Transcript Language attrition and language re

Why bilingualism
makes a difference
Prof. Dr. Claudia Maria Riehl
University of Cologne, Germany
ZSM: Center for Language Diversity and Multilingualism
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Structure of the talk
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Insights from psycholinguistics
Language in the brain: preliminaries
The representation of knowledge in the brain
Evidence from neurolinguistics
Cognitive advantages of bilinguals
Impact on language policy and language learning
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Insights from
psycholinguistics
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Some general observations
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Sometimes when you think of a word in a foreign
language, it comes into your mind in another foreign
language
Bilingual people often switch between languages
unintentionally:
Des war (-) ä Bereza wenn sie nass ist un (-) Birkin (-) un dann
fault sie.
That was (-) bereza if it gets wet and (-) birch (-) and then it is
going to rot.
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The Stroop Test
water
tree
red
yellow
grey
white
zeleny
grün
jaune
nero
blanco
The language network
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The Stroop Test and other psycholinguistic
experiments reveal:
The languages in our brain are interconnected
When one language is active, the other(s) cannot be
completely switched off
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Language in the brain:
some preliminaries
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Language modules in the brain
morphosyntax
phonology
semantics
pragmatics
affect
metalinguistic
knowledge
verbal communication system
Localization
The neurologists Paul Pierre Broca (1824-1880) &
Carl Wernicke (1848-1905) found that injuries in
certain regions of the left half of the brain
affected the language abilities of their patients
Broca- Area
sylvian Fissur
Wernicke- Area
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Neurolinguistic processing
 The basic structure is
created in Wernicke's
area and is encoded in
Broca's area
 the information is sent
to the adjacent motor
area
 the motor area activates
the instruments of
articulation
The representation of
knowledge in our brain
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Types of knowledge representation
Implicit competence
 automatic processes are part of the so-called implicit
(or procedural) competence
 acquired incidentally
 stored implicitly (not accessible by consciousness)
 used automatically (without conscious control)
Explicit knowledge
 explicit (declarative) knowledge
 individuals are aware of it
 it can be verbalized
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Hypotheses
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There are two different systems and different paths of
activation
Explicit knowledge requires higher brain activity
Application on linguistic knowledge:
 The first language is acquired implicitly during infancy
 Semantic knowledge and metalinguistic knowledge are
acquired explicitly
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Evidence from
neurolinguistics
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The representation of
languages in the brain
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Our brain does not provide different
areas for different languages
Less fluently spoken languages
require more cerebral activities in
language production than well
mastered languages
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Brain activity of an early bilingual
Brain activity of a late bilingual
Results
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early bilingual subjects have more
overlapping substrate in Broca's area
early bilinguals recruit less neural
substrate when they produce in L3
than late bilinguals
in late bilinguals the activation
produced by each of the three
languages is more variable
early bilinguals build up a network in the language area
sufficiently adaptable to integrate later languages
Wattendorf, E. (2001), Different languages activate different subfields in Broca's area.
Neuroimage 13: 624
Explanations
Age of acquisition is a critical determinant of
cerebral organization of language processing in
bilinguals
Hypothesis:
 The representation of languages in Broca's area that
are developed early in life are not subsequently
modified
 That would necessitate the utilization of adjacent
areas for L2 (when learned as an adult)
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Plasticity of the brain (Mechelli et al.)
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Hypothesis: Structure of the brain may be altered by
experience of acquisition of L2
Voxel-based morphometry test:
25 monolinguals (little or no exposure to a second
language)
25 early bilinguals (exposed to L2 before the age of 5)
33 late bilinguals (exposed to L2 between age 10-15 and
practiced it for at least 5 years)
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Results
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The learning of a second
language leads to a
greater density of grey
matter in the left inferior
parietal cortex
The density of the grey
matter increases with
second-language
proficiency but decreases
as the age of acquisition
increases
Mechelli, A.. et al. (2004), Structural plasticity in the brain. Nature 431, 757.
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Further findings
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The role of proficiency
Language proficiency has a larger effect than age on
the cerebral representation of semantic processing in
L2 (Wartenburger et al. 2003)
 Finding appears to be compatible with the hypothesis
of a difference between the mechanisms responsible
for the processing of grammatical and semantic
knowledge
 evidence for different types of knowledge (explicit
vs. implicit)
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The impact of typological distance of
languages
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The overlapping of languages acquired early in life is
independent of the typological distance of the
languages involved
There is no significant difference between language
pairs such as Italian-English / Catalan-Spanish (Perani
et al. 1998) and English-Mandarin (Chee et al. 2001) /
Japanese-English (Hasegawa et al. 2002)
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Cognitive advantages of
bilinguals
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Cognitive advantages
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Theory of mind
Control of attention
Strategy use
Creativity
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Theory of mind
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Three-year-old children assume that everybody has the
same knowledge as themselves
Bilingual children are capable of considering the
possibility that someone could have different beliefs
bilingualism leads to increased sensitivity to the
knowledge of other people
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Control of attention (Bialystok):
Test: Bilingual and monolingual children had to judge
the correctness of sentences:
Example 1: Apples grow on trees
Example 2: Apples on trees grow
Example 3: Apples on noses grow
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Result of the test
Bilingual children recognise ungrammatical forms
more frequentely than monolinguals
Explanation:
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they do not only concentrate on the content of the
message, but also on its form
they are better able to define word boundaries and
understand grammatical rules
Bilinguals have a higher metalinguistic awareness
Bialystok, E. (2001): Bilingualism in Development. Cambridge: CUP
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Strategy use
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Bilinguals generally use manual gestures more than
monolinguals in order to access words more
sufficiently
Bilinguals have extensive experience of choosing
languages for the pragmatic context (person, topic
etc.)
They are sensitive to other people's communicative
needs
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Creativity
Different languages will often feature different
grammatical structures
 increased cognitive flexibility that frees the thought
processes from potential linguistic constraints
 sensitivity to concepts that are not emphasised in the
first language
 Lack of complete semantic correspondence stimulates
the capacity for generating numerous and unusual
associations
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Methods
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Historiometric methods:
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Golden Ages of creativity activity seem supportive of a
polyglot rather than a linguistically homogenous
civilization
A significant proportion of notable creators were first or
second generation immigrants
Psychometric method:
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Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
Simonton, D.K. (2008): Bilingualism and Creativity. In: J. Altarriba/R.R. Heredia
(eds.), An Introduction to Bilingualism. N.Y./London: Erlbaum, 147ff.
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Results
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In some tests bilinguals scored higher both on
verbal originality and on figural originality
There is a correlation between the level of
creativity and proficiency in a second language
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Impacts on language policy
and language learning
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Impact on language and education
policy
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A second language should be acquired as early as
possible
Bilingual families should be encouraged to raise their
children bilingually
Networks (between families, parents and teachers etc.)
should be provided
Monolingual families should be advised to enable their
children to learn a L2 as early in life as possible
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Impact on language learning
Language learning is a complex phenomenon (involving
different modules and types of knowledge)
 Efficient language training is required to become fluent
in a second language
 Bilingual programmes (with language immersion) are
the most effective way to gain this proficiency
 Further support by
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Creative methods of teaching
Media
Use of natural ressources
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fine
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Claudia M. Riehl
Zentrum Sprachenvielfalt und Mehrsprachigkeit
Universität zu Köln
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
D-50923 KÖLN, Germany
Email: [email protected]
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