EDUC80/LSCI99: Bilingual Minds and Brains
Introductions
An Overview of the Course
Science, Culture, and Politics
Judith Kroll
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Introductions!!!
Judith Kroll, Instructor: judith.kroll@uci.edu
Nicholas Sulier, Teaching Assistant: nsulier@uci.edu
Class Meetings and Office Hours:
• Class Meetings: Tuesdays & Thursdays: 8-9:20 am:
• For times we will meet online as a class:
Zoom link: https://uci.zoom.us/j/97528357158
Office hours:
JK:
Mondays, 3:30-4:30 pm: https://uci.zoom.us/j/97528357158
NS: Thursdays, 10-11am: https://uci.zoom.us/j/9280329425
We are also happy to make individual appointments to meet.
Just email us and we can arrange a time: judith.kroll@uci.edu.
and nsulier@uci.edu
Introducing
ourselves!
Nick Sulier,
Teaching
Assistant:
nsulier@uci.edu
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Judith Kroll
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A short CV
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B. New York City
Married to David Rosenbaum (on the UCR faculty in psychology)
Twin Daughters: Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Sarah Kroll-Rosenbaum
(both live in LA with their families, including 3 very cute
grandchildren!)
Lived in The Netherlands twice: 1989-1990 (NIAS); 1999-2000
(Nijmegen)
Ph.D. 1977 Brandeis University (Cognitive Psychology); Post doctoral:
MIT and Stanford
Faculty positions: Swarthmore College, Rutgers University,
Mount Holyoke College, Penn State University, UCR, UCI
Co-Founder: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
Co-Founder: Women in Cognitive Science: http://womenincogsci.org/
At Penn State I was the Director of the Center for Language Science:
http://cls.psu.edu
Sabbatical in 2013-14 at UCLA
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I moved to California in 2016. From 1994-2016, I was on the
faculty in Psychology at Penn State University in State
College, Pennsylvania. From 2016-2019, I was in the
Department of Psychology at UC Riverside. In July, 2019, I
moved to UCI.
I moved to California because of the wonderful opportunities
for research and because most of my family now lives here!
True confessions…
I don’t like to be called Mrs. Or Maam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29angier.html
The Politics of Polite! Natalie Angier, NY Times
I am happy to have you call me by my first name, Judy, or Ms. Kroll, Dr. Kroll,
or Professor Kroll, if you are uncomfortable with my first name. I do not
consider it to be a sign of disrespect to be called by my first name. I take
it to be a sign that we are working together!
I have studied second language learning and bilingualism
since 1986 but I am not bilingual myself. I studied Spanish
in school but never lived in a Spanish-speaking environment
and I lived in the Netherlands where everyone spoke English.
I know some Spanish and Dutch but not enough.
It is a regret.
Almost everyone working in my lab is bilingual:
https://bilingualismmindbrain.com/
The syllabus, readings, and media pieces are available on Canvas:
Your username is your net ID, and your password should be the
same as the one used for email.
I prefer that you use ordinary email to communicate rather
than Canvas.
I expect you to attend class but will not record the class meetings.
The class notes will be posted on Canvas and in a class google drive
folder after each class. If you miss a class, you can consult the
class notes and also come to the office hours with questions once
you have reviewed the notes.
Google drive folder for the class:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZbwZHCjQ1r_THo_sf0MT_LUcyoetFNaP
What you need to know about the course (all in the syllabus!)
Readings
There is no required textbook but there are weekly readings
and media links. There are many other resources that I can also
make available to you if you want an introduction to particular
topics.
The readings have all been uploaded in Canvas and are available to
be downloaded.
The media files can be accessed directly with the links on the
version of the syllabus that is a word document but we will also
upload them into a folder on Canvas. Note that you cannot
easily click on links to these files from the pdf version of the
syllabus.
Course expectations and grading:
1. Biographical sketch (10 pts)
I would like you to write a one-page single-spaced biosketch in 12 pt font in
which you describe your own language experience. The biosketch will be due on
Thursday, October 3 by 5 pm and can be posted in Canvas
2. Three exams (60 pts)
There will be three exams over the quarter, all during the term. The dates for
the exams are given in the syllabus and there will be no make up exams unless
there is documentation that there are extenuating circumstances. Each exam
will primarily emphasize the section of the course we have just completed but
Exams 2 and 3 will include some material from earlier in the term. The format
of the exams will be multiple choice. The three exams together will count
towards 60 pts of your grade in the course. The exam dates are marked in
red. Before the first exam, we will do a practice take-home exam that we will
then go over at the next class and before the first actual exam. The exams
themselves will be available at class time but online and open book. There is
no final exam in this class.
The exams will be open book and open note, with the restriction that you
cannot consult with other humans. They must be taken at the normal class
time.
Course expectations and grading (cont):
3. Two brief writing assignments (30 pts)
We are going to ask that you write two brief papers, each
focused on one of the two films we will show during the term.
Each of these films is focused on different aspects of linguistic
diversity. Each assignment is worth 15 pts of your grade. Your
assignment is to write no more than one single-spaced page
using 12 pt font. The single page should include two paragraphs.
In the first paragraph, you will provide a brief summary of the
film. In the second paragraph, you will select one example of a
finding from the research literature we have reviewed in the
course that you think can be related to an observation in the
film. We will discuss these assignments in class. The due dates
for each of these two assignments are given in the detailed
schedule.
4. Extra Credit (up to 10 pts)
You can earn up to 10 extra credit points towards your grade in two
ways. You can watch a video talk on by distinguished language
scientists about bilingualism or bidialectal experience and writing a
paragraph about what you have learned. Your write up of the talk is
worth 5 pts towards your grade. I have provided a list of acceptable
links to talks that can be used for this purpose. And will distribute that
on the first day of class. You can submit one talk write up any time
before the end the term on December 10. You can only do one talk
write up for 5 pts.
Another way to earn 5 pts of extra credit is to participate in a
research study. The study should take no longer than 1.5 hours total,
so similar to watching a one hour long video and writing about it.
There are many on-going research studies, most of which are online
and can be completed at a convenient time for you. Some of the
studies may require specific language background, but others will not.
I will provide more details about this in class. Again, this extra credit
would need to be completed by December 10.
A word of context.
Some of the readings are challenging. There are methods
and ideas that may be unfamiliar. None of us was born
knowing all of this.
We will discuss strategies for how to focus at the right
level in doing the reading and how to get the information
you’ll need to work through the material.
Readings vs. media. The readings are articles in academic
journals (with one exception this week). The media pieces
are articles and video that have appeared in more public
venues. The media pieces will obviously be more accessible
but the reason to include them is to begin to think about
how language science is translated for public consumption.
Questions about the syllabus?
We are going to talk about bilingualism in a moment! But…we need to talk
first about our lives in 2024.
In the past few years, we have endured a pandemic and also great
unrest in our own country and in the world around us. It has been a
difficult time as many people, including many of you, have experienced
losses in your personal and professional lives. At a time in your lives
when you want to be planning for the future, it can be upsetting and
confusing because things seems to change from week to week, even here
on campus.
There have been a few silver linings, one of them about bringing people
together who might not otherwise come together. I invite you to view us
not only as a class this fall but as a community who will come together
this term to learn about language, bilingualism, and diversity and to
sustain and support each other.
Please feel comfortable to share with all of us any ways that
we can help. Survival and resilience is the goal. In the process, we need
to stay directed and find ways to take care of ourselves and others.
A first order of business in this spirit is making sure you
are registered to vote if you are eligible!
https://registertovote.ca.gov/?t=s
One more word on this for today: It is important to get
the information you need to be able to vote with confidence.
It’s hard to follow the news constantly but there are resources
to help and we can make them available.
In California, it is super easy to register to vote. But…when
you receive your mail in ballot, you may be shocked to see
how thick it is!! There are all sorts of offices to vote for and
propositions. So you have a choice:
Do the research to learn about the options beyond
the national and state offices.
Or just vote for the national and state candidates and
ignore the rest.
Of course it’s better to learn about all the options, but it is
acceptable to just vote for the national and state candidates.
Who is
bilingual?
Bilingualism takes many
forms
Bilingualism in the news!!!!
Bimodal Bilingualism
Language Brokering
Heritage language
experience
We hear a lot
about the benefits
of bilingualism.
But the traditional story about late L2 learning is that it is hard:
Learning an L2 past early childhood is a difficult task with mixed
outcomes that are largely guided by the ability to transfer from the
L1 to the L2
Even highly successful late L2 learners speak with an accent and
appear to fail to acquire subtle aspects of the L2 grammar.
Flege et al. (1995)
Johnson & Newport (1989)
As we will see, this story is beginning to come apart: There is greater adult
plasticity than previously understood. But still, there are consequences of
learning another language, both for children and adults.
One of the most remarkable discoveries in the last
two decades is that a bilingual’s two languages are
always active and interacting with one another,
even when you are unaware of that activity.
What is codeswitching?
• A structured and creative linguistic behavior defined as the
fluid alternation between languages in discourse.
• Codeswitching is a tool for understanding how the brain
changes in response to experience.
• Does experience with codeswitching influence language
processing?
I want to illustrate the experiments we can conduct
to ask what’s happening in bilingual minds and brains.
We will return to all of this in much more detail over
the course of the term but for today, I want to give you
just a tiny illustration.
Measuring EEG on famous (and not so famous) people!
Electroencephalography (EEG):
measures electrical activity
produced by the brain.
Event-Related brain Potentials
Small changes in brain activity that are recorded from the
scalp and are brought about by some external or
internal event
Tool to study the cognitive
processes that underlie language
comprehension and production
What can we learn about language learning from ERPs? The brain
sometimes outpaces behavior and reveals new learning sooner!
McLaughlin et al. (2004)
After 14 hours of learning French!
These new learners were at chance (guessing level) for
behavioral responses but their brains showed that they
were beginning to recognize the French words!
ERPs
Behavior
d’ is a measure of sensitivity: can they discriminate words vs. nonwords?
But why bother if in the US there is a theme:
Two years ago in the LA Times:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-0203/speak-spanish-get-paddled-texas-school-segregationmexican-americans
The school was open until 1965!
Students were told the write the word “Spanish” on a piece of paper,
put the piece of paper in a box, and go to the yard and bury it!
And we also hear
from those who
think that the case
for bilingual
advantages has
been overstated.
In the US we hear about the politics of language learning
Perceived social value of bilingualism
Surrain, S., Aguilar, G., Chen, A., Maghooli, D., Shin, S., Luk, G. (2017, June). Language
presented at the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Limerick, Ireland.
diversity in
Luk (2018)
Heritage Speakers in the United States
Heritage speakers are the
largest concentration of
bilinguals in the US but
have not been studied much
from a language processing
perspective
(American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2017)
In many places in the US less than 13%
of students have language instruction
In the US, we have relatively few public schools that routinely
teach foreign languages in elementary school:
Why? Maybe we just want them to learn English? Or maybe
young kids are poor learners? (The evidence suggests otherwise!)
What about areas of the country that are more linguistically diverse?
Decline of non-English language use
across generations.
In California, there is some support for learning languages
other than English:
It passed!
A "yes" vote supported repealing most of the 1998 Proposition 227,
the "English in Public Schools" Initiative, thus effectively allowing
non-English languages to be used in public educational instruction
And what happens in Dual-Language contexts?
And for university students who have not had early exposure, can
study abroad and language immersion experience help?
But how can we do this in this US context?
Why are the US statistics so grim?
There is a lot of mythology about bilingualism:
1. Exposure to two languages confuses young infants.
2. Mixing two languages is a sign of low proficiency and
perhaps even pathology.
3. Children raised with a home language other than English
should be switched to English as quickly as possible.
4. The human brain evolved to speak one language. Speaking
two or more languages is complicated and abnormal.
5. Studying a foreign language as an adult is a waste of time.
How are they different than other
people? They can speak at least 11
languages and some speak many
more!
And yet there are amazing stories!
The goal of this course is to introduce you to research on
language learning and bilingualism that may allow us to begin
to understand how our minds and brains are changed by learning
and using two languages.
What is the science of second language learning and bilingualism?
Are there benefits in learning a second language? If so, do those
benefits depend on your age?
Is bilingualism different for young infants and for adults?
Is bilingualism a benefit in old age? Does it change your brain?
Are you more rationale in your second language?
How can we make the research more accessible to the public?
There is a new attitude about bilingualism:
Upsurge of research: Papers
published (1993-2012):
(Web of Science)
The language and learning sciences have come to see that
bilingualism is a tool for revealing the workings of language,
the mind, and the brain. Variation in language experience
becomes a lens rather than a source of complexity.
To illustrate one source of mythology:
What happens in your mind and brain when you hear
or speak in two languages at once? This is called
code switching and it is very common for bilinguals
to switch with one another this way.
In the past, this aspect of bilingual speech was
misunderstood because it was thought to be a problem.
Perhaps the speaker didn’t know a word in one language
or the other? Lost control of the use of one language?
What we now know is that this aspect of language use
is not only completely normal but is also an aspect of
bilingualism that may produce benefits to cognition.
Illustrating Code Switching
A media piece from the World Economic Forum (7/28/16)
does a wonderful job of capturing the main points of the
recent research on bilingualism in 90 sec:
Our minds and brains are shaped by our experience.
A famous magazine cover:
In this course we will
examine the way
that life experience
using two languages
changes our thinking.
❖ Language Processes
❖ Cognitive Mechanisms
❖ Brain Mechanisms
We end today’s class by returning to some myths about bilingualism
Grosjean (2010):
More mythology…
Read the syllabus before class on Tuesday and
come to class with any questions you have on
course logistics or anything else!
We will meet in person on Tuesday:
MPAA 320/330
Multipurpose Academic & Administrative Building