THE BILINGUAL MIND
Antonella Sorace
7 December 2004
Outline
• How successful can you be if you start learning a
second language as an adult?
• What are the differences between “early”
bilingualism in childhood and “late” bilingualism
in adulthood?
• What happens to your first language after you
have been speaking a second language for many
years?
• Is the bilingual brain different from the
monolingual brain?
• Do data from second language speakers help to
understand how language in general works?
An interdisciplinary enterprise
LINGUISTICS
RESEARCH ON
THE BILINGUAL
MIND
COGNITIVE
NEUROSCIENCE
EXPERIMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
How successful can you be if you
start learning a second language as
an adult?
A “critical period” for language?
• In many animal species, failure to learn various
skills before a certain age makes it difficult or
even impossible to learn those skills later. E.g.:
• In ducklings: ability to identify and follow the
mother
• In kittens: ability to perceive visual images.
• In sparrows: ability to learn the father’s song.
Early exposure to language is
necessary
• Children raised in conditions of extreme
isolation and deprivation do not develop
normal grammatical abilities.
• Deaf children of hearing parents who are
diagnosed as deaf when they are 2 or 3 are
impaired in their development of sign
language.
Why a critical period for
language?
• A biological mechanism innately geared to
the acquisition of language in our species.
• Evolutionary advantages of having the
mechanism early in life.
But what about SECOND
language?
• Does this mean that
second language
learning is
compromised even if
first language
development was
normal?
• Does the fact of
already knowing a
language help?
FIRST LANGUAGE
TRANSFERABLE
SKILLS?
SECOND LANGUAGE
Near-native speakers
• Speakers who started
learning a second
language as adults and
reached an exceptional
level of ability in it.
• They would be off the
scale in the IELTS
band of English
proficiency.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Non-user
Intermi ttent u ser
Extremely
limited us er
Limited us er
Modest user
Competent u ser
Good user
Very good us er
Expert user
10
NEAR-NATIVE
Subject pronouns in Italian
• Subject pronouns can be omitted when they refer
to an entity that is clear in context:
Maria non c’è,
è andata a casa
“Maria isn’t here, she went home”
• They cannot be omitted in other cases, for
example when two entities are contrasted to one
another:
Maria e Yuri non si capiscono: lei parla l’italiano,
lui no.
“Maria and Yuri don’t understand each other: she
speaks Italian, he doesn’t”.
Two kinds of knowledge
GRAMMAR
OF ITALIAN
OMISSION
OF SUBJECTS
PRONOUNS
POSSIBLE
INTERFAC E
CONDITIONS
AM I TALKING
ABOUT
A KNOWN
ENTITY?
AM I MAKING
A CONTRAST
BETWEEN TWO
ENTITIES?
……..
MEANING
IN CONTEXT
OMIT SUBJECT
DO NOT OMIT SUBJECT
Near-native speakers’ errors
• Near-native speakers of Italian and Spanish may
say:
Maria non c’è, LEI è andata a casa.
Maria isn’t here, she went home.
• Is this due to interference from English?
Can’t be (only) interference from
English
• English and Spanish non-native speakers of
Italian make the same mistake.
• They know that in Italian subject pronouns
can be omitted; they know what the
contextual conditions are.
• In most cases, they use subject pronouns
correctly.
It could be a coordination problem
C OO RD INA TIO N
FAI LU RE
GRAMMAR
OF ITALIAN
INTERFAC E
CONDITIONS
MEANING
IN CONTEXT
Another interface problem in
near-native speakers
• The difference between the sounds /i/ and /I/:
SHEEP - SHIP
CHEAP - CHIP
SEEK - SICK
BEAT - BIT
DEEP - DIP
Etc.
The near-native speaker’s
dilemma
NATIVE -LIKE
PHONETIC ABILITY T O
DISTINGUISH AND
PRONOUNCE PAIRS OF
SOUNDS THAT DO NOT
CONTRAST IN THE
NATIVE L ANGUAGE
DIFFICULTY IN
CONSTRUCTING
PHONOLOGICAL
REPRESENTATIONS OF
THESE CONTRASTS
The ‘snickers vs. sneakers’
problem
THIS…..
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
OR
THIS?
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompress or
are needed to s ee this pic ture.
More on interfaces: auxiliary
verbs in Italian
• ESSERE ‘be’ and AVERE ‘have’.
