Blessed With Bilingual Brains

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Blessed With Bilingual Brains

• Dr. John Archibald
• Dept. of Linguistics/
• Language Research Centre
• University of Calgary

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• Presented at the ISLC Conference October 2003

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Blessed With Bilingual Brains

• What do we mean when we talk about Second
  Language Acquisition?

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Blessed With Bilingual Brains

• When we talk about acquisition in SLA research,
  we are not talking about acquisition in the sense
  that one acquires polo ponies, Lladró figurines,
  or CBS, but rather in the sense that one acquires
  vicious habits, a taste for Brie, or a potbelly
• --Kevin Gregg

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The Role of the First Language

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General Model

• L1------gt Interlanguage Grammar lt----- L2

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General Model
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General Model
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An Example

• L1 German ? L2 English
• English Target eyes ayz
• German influence z ? s
• Canadian influence /ay/ ? vy
• Output vys

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The Moral

• L2 learners have grammars

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Minds and Brains

• So, weve seen a bit of what the academic
  discipline of Second Language Acquisition is
  about
• The grammars are in our brains.

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Neuropsychology and SLA

• in the early 19th century, phrenologists
  suggested that bumps and depressions on the skull
  revealed locations of specific behaviours

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Neuropsychology and SLA

• in 1836, Dax demonstrated that the Left
  Hemisphere of the brain was dominant for
  language
• areas of localization began to be identified
  (Broca, Wernicke) through the study of aphasia
• also around this time studies of bilingual
  aphasia began to appear

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Neuropsychology and SLA

• until recently, we could only look at language in
  the brain by looking at impairment in individuals
  following impairment or disease
• newer technologies, though, allow us to look at
  individuals without brain damage

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Two Languages in One Brain

• quite early on people wondered if the two
  languages were localized in the same area of
  the brain
• strokes could result in
• one language being more impaired than another
• differential recovery

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Two Languages in One Brain

• Ribot languages learned in infancy are more
  deeply encoded in memory and therefore the L1
  would be resistant to loss
• Pitres the most familiar language would be
  retained regardless of order of acquisition
• in fact, many different factors seem to predict
  recovery in bilinguals

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Two Languages in One Brain

• So, why might bilinguals be different from
  monolinguals?
• Age of Acquisition

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Age of Acquisition

• Genesee looked at early and late bilinguals in a
  language identification task
• Tell me whether the following words are English
  or French.
• electrical activity in the Left and Right
  hemispheres was measured

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Age of Acquisition

• Definition the early bilinguals acquired their
  L2 before age 12 the late after age 12.
• Results the early bilinguals had faster neural
  responses in the Left hemisphere than in the
  Right
• the late bilinguals had faster neural responses
  in the Right hemisphere than the Left

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Age of Acquisition

• this caused Genesee to argue that late bilinguals
  had greater right hemisphere involvement in their
  language processing than early bilinguals

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Exceptional Language Learners

• Obler argued that exceptional language learners
  were processing bilaterally

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One view of talent

• Successful learners have talent or aptitude
  for learning language resulting from special
  neurocognitive abilities." (Obler)

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Nativelikeness ? special talent(Schneiderman,
1992)

• Wechsler Memory Quotient
• California Verbal Learning
• MLAT I - number learning
• MLAT II - phonetic script
• MLAT III - spelling cues
• MLAT IV - words in sentences
• MLAT V - paired associates
• MLAT total
• Verbal IQ
• Performance IQ

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Newer Technologies

• Earlier studies were done, by necessity, with
  fairly blunt instruments and understanding of
  neural activity
• New technologies allow us to answer some of the
  where and when questions better

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An Event-Related Potential Cap
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ERPs
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Electrophysiological Studies

• Weber-Fox and Neville looked at whether age of
  immersion affects the functional neural
  subsystems
• They did an ERP study to see how learners judged
  sentences with particular types of violations
• The electrical patterns in our brains are
  different with different violations

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Electrophysiological Studies

• Semantic Violations
• The boys heard Joes orange about Africa.
• Syntactic Violations
• The boys heard Joes about stories Africa.

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Electrophysiological Studies

• They found that the judgment of syntactic factors
  was more profoundly impacted by age of immersion
  than the judgments of semantic factors.

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Neuroimaging Studies

• Early bilinguals vs. late bilinguals (FMRI)

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Neuroimaging Studies

• The overlapping area for early bilinguals is much
  greater than for late bilinguals
• The late-bilingual areas are adjacent but
  distinct
• There is, however, a great deal of individual
  variation that we cannot assess yet

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Minds and Brains

• The grammars are in our minds.
• Are bilinguals really using different procedures
  than monolinguals?
• Gary Libben says no.
• The Homogeneity Hypothesis

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The Homogeneity Hypothesis

• The Homogeneity Hypothesis argues that
  monolinguals, bilinguals and L2 learners possess
  the same kinds of lexical representations
• and employ the same kinds of processes in the
  activation of words in the mental lexicon
• there are no separate lexicons

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Language Processing

• we never turn off our language processors
• you cannot tell someone do not understand the
  following word
• cat
• you cannot suppress comprehension

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Language Processing

• this is true for bilinguals as well
• some studies have been done using the Stroop test
  to demonstrate this

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Stroop Tests

• Stroop pioneered an innovative technique to show
  how automatic processing was
• One the following slide I want you to name the
  colour of the font (or ink) of the words that you
  see

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Stroop Tests

• dog
• democracy
• green
• chartreuse
• taupe
• You cant turn your processor off

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Stroop Tests

• Bilinguals show the same automaticity (influenced
  by level of proficiency)
• On the following slide, you will try to name the
  shapes you see

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Stroop Tests
Circle
Triangle
Square
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Stroop Tests
Kreis
Dreiek
Quadrat
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Stroop Tests

• Early bilinguals and proficient bilinguals tend
  to respond like native speakers

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Priming Tests

• Another paradigm that has been used to look at
  the bilingual mind is called Priming
• Your task on the next slide is to judge whether a
  string of letters is a word or not (something
  known as a Lexical Decision Task)

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Priming Tests

• tree
• blorf
• guttersnipe
• skrztyxflgmp
• leaf

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Priming Tests

• results from these tests show us that people are
  faster at recognizing words that have been
  primed (structurally or semantically) by
  related words
• so, you might be faster on leaf because you
  have already seen tree

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Priming Tests

• what does this have to do with bilingualism?
• remember the Homogeneity Hypothesis which argued
  that there are no separate lexicons for
  individual languages
• all words are activated all the time regardless
  of the language
• The spy found the bug in the room.

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Priming Tests

• So, imagine that you are an English/French
  bilingual and you are exposed to words like
• pain
• chat
• ail
• Are we going to see priming effects for the
  English and French meanings?

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Priming Tests

• The answer is yes.
• Just like spies and bugs, we find priming effects
  for all meanings of a bilinguals words
• One study looked at English, French, German
  trilinguals

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Trilinguals

• These subjects were asked to translate English or
  French words into German
• Some subjects translated English chat as
  Katze
• You cant suppress your comprehension
• All candidates are activated and higher level
  cognition can decide which is best.

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Monolinguals

• You see this in monolinguals too when processing
  ambiguous compounds like
• clamprod
• It turns out that all four candidates
• clam, clamp, prod, and rod are activated
• were not always consciously aware of our
  language processing its like using muscles

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Bilingual Activation

• Interesting results are revealed when we look at
  what are know as Interlingual Homographs
• these are words which are spelled the same in two
  languages (like chat and pain)
• these words can help us to understand why
  bilinguals dont mix up their languages very often

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Interlingual Homographs

• Dijkstra looked at Dutch/English bilinguals
  performance on a lexical decision task
• Are the following Dutch words? Y/N
• taalwetenschap
• jaar
• van
• september

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Interlingual Homographs

• Note that some of the words are also words in
  English, but when the task was administered in
  Dutch (to Dutch/English bilinguals) they didnt
  treat the interlingual homographs (van,
  september) any differently (in terms of response
  time) from the other words

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Interlingual Homographs

• However, when some English words were thrown in
  the pattern changed
• Are the following Dutch words? Y/N
• jaar
• van
• truck
• taalwetenschap

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Interlingual Homographs

• On this task, the response times and error rates
  on the interlingual homographs increased
• the bilingual context caused interlingual
  activation
• furthermore, when asked if the words were either
  Dutch or English words, response time for
  interlingual homographs was facilitated (faster)

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Narrow Nativelikeness

• Tom Burke, The Lancashire Caruso
• Joseph Conrad (Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski)

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Comprehensive Nativelikeness

• Lets address the question of Ultimate Attainment
• Can people who learn a second language as adults
  achieve nativelike performance?
• The short answer is yes for some.

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Ultimate Attainment

• Genesee and White identified a population of 45
  near-native speakers and looked at their
  judgment and production of a variety of syntactic
  constructions
• their language was evaluated according to the
  following criteria

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Ultimate Attainment

• pronunciation
• morphology
• syntax
• vocabulary
• fluency
• overall impression of nativeness

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Ultimate Attainment

• the rating system was a scale along a 9 cm line
• NNS NS
• judges ratings were measured to the nearest 1/2
  cm
• ? an 18-point scale

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Ultimate Attainment

• individuals who were rated between 17 and 18 one
  all scales by both judges (with a maximum of one
  aspect falling below 17) were classified as
  near-native
• most exceptions were pronunciation

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Ultimate Attainment

• subjects were administered two tasks
• (1) a grammaticality judgment task
• (2) a question formation task

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Ultimate Attainment

• Grammaticality Judgment Task
• Who did Mary meet the man who saw?
• What was a dish of cooked by Mary?
• Who do you think that Mary met yesterday?

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Ultimate Attainment

• Question Formation Task
• Sam thinks that Ann arrived yesterday.
• Make a question about the underlined portion.
• Who did Sam think that arrived?
• Who did Sam think arrived?

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Ultimate Attainment

• For both tasks (Grammaticality Judgment and
  Reaction Time on Question Formation), the
  near-native speakers did not perform
  significantly differently from the native
  speakers.

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Ultimate Attainment

• What about pronunciation?
• Bongaerts and colleagues in Nijmegen have
  demonstrated that there are individuals who start
  learning their L2 as adults who perform within
  native speaker range
• Often these individuals receive specialized
  pronunciation training

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Comprehensive Nativelikeness

• Birdsong
• 22 adult Anglophones (ENS)
• AoA 18 years, mean 24.5
• LOR 5 years
• Not screened for French proficiency
• 17 adult French natives (FNS)
• All residents of Paris area

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Task Sample Stimuli (pronunciation)

• READ-ALOUD TASK
• Word-final vowel duration
• le lit le dé le mot le bout
• VOT for word-initial consonants
• le pot le temps le coup

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Task Sample Stimuli (pronunciation)

• Syntactically-conditioned liaison, with familiar
  lexis
• Peut-on X acheter à crédit?
• and with pseudowords
• Va-t-on X entiner ou non?
• Global pronunciation
• 2 prose passages from Valéry

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COMPOSITE RESULTS
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OBSERVATIONS IMPLICATIONS

• By strict standards, comprehensive nativelikness
  is not observed in sample
• 3 late learners performed at nativelike levels in
  most domains
• At the level of the individual scattered
  pockets of nativelikeness, i.e., little
  evidence of monolithically asymmetrical
  attainment (no Joseph Conrad effect)

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UNIVERSAL LEARNABILITY ?

• OBSERVATION There is no performance domain
  where all learners fall short of nativelikeness
• HYPOTHESIS Anything is learnable (by somebody)
  i.e., nothing is not learnable

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Flege, Munro, MacKay (1995)
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Bilingual Education

• So, we know that bilingual brains are more common
  on the planet than monolingual ones.
• We see that there are age effects when it comes
  to learning a second language.
• We know that French (and other) Immersion
  programs achieve impressive results.

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Bilingual Education

• So what does this mean for Minority-Language
  children?

