate(Weinreich 1953, Erwin&Osgood 1954)

� Little measurable difference

� Lexical domains may differ

Revised hierarchical model(Kroll & Stewart 1994)

� 2 lexical stores, 1 conceptual store

� L1-L2 mediation → direct link

� Slower L2 translation: mediation

� Tip-of-tongue: weak direct links



Activation and selection

Why slower naming times (even dominant bilinguals)?Why greater L1 switching time (late bilinguals)?

� Bilinguals ‘turn down’ but not ‘turn off’ other language(Grosjean 2001, vs. Penfield and Roberts 1959)

� Research focus on inhibitory control of various activationlevels (Green 1986)



Activation and selection

Lexical level selection(Costa, La Heij, & Navarrete 2006)

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The dynamics of bilingual lexical access 139

processing from the lexical to the sublexical level, weneed to postulate a selection mechanism in charge ofchoosing, among the several segments that are activated,those corresponding to the target word.

Thus, in a model in which activation is allowed tospread freely through the lexical and sublexical levels,we need to postulate selection mechanisms at each ofthese levels. In contrast, if activation is restricted to thetarget representation, then the selection process seemsquite trivial (e.g. prioritize the only representation thatis activated). What about the flow of activation in thebilingual mind?

3. Functional dynamics in bilingual speechproduction

The critical question regarding the functional dynamicsof the bilingual system is the following: Which linguisticrepresentations (e.g. words, phonemes) of the language-not-in-use are activated when bilinguals produce speechin the other language?

There are many occasions in which bilinguals needto restrict their lexicalization to only one language sincethe use of words from their other language may disruptcommunication considerably, given that the interlocutor

may not know that language. In such circumstances, andgiven that the speaker is the one who decides in whichlanguage to carry out the communicative act, perhapsthe semantic system only activates representations oflexical items in the target language. In such a framework,the bilingual would be functionally equivalent to amonolingual and no control mechanism specific to casesof bilingualism that operates over lexical representationswould be needed. This is not to say that she wouldspeak as fluently and accurately as a native speaker,but rather that the same selection mechanisms as thoseemployed by monolinguals would be required for her toproduce language. Note that this channeling of activationis possible because, unlike in other domains such asword reading (see Dijkstra and Van Heuven, 2002 foran extensive discussion), the choice of the language inwhich the message needs to be conveyed depends entirelyon the speaker’s intention.

However, and despite the obvious benefits of restrictingactivation to one language, models of bilingual speechproduction postulate that conceptual representationsspread activation to the lexical representations of bothlanguages of a bilingual (Green, 1986, 1998; de Bot,1992; Poulisse and Bongaerts, 1994; Hermans, Bongaerts,de Bot and Schreuder, 1998; Costa, Miozzo andCaramazza, 1999; Costa, 2005; La Heij, 2005; seeFigure 1). Such an assumption has led authors to postulate

Semantic Representations

Lexical Nodes (Lexical Selection) GATO PERRO CAT DOG

d o gtc aPhonological Nodes

(Phonological Retrieval) p e rg

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the activation flow from the semantic to the lexical system of a Spanish–Englishbilingual speaker in the course of naming the picture of a “dog” in English. The squares represent the lexical nodes of thelanguage not-in-use (Spanish), and the circles represent the lexical nodes of the language in use (English). The arrowsrepresent the flow of activation and the thickness of the circles indicates the level of activation of the representations.

� Lexical level selection (Costa

& Caramazza 1999):� ‘cat’ slows access to target

‘dog’ (lexical competition)� ‘perro’ speeds access to

target ‘dog’ (no cross-lg

lexical competition,

semantic identity)� ‘silla’/‘cadira’ (chair,

Sp./Catalan) slow access

to target ‘mesa’ (table,

Sp.) (cross-lg = within lg

semantic interference)

� Weak ‘language switch’?