Maria ha lavorato.
Maria è partita.
‘Maria has worked’
‘Maria has left’
• Same distinction as ETRE vs AVOIR in French:
Marie a travaillé.
Marie est partie.
• In early modern English:
Christ is risen.
The Lord is come.
In Italian as a second language…
• Auxiliary ESSERE with verbs such as
arrivare ‘arrive’, venire ‘come’, partire
‘leave’ ------> ACQUIRED EARLY.
• Auxiliary ESSERE with verbs such as
rimanere ‘stay’, bastare ‘suffice’, piacere
‘like’-------> ACQUIRED MUCH LATER
OR NOT ACQUIRED AT ALL, NOT
EVEN AT THE NEAR-NATIVE LEVEL.
Native speakers have gradient
intuitions
• Native speakers of Italian, French, German
and Dutch STRONGLY AGREE on the fact
that (the equivalents of) verbs such as
arrive, leave, come select (the equivalents
of) BE.
• They DISAGREE, or are UNCERTAIN, on
like, stay, exist: sometimes they like them
with BE, sometimes with HAVE.
The Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy
• The choice of auxiliaries is conditioned not only
by the grammar, but also by the semantic type of
verb.
CHANGE OF LOCATION
(arrive, come leave, etc.)
EXISTENCE OF STATE
(like, stay, be sufficient, etc.)
HUMAN ACTIVITY
(work, talk, play, etc.)
‘BE'
'HAVE'
Another problematic interface
AUXILIARY SELECTION
HIERARC HY
AUXILIARIES
ESSERE /
AVERE
INTERFAC E
CONDITIONS
MEANING
OF VERBS
A methodological spin-off: how
to detect gradience
• If developmental data are gradient, we need
a method that can detect gradience.
• Magnitude estimation, a method borrowed
from psychophysics, allows researchers to
capture fine ‘shades of gray’ in judgments
of linguistic acceptability.
• See http://www.webexp.info for a webbased application of Magnitude Estimation
developed by Frank Kellet and Martin
Corley.
The story so far
• Many properties of grammar can be
successfully acquired in a second language,
but properties that involve interfaces
between different aspects of language may
remain non-native even at the highest level
of attainment.
What happens to your first language after
you have been speaking a second language
for a long time?
Effects of the second language on
the first language
FIRST LANGUAGE
SECOND LANGUAGE
“ATTRITION”
STAGE 0
INDIVIDUAL
SPEAKER GOES TO
LIVE IN A
FOREIGN
COUNTRY
STAGE 1
INDIVIDUAL
SPEAKER LIVES
ABROAD FOR MANY
YEARS AND SPEAKS
THE HOST
LANGUAGE MORE
OFTEN THAN HIS
NATIVE LANGUAGE.
NEXT GENERATION
ARE NATIVE
SPEAKERS OF THE
HOST LANGUAGE;
THEY MAY SPEAK OR
UNDERSTAND THEIR
PARENTS’
LANGUAGE.
NEXT GENERATION
ARE NATIVE
SPEAKERS OF THE
HOST LANGUAGE
AND DO NOT SPEAK
THEIR
GRANDPARENTS’
LANGUAGE.
STAGE 2
STAGE 3
Ex-native speakers
• Speakers experiencing attrition in their
native language at Stage 1 have problems
with constructions that require the
integration of different types of knowledge,
just like near-native speakers.
They also say:
Maria non c’è, LEI è andata a casa
• Ex-native speakers of Spanish often leave out the
preposition a with animate direct objects:
Maria vio a mi abuela
“Maria saw my grandmother”
Maria vio la película.
“Maria saw the film”.
• This property is also applied inconsistently by
advanced non-native speakers of Spanish.
“Interface” aspects: last in, first out
NOT COMPLETE D ACQUIRED IN SECOND LANGUAGE AC QUISITION
GRAMMAR
INTERFAC E
CONDITIONS
MEANING
IN CONTEXT
FIRST TO GO IN NATIVE LAN GUAGE ATTR ITION
• This research programme that compares
acquisition and attrition requires the
contribution of both LINGUISTICS and
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY.
• We have both here in Edinburgh.
Some of the questions we are
working on in PPLS
• Does hearing a language automatically
activate (“prime”) the other?
• Can bilinguals be induced into producing
incorrect word orders in both their
languages?