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Bilingual Education

• The politics of bilingual education
• Bilingualism doesnt occur in a vacuum

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Bilingual Education

• The Department of Education is analysing new
  evidence that expensive bilingual education
  programs dont workteaching non-English speaking
  children in their native language during much of
  their school day constructs a roadblock on their
  journey into English. A language is best learned
  through immersion in it, particularly by
  children..

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Bilingual Education

• Neither society nor its children will be served
  if bilingualism continues to be used to keep
  thousands of children from quickly learning the
  one language needed to succeed in America.
• --New York Times (1981)

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Bilingual Education

• First, Speak English Well
• English is rapidly becoming the international
  language of trade, and the U.S. is Canadas
  closest trading partner.if there is going to
  be an extra push to acquire language skills,
  ESL programs would be a more obvious place to
  start.
• --Calgary Herald, 2003

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Bilingual Education

• But remember, a globalized economy does not mean
  that all commerce occurs in English only.

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Bilingual Education

• The Historical Context
• Atmospheres of acculturation versus atmospheres
  of multiculturalism

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Bilingual Education

• Any traces of foreign values were eradicated in
  the process of impressing on students the
  Canadian values of punctuality, regularity,
  obedience,industry, cleanliness, decency of
  appearance and behaviour, regard for the rights
  of others and respect for law and order.
• --Harney Troper (1913)

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Bilingual Education

• The Cognitive Issues
• Policy makers often assume that the capacity for
  language is finite and if you devote the
  available space to two languages then youll have
  less space for each
• If you want kids to learn English then they have
  to be immersed in English and the L1 must be
  flushed.

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Bilingual Education

• Language maintenance or development programs in
  the schools, other than French or English, will
  retard the English language development of ethnic
  minority children, and they will impede English
  language development of the ethnic minority
  community themselves.
• --Toronto Board of Education (1975)

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Language Policy

• English-Only movements in the United States
• Reactions to the Ebonics issue in Oakland
• Issues in the education of The Deaf

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Bilingual Education

• The facts appear to show conclusively that the
  goal of learning the majority language does not
  require the attrition of the minority language
• Bilingualism is possible and common for children

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Bilingual Education

• Rock Point Navajo Study
• Soldertalje Programs
• Bradford Punjabi Project
• San Diego Immersion programs
• Dual Language programs
• Many Albertan bilingual programs

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Benefits of Bilingualism

• metalinguistic awareness
• academic language skills
• conceptual development
• creative thinking
• sensitivity to the needs of the listener

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Conclusion

• Monolingualism can be cured!
• And the patient will thrive.

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• References
• Birdsong, D., ed. (1999). SLA and the Critical
  Period.
• Bongaerts, T., S. Mennen, and F. van der Silk
  (2000)/ Authenticity of pronunciation in
  naturalistic second language acquisition the
  case of very advanced late learners of Dutch as a
  second language. Studia Linguistica 54(2).
• Dijkstra, T., H. van Jaarsveld, and S. Brinke
  (1998). Interlingual homophone recognition
  effects of task demands and language intermixing.
  Bilingualism Language and Cognition 1.
• Fabbro, F. (1999). The Neurolinguistics of
  Bilingualism. Psychology Press.
• Genesee, F. (1988). Neuropsychology and SLA. In.
  L. Beebe, ed. Issues in Second Language
  Acquisition. Newbury House.
• Genesee, F. and L. White (xxxx). How native is
  near-native? the issue of ultimate attainment in
  adult second language acquisition. Studies in
  Second Language Acquisition.

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• References
• Kim, K.H.S., N. Relkin, K-M Lee and J. Hirsch
  (1997). Distinct cortical areas associated with
  native and second languages. Nature 388.
• Libben, G. (2000). Representation and processing
  in the second language lexicon the homogeneity
  hypothesis. In J. Archibald, ed. Second Language
  Acquisition and Linguistic Theory. Blackwell.
• Weber-Fox, c. and H. Neville (1999). Functional
  neural subsystems are differentially affected by
  delays in second language immersion ERP and
  behavioral evidence in bilinguals. In D.
  Birdsong, ed. SLA and the Critical Period.