(Finkbeiner et al. 2006)



Activation and selection624 MILLER AND KROLL

SOA

100

80

60

40

20

0

–20

– 40

– 60

– 80

–100

Mag

nitu

deof

Inte

rfer

ence

/Fac

ilita

tion

(mse

c)M

agni

tude

ofIn

terf

eren

ce/F

acili

tatio

n(m

sec)

200 msec 500 msec

A

SOA200 msec 500 msec

B100

80

60

40

20

0

– 20

– 40

– 60

– 80

–100

SemanticForm

SemanticForm

Figure 2. The magnitude of facilitation (negative) and interference (positive),in milliseconds, for semantically related distractors relative to controls andform related distractors relative to controls as a function of stimulus onset asyn-chrony (SOA, 200 vs. 500 msec) when (A) the distractors appeared in the lan-guage of output in Experiment 1 and (B) the distractors appeared in the lan-guage of input in Experiment 2.

example, if the word vestido was presented for translationand the distractor was press, we asked whether the partic-ipants ever incorrectly said apretón, rather than dress, asthe correct translation.

To compare the results of the two experiments, sepa-rate ANOVAs were performed on the percentages of er-rors that occurred when the participants made the mis-take of naming the distractor or the mistake of translating

Bilingual Stroop Test (translation)(Miller & Kroll 2002)

cuchara (→ spoon)

Output distractors:

fork (sem.) spool (phon.)

� Semantic distractors: Inhibition

� Form distractors: Facilitation

� (Hermans et al. 1998, Costa et al. 1999:Picture-word task: semantic distractorsinhibit regardless of language)

� Translation task cues language sonarrows selection task to outputs



Summary

Explanations for observed patterns:

� Type of memory (declarative/procedural):� Verbal and non-verbal control strong among early bilinguals:

highly developed procedural memory, tied to executive control

� Storage (Revised Hierarchical model):� Faster translation into L1 than L2: asymmetric word/concept

mediation links� Tip of the tongue effects: lower frequency = weaker direct

links� Vocabulary size: frequency of exposure

� Bilingual activation and inhibition:� Control advantages (highly developed inhibitory control)� Semantic, phonetic, and arbitrariness meta-awareness� Disadvantages in reaction time where competition arises


Recap Attitudes Evidence Explanations Critical age Critical age hypotheses Contextual factors References

Critical period

Key question

� Is the early/late distinction sharp or gradient?� Implications:

� Claims of innateness, UG, and critical age for native-like ability� Availability of cognitive advantages� Child-rearing practices and choices at home� Performance and policy at school� Informative for neurocognitive theories



Critical period

Claims of L1-L2 differences:

� L1 (vs. L2) acquisition (Bley-Vroman 2009)

� Convergence: Children end up with similar systems� Reliability: Children always succeed� Path: Children follow similar stages� Less influence of personality, motivation, and explicit teaching

� Uncontroversial: Documentation of decline in ability

� Controversial: Interpretation (discrete vs. continuous)� Approaches:

� Decontextualised comparisons of NS and NNS performance� Socio-culturally contextualised studies



Critical period

Critical period hypotheses

� Lenneberg (1967): 2-14 yrs; Krashen (1973): 5 yrs; Pinker(1994): 6 yrs; Patkowski (1980): 15 yrs

� Johnson & Newport (1989): Decline from 7yrs� 46 Ch/Kor L2ers; min. 5 yrs exposure; 3 yrs in U.S.� Various tests, incl. subjacency� Before 15, consistent acquisition; after, greater variance



Critical period

Critiques

� Research design� J & N: immigrant group, few controls for class, education� Subsequent controlled Ch-Eng studies: gradient/no age effect

(Juffs & Harrington 1995, Bialystok & Miller 1998, Hakuta et al. 2003

summary)

� Near-natives indistinguishable (Birdsong 1992; White & Genesee 1993)

� Correspondence between L1 and L2 (Bialystok 1997)

� Similarities in L1 and L2 acquisition (next week)

� Distinct tasks: L1 ordered vs. L2 simultaneous acq of levels

� Natural decline among L1 comp/prod (summary in Rice 1996)

� Bifurcation between native-like comp/prod (Cf. Patkowski 1980)



Education

Census study (Hakuta, Bialystok, & Wiley 2003)

PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE r

-

Kenji Hakuta, Ellen Bialystok, and Edward Wiley

6 - s 3- 0 r

.c D = 2 - m c W

Native Chinese Speakers

-.__. .... ......... .... .... .... .... -.-. -.-<BVnEd ....... ‘ 5YnEd

.... .... ........ .......

.._

11 I 0 20 40 60

Age of Immigration

Fig. 2. Loess tits (span = ,751 for English proficiency by age of immigration among Chinese immigrants. Results are shown separately for different education levels: less than 5 years (“<5 Yrs Ed”), less than 8 years (“<8 Yrs Ed”), some high school (“HS”), high school graduate (“HS Grad), and some college (“College”).

proposed as the close of the putative critical period, nor is there evidence suggesting the variation in older learners is random-proficiency continues to decline into adulthood.

The apparent linearity of these plots is confirmed by considering the gain in R’ that is obtained by including a nonp-emc form to model the relationship between English proficiency and age of immigration for each education group. Table 7 contains R‘ values for both linear and nonpam- memc fits of English proficiency on age of immigration for each education p u p . Little is gained by including an assumption of nonlinearity.

DISCUSSION The critical period is a popular way of explaining the reason for the a p

parent success of children and failure of adults in learning a second language. In the United States, it has even been used in policy debates on how rarly to introduce immigrant children to English and when to teach foreign languages in schwl. We tested the critical-period hypothesis, and in panic- ular searched for evidence of discontinuity in the level of English pmfi- :iency anained aaoss a large sample of panicipants. Using both 15 years md 20 years as hypothesized cutoff points for the end of the critical period, we found no evidence of such a discontinuity in language-learning poten- tial. Instead, the most compelling finding was that the degree of success in second-language acquisition steadily declines throughout the life span.

These data show that in addition to age of immigration, socioeco- nomic factors, and in particular the amount of formal education, are important in predicting how well immigrants learn English. Number 3f years of formal education added substantial amounts to the explanation of variance in both language groups and did not interact with 3ther factors. The linear decline in proficiency across age of immigra- :ion was similarly confirmed in both groups. Although we could not Iuectly test an explanation for this decline, the factors implicated in normal cognitive aging appear to be plausible sources of this effect.

Our conclusion from these models is that second-language profi- :iency does in fact decline with increasing age of initial exposure. The )attern of decline, however, failed to produce the discontinuity that is he essential hallmark of a critical period.

IOL. 14, NO. 1, JANUARY 2003

Native Spanish Speakers 4 ,

11 I 0 20 40 60

Age of Immigration

ig. 3. Loess fits (span = .75) for English proficiency by age of ilr iigration among Spanish-speaking immigrants. Results are show :parately for different education levels: less than 5 years (“<5 YI d”), less than 8 years ( “ i s Yrs Ed”), some high schwl (“HS”), hig :hod graduate (“HS Grad“), and some college (“College”).

Aeknowledgmentslhis study was suppaned in pan by a grant from the Spencer Foundation to the fin1 author. We thank Edith McA~thur for bring- ing the data set 10 our attention, and Dorothy Waggoner far providing us with data on the National Content Test that enabled the analysis reponed in footnote 1.

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ege, J.E.. M u m , M.. & MacKay. I. (1995). Faacron aRwting degree of pcrceivd f<

37

� Census data: 2,016,317 Spanish; 324,444 Chinese

� Validated against actual language proficiency measures(Kominski 1989)



Other complications

Age and life trajectory (Stevens 1999)

� Census study; very careful methodology

� Conclusion: age

� Explanation: not purely maturational, sociological too

� “When we take into account length of residence in the U.S. along with features

of the immigrants’ family background, educational history, and current familial

and activity characteristics, then the direct effects of age at immigration on

English proficiency in adulthood lessen. These results suggest that age at

immigration is related to level of proficiency in English in adulthood in large part

because the timing of immigration within the life-course sets immigrants onto

certain life-course trajectories. For example, immigrants who enter the

country earlier in life are more likely to go to school in the U.S., and are more

likely to marry a native-born American, than those who enter the country at

older ages.” (p. 574)



Other complications

Age and proficiency: ERP data (Steinhauer et al. 2009)

� “Proficiency rather than AoA seems to predict brain activity patterns in L2

processing, including native-like activity at very high levels of proficiency.

Further, a strict distinction between linguistic structures that late L2 learners

can vs. cannot learn to process in a native-like manner (Clahsen and Felser

2006) may not be warranted. Instead, morpho-syntactic real-time processing in

general seems to undergo dramatic, but systematic, changes with increasing

proficiency levels.

� Semantic anomaly (N400); morphosyntactic anomaly (P600)

� Morphosyntactic violations: High proficiency = LANs/P600s;low proficiency = N400s



Social factors

Network

� Language abilities (and attitudes, motivation) correspond tonetwork participation (Mougeon, Beniak, Rehner group)

� This can result in acquisition of non-standard forms/norms(e.g. Turkish-German example from last week)

� L2 learners may actively select target variety, based on socialcontext, solidarity, status, local community (Beebe 1985)

Additional factors

� Language status: Lower prestige may lead to reducedmotivation, practice

� Discourse: Socialisation of adults into a language via discourseis markedly different from that of children (Tarone, Duff)



Individual factors

Attitude and motivation

� Responses to input vary with life stage: baby (caregivers), child

(older children), adolescent (peers), adult (networks, migration)

� Tajfel (1981): theory of inter-group relations (acceptance v.

rejection of inferior status and linguistic consequences)

� NNSs are not always rewarded for native-like speech:“non-natives are likely to face social consequences when their linguistic

behaviour complies with sociolinguistic rules saved (by some norm) for the

natives. Examples are the usage of obscenities, slang expressions, or very formal

pronunciation... a set of as yet unidentified norms... proscribe the use of some

forms on the part of the non-native speaker.” (Janicki 1985)

� Greater fluency in NNS-NNS interactions

� Baker (1988): Attitudes affect behaviour, but weakly



Integrating biological age with other factors

Moyer (2004)

Integrating biological age with cognitive, social, and psychological factors:



Social and individual factors: A case study

L1 attrition and L2 mastery (Major 1993)

� Acq of L2 Portuguese VOT, loss of L1 English VOT

� 5 American women living in Brazil (12-35 years spent there)

� Length of stay not significant; age not significant (controlled)

� L2 mastery → loss of casual (but not formal) L1 phonology:

� Longest residents (B1, B2): poor Prt, maintained EngPossibly caused by negative feedback

� Shortest resident (B5): native-like Prt VOT → casual EngMost closely identified with Brazil

� English VOT regained with (i) attention, (ii) return to U.S.

� ‘The subjects showing the greatest loss in their native accent in English were

those who approached native Portuguese more closely and closely identified

with Brazilian culture’

� Attitude (speaker-driven) or accommodation (interaction-driven)?



Summary

Bilingual ability

� Bilinguals generally show cognitive advantages

� Exception: frequency effects on vocabulary and recall

(but this is assumes the ‘twin monolingual’ view)

� Early bilinguals show greater advantages than late bilinguals

� Explanations: Memory/learning, storage, retrieval

Critical age controversy

� Procedural/declarative memory: L1-L2 differences

� But evidence suggests no severe decline at a single point

� Age not purely maturational; deep social correlates



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