• What are the effects of feedback, correction,
and explicit knowledge on second language
development?
The broad view
• Research on bilingual processing helps us to
understand how human language processing
works in general.
• Research on bilinguals can inform
computational models of natural language
processing.
Bilingual first language
acquisition (“early bilingualsim”)
• Bilingual children develop two native
languages, so in general reach higher levels
of attainment than adult learners.
• They do not normally mix their languages
(unless they want to!).
• How early do they differentiate the two
languages they are acquiring?
Crossover effects in bilingual
children
• The ‘dominant’
language influences
the ‘weaker’ language.
• The language with less
complex interface
conditions influences
the language with
more complex
interface conditions.
MORE DEVELOPED
“DOMINANT”
LANGUAGE
“LESS COMPLEX”
LANGUAGE
LESS
DEVELOPED
LANGUAGE
“MORE COMPLEX”
LANGUAGE
Effects of input
Bilingual children often hear:
• Less input (in both languages) than
monolingual children.
• Non-native input in the minority language.
• Input resulting from attrition (usually from
the parent who is a native speaker of the
minority language).
Effects of bilingualism on nonlinguistic tasks
• Does the bilingual’s experience of
constantly managing two linguistic systems
have an effect on coordination in nonlinguistic tasks?
“Cognitive control” involves….
• Paying selective attention to the
relevant aspects of a problem
• Inhibiting attention to irrelevant
information
• Switching between competing
alternatives.
• Bialystok, Craik, Klein & Viswanathan
(2004): bilinguals are better than
monolinguals at tasks involving cognitive
control.
• The advantages are maintained in older age:
bilingualism may help to offset age-related
cognitive losses.
Future research
• Is there a difference between ‘early’ and
‘late’ bilinguals with respect to cognitive
control in non-linguistic tasks?
• The answer will bring us closer to
understanding the relationship between
language and other cognitive faculties.
The bilingual brain
• Structural vs. functional factors: what are
the neural substrates of bilinguals’
behaviour?
• Does the bilingual brain have a different
neural organization from the monolingual
brain?
• Does the bilingual brain have different
neural substrates for the native and second
language(s)?
QuickTime™ and a TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture.
Participants
• 6 native speakers of Italian who had been
screened and categorized as near-native
speakers of English.
Materials used
• NORMAL:
The mother was kissing the child.
La madre stava baciando il bambino.
• SYNTACTICALLY ANOMALOUS:
The artist was moulding a clays.
L’artista stava modellando il argilla.
• SEMANTICALLY ANOMALOUS:
The master was teaching the rice.
Il maestro stava insegnando al riso.
Syntactically incorrect sentences,
Italian
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Syntactically incorrect sentences,
English
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Why these differences?
• Explanation A: bilinguals need additional
resources in the second language to
compensate for their inefficient processing
abilities.
• Explanation B: bilinguals develop
additional resources for the second
language.
Structural scan from Mechelli et al.
(2004): higher density of grey matter
in left inferior parietal lobe.
• Our bilinguals:
• Mechelli’s bilinguals:
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
What do these results tell us?
• The structure of the brain can be altered by
the experience of acquiring a second
language.
• The neural substrates of second languages
in late bilinguals are different from those of
their native language, even if the second
language is mastered at near-native levels.
What next?
• Neural correlates of “interface” conditions
on grammatical knowledge.
• Work by Hagoort et al. at the Donders
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience in
Nijmegen is promising.
Non-academic implications of research
on the cognition of bilingualism
• Second language classroom learning and
teaching and computer-assisted language
learning.
• Native language maintenance.
• Education of bilingual families.
(see http://www.lsadc.org for our leaflet on
“Raising bilingual children”).
To conclude:
The cognitive study of the
bilingual mind is an exciting
interdisciplinary enterprise.
Credits
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Ellen Bard
Adriana Belletti
Holly Branigan
Michela Cennamo
Francesca Filiaci
Caroline Heycock
Frank Keller
Bob Ladd
Géraldine Legendre
Pim Levelt
Martin Meyer
Mits Ota
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Martin Pickering
Janet Randall
Luigi Rizzi
Herbert Schriefers
Ludovica Serratrice
Neil Smith
Paul Smolensky
Ianthi Tsimpli
Nigel Vincent
Angeliek van Hout
Lydia White
Special thanks
To my parents
To my family: Bob, Marco, and Carlo.