HOW ARE THE WORDS OF TWO LANGUAGES STORED IN THE BILINGUAL BRAIN?
Main Article Content
Abstract
The question of how bilingual people store linguistic information in their brain has been in the focus of bilingualism research for about 30 years now. Studies have been mushrooming to find out whether languages are stored in a unitary or a separated way. Research first concentrated on bilingual child language development, and first the unitary, later the separated hypothesis was proved. Psycholinguistic data gained from adult bilinguals have shown the complexity of the question, and still we have no definite answer. However, it has been discovered that there are influencing factors: age, proficiency level and manner of acquisition. The latest, neuroimaging methods in studying the multilingual brain enable us to see what is going on in the brain during multiple speech processing. There is no final answer yet concerning multilingual storage, but the influencing factors really have a major role, only we do not know which of them is primary. The latest research (brain mapping) proves that concepts are spread all across the brain in both hemispheres. Words are activated in different parts of the brain depending on their meanings (e.g. the ’top’ in areas related to numbers, clothing, buildings). Although each individual’s brain map is different, different people have the same concepts in the same areas, irrespective of the languages. If this is true, the question whether the storage of the two languages is unitary or separated has no relevance any longer.
Downloads
Metrics
Article Details
References
Abutalebi, J., Cappa, S. and Perani, D. (2001) The Bilingual Brain as Revealed by Functional Neuroimaging. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 4(2) 179–190.
Albert, M. és Obler, L. (1978) The Bilingual Brain. New York, San Francisco, London. Academic Press.
Braun, M., Hutzler, F., Ziegler, J., Dambacher, M. and Jacobs, A. (2009) Pseudohomophone Effects Provide Evidence of Early Lexico-Phonological Processing in Visual Word Recognition. Human Brain Mapping. 30: 1977–1989.
Brysbaert, M. and Dijkstra, T. (2006) Changing views on word recognition in bilinguals. In J. Morais and G. d’Ydewalle (Eds.) Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition. Brussels: KVAB
Brysbaert, M., Lagrou, E. and Stevens, M. (2017) Visual word recognition in a second language: A test of the lexical entrenchment hypothesis with lexical decision times. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 20 (3), 530–548.
Buchweitz, A. and Prat, C. (2013) The bilingual brain: Flexibility and control in the human cortex. Physics of Life Reviews 10., 428–443.
Carreiras, M., Armstrong, B., Perea, M. and Frost, R. (2014) The what, when, where and how of visual word recognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 18/2., 90–98.
Chee, M. W. L., Tan, E. W. L., and Thiel, T. (1999) Manda,rian and English single word processing studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Journal of Neuroscience. 19, 3050–3056.
De Groot, A. (1992) Bilingual lexical representation: a closer look at Conceptual representations. In: Frost, R. and Katz, L. (eds.) Orthography, Phonology, Morphology, and Meaning. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 389–412.
De Groot, A. (1993) Word-Type Effects in Bilingual Processing Tasks: Support for a Mixed-Representational System. In: Schreuder és Weltens (szerk.) The Bilingual Lexicon. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 27–53.
De Groot, A. M. B. (2011) Language and Cognition in Bilinguals and Multilinguals. An Introduction. New York: Psychology Press.
De Houwer, A. (1990). The Acquisition of Two Languages from Birth: a case study. CUP
Fabbro, F. (2001) The bilingual brain: cerebral representation of languages. Brain and Language 79(2), 211–222.
Green, D. W. (1998) Regulating the bilingual lexico-semantic system. http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/natashat/bilingualism/green.pdf
Green, D.W. (1993) Towards a Model of L2 Comprehension and Production. In: Schreuder, R. and Weltens, B. (eds.) The Bilingual Lexicon. Amsterdam/Philadelphia. John Benjamins, 249–279.
Grosjean, F. (1985) The bilingual as a competent but specific speaker-hearer. In: Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 6, 467–477.
Grosjean, F. (1997) