What bilinguals tell us about language and the mind

Judith F. KrollDepartment of Psychology

Program in LinguisticsCenter for Language Science

Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA 16803

NSF Workshop on A Science of Broadening ParticipationJune 23, 2008

Acknowledgments

Teresa Bajo Susan Bobb Cari Bogulski Kate Cheng Ingrid Christoffels Dorothee Chwilla Albert Costa Annette De Groot Franziska Dietz Ton Dijkstra Giuli Dussias Chip Gerfen Tamar Gollan

David Green Taomei Guo Noriko Hoshino April Jacobs Niels Janssen Debra Jared Wido La Heij Jared Linck Pedro Macizo Erica Michael Natasha Miller Maya Misra Scott Payne

Collaborators:

Research Support:• NSF Grants, BCS-0111734 and BCS-0418071 • NSF Dissertation Grants to Sunderman, Schwartz, Hoshino, and Bobb• NIH Grants MH62479 and R56HD053146; NIH Fellowship F33HD055003• Open Project Grant at State Key Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China• NSF Advance Leadership Award for Women in Cognitive Science, BCS-0317678 with Suparna Rajaram and Randi Martin

Pilar Piñar Tyler Phelps Carmen Ruiz Rosa Sánchez-Casas Mikel Santesteban Herbert Schriefers Ana Schwartz Bianca Sumutka Gretchen Sunderman Natasha Tokowicz Madelon Van Den Boer Janet Van Hell Zofia Wodniecka

More people in the world are bilingual than monolingual. But until very recently, most research on language and cognition examined only monolingual speakers of a single language and typically speakers of English as the native language.

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There are many reasons to learn a second language…

Some reasons are more positive than self defense…

Current research suggests that both of a bilingual’s languages are active regardless of the intention or requirement to use one language alone.

The parallel activity of the two languages is hypothesized to produce competition.

Skilled bilinguals rarely make the 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.

A life of resolving cross-language competition appears to confer positive consequences for cognitive function.

Bilingualism provides a lens for researchers to examine aspects of the underlying cognitive architecture that are obscured by native language skill when investigating language performance in the first or dominant language only.

“bike” “fiets”

Dutch-English speaker

The bilingual is a expert mental juggler

A research program on bilingual language processing:

1. How do adult language learners establish representations in the L2 and howdo those representations change with increasing skill? Why do some adultsfind it easy to learn a second language and others difficult?

2. Is it possible for bilinguals to switch off one of the two languages to use theother? If not, how is the parallel activation of the two languages manifest incomprehension and production?

3. What linguistic properties and cognitive abilities modulate the activity of the bilingual’s two languages to allow the intended language to be selected?

4. To what extent is language processing in the L2 determined by structuralconstraints imposed by the L1 or by the availability of cognitive resources?

5. What are the consequences of bilingualism for language representation and

processing and more generally for cognition?

Approach and Methods

1. Who are the bilinguals we study?We adopt a broad definition of bilingualism to include all individuals who use more than one language regularly. We distinguish bilingual groups with respect to their proficiency in the L2, their relative language dominance, the age of acquisition, and the degree to which the context of language use supports each of the two languages.

2. What languages?

Unless a study requires that we exploit the properties of a particular language pair(e.g., script differences in Japanese and English), we examine many differentbilingual groups (e.g., native English speakers at different levels of proficiency in Spanish, French, or German, Spanish-English, French-English, German-English,Dutch-English, Japanese-English, and Chinese-English bilinguals, and deaf readersof English who use ASL to communicate).

3. Methods

Behavioral: Response times, accuracy, eye-tracking, acoustic properties of speechNeurocognitive: Event-related potentials

4. Contexts

Classroom vs. immersed learnersBilinguals in their L1 vs. L2 environment in the US, Europe, and Asia*

Talk Outline

Illustrate the empirical research that reveals the presence of cross-language activity, its resolution, and the consequences for cognition more generally

Consider the consequence of assuming that bilinguals are the norm for cognitive and linguistic research rather than the exception

Discuss ways to increase the diversity of participation in research in environments that offer little diversity themselves

“bike” “beek”Dutch-English reader

“bike” “fiets”

Dutch-English speaker

bike

Reading Speaking

Back to the juggler…

Exploit the presence of cross-language ambiguity:

Interlingual cognates:

hotel (English)- hotel (means hotel in Dutch)

Interlingual homographs (false friends):

room (English)- room (means cream in Dutch)

If a bilingual can function as two monolinguals in one, thenperformance in one language alone should be independentof the sense of meaning of the word in the other language.

Result: Bilinguals are typically faster to recognize cognates but slower to recognize false friends; these effects can be seenin the native language as well as the L2. It is not possible to simply switch off one of the two languages.

The phonology of the language not in use modulates the time to read words in each language.

Cognates with identical/similar orthography but similar or different phonology:

English Spanish Cross-language phonology

piano piano Similar [+p]

base base Different [-p]500

520

540

560

580

600

620

Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Type of Cognate

+P-P

Schwartz, Kroll, & Diaz (2007): Out-of-context facilitation for naming cognates in L2 when the phonology converges from L1 to L2: But the same result for reading in the dominant L1.

Does reading in sentence context reduce or eliminatethe effects of cross-language competition?

Schwartz & Kroll (2006): Take words that have been shown to elicit activation of both languages and put them in full sentence context.

Cognates with identical/similar orthography but similar or different phonology:

English Spanish Cross-language phonology

piano piano Similar [+p]

base base Different [-p]500

520

540

560

580

600

620

Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Type of Cognate

+P-P

Perhaps the inability to switch off one of the two languages only occurs inthe absence of meaningful sentence context.

RSVP: Method for naming words in sentence context

Follow along with sentence.

homeWho ran home?

+

The

boy

ran

home

for

dinner.

(250ms/word)

Say red word out loud.

Answer questions when asked.

time

RSVP: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Does the facilitation for naming cognates disappear insentence context? If the sentence provides a cue to languagemembership, then no cognate effects should be observed.

Type of Sentence Example

High constraint The composer sat at the benchand began to play the piano asthe lights dimmed.

Low constraint As we walked through the roomwe noticed there was a largepiano by the window.

620

640

660

680

700

720

Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Type of Cognate

+P-P

620

640

660

680

700

720

Mean Naming

Latency (ms)

Type of Cognate

+P-P

Result: When bilinguals read, sentence constraint but not language per se eliminates the cognate effect (Schwartz & Kroll, 2006)

High

Low

Naming in the L2

“bike” “fiets”

Dutch-English speaker

We can ask the same question about speaking

Logic: force both languages to be active and to ask whether there areconsequences. If both languages are normally active, then forcing them to be active should not disrupt spoken performance.

Picture Tone cue

High tone

Low tone

“bike”

“fiets”

Spoken name

SOA RT

time

Cued picture naming: Language of naming depends on an auditory cue(Kroll, Dijkstra, Janssen, & Schriefers, in preparation)

English

Dutch

L1 L2

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

Mixed

Blocked

Overall Mixed vs. Blocked Naming Latencies

Language

Mean Naming Latency (ms)

Cost of Language Mixing in Cued Picture Naming: Dutch-English Bilinguals (Kroll et al., in preparation)

These results suggest that L1 is normally active during lexicalization into the L2. Requiring L1 to be active does not affect L2 picture naming performance.

Speaking the L2is independent of the requirementto have L1active as well

In a recent study (Guo, Misra, Kroll, & Bobb, in preparation) we haveextended this investigation to examine the time course of cross-languageactivation using event-related potentials (ERPs)

Block order effects for Chinese-English Bilingualsswitching the language of production

N2 N2

Many studies demonstrate persistent activity of the L1 in using the L2, not only at the level of the lexicon but also for the grammar. They show further that the L1 becomes sensitive to the influence of the L2.

Dussias (2003): How do the structural commitments of one language influencethe processing of the other language?

Peter fell in love with the daughter of the psychologist who studied in California.

Who studied in California?

Native English speakers: the psychologist

Native Spanish speakers: the daughter

Critical result: Native Spanish speakers immersed in an English dominantenvironment begin to parse sentences in Spanish, their native language, likeEnglish, their L2!

The interaction between the two languages suggest a high degree of plasticity.

Can bilinguals exploit language cues and context to minimize cross-language influences?

More likely to be aa fiets than a bike?

Even more likely to bea fiets?

Definitely Dutch!

Either a bike or a fiets?

Consequences of bilingualism for language and cognitive processing

For development: L2 skill modulates the activation of the translationequivalent in L1 but there is activation of lexical form relatives for even highly proficient bilinguals (Sunderman & Kroll, 2006). These effects can beobserved not only in speakers of languages that share the same alphabet but also in different script languages (e.g., Chinese and English) and in deaf signers who use American sign language to communicate but read in English.

For L1: Not only L2, but also L1 changes with increased L2 skill andby the nature of the context in which the L2 is acquired and maintained(Kroll et al., 2002; Kroll et al., 2006; Linck & Kroll, in preparation).

For cognitive skill: The requirement to negotiate the competition acrossthe two languages places demands on working memory resources andenhances the attentional abilities of skilled bilinguals (Kroll et al., 2002;Tokowicz, Michael, & Kroll, 2004)

What is the consequence of parallel activity and competitionacross the bilingual’s two languages?

Bilingualism may confer a specific set of cognitive benefits to executive function and attention.

Bilingualism may offer protection against the normal declines in attentional control associated with aging.

Bialystok et al. (2005): Older bilinguals outperform age-matched monolingual counterparts on non-linguistic measures ofinhibitory control.

Bialystok et al. (2007): Bilingualism delays on the onset of dementia by four years.

Increasing the breadth of participation in environments that offer little diversity themselves: Creating collaborativenetworks for research and training

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Leiden, The NetherlandsPenn State

English-Spanish learners

Dutch-English bilinguals

Penn State’s Center for Language Science: http://www.lsrg.psu.edu

Benefits of collaborative networks for research and training:

1. Data collection (in both directions: we assist our colleagues who work in locations in which bilingualism is more prevalent by providing monolingual controls)

2. Professional development for graduate students: Visit host laboratories, give research talks, interact with research mentors, acquire complementary technical skills, establish an international

network of young researchers

3. Exchanges in both directions: Steady stream of visitors increases diversity at the home institution

4. Diversity breeds diversity: Undergraduate research students who are themselves bilingual are likely to seek out research opportunities in this context

Learning a second language can have many interesting consequences…

Thank you!