Why bilingualism makes a difference

1. Why bilingualism makes a difference Prof. Dr. Claudia Maria Riehl University of Cologne, Germany ZSM: Center for Language Diversity and Multilingualism

2. Structure of the talk • 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

3. Insights from psycholinguistics

4. Some general observations • 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 Berezawenn 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.

5. The Stroop Test water tree red yellow grey white zeleny grün blanco jaune nero

6. The language network 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

7. Language in the brain: some preliminaries

8. Language modules in the brain morphosyntax phonology semantics pragmatics metalinguistic knowledge affect verbal communication system

9. sylvian Fissur Broca- Area Wernicke- Area 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

10. 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

11. The representation of knowledge in our brain

12. 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

13. Hypotheses • 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

14. Evidence from neurolinguistics

15. The representation of languages in the brain • 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

16. Brain activity of an early bilingual

17. Brain activity of a late bilingual

18. Results • 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

19. 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)

20. Plasticity of the brain (Mechelli et al.) • 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)

21. Results • 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.

22. Further findings

23. 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)

24. The impact of typological distance of languages • 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)

25. Cognitive advantages of bilinguals

26. Cognitive advantages • Theory of mind • Control of attention • Strategy use • Creativity

27. Theory of mind • 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

28. 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 treesgrow Example 3: Apples on noses grow

29. Result of the test Bilingual children recognise ungrammatical forms more frequentely than monolinguals Explanation: • 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

30. Strategy use • 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

31. 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

32. Methods • Historiometric methods: • 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: • 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.

33. Results • 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

34. Impacts on language policy and language learning

35. Impact on language and education policy • 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

36. 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 • Creative methods of teaching • Media • Use of natural ressources

37. fine Contact: Prof. Dr. Claudia M. Riehl Zentrum Sprachenvielfalt und Mehrsprachigkeit Universität zu Köln Albertus-Magnus-Platz D-50923 KÖLN, Germany Email: claudia.riehl@uni-koeln.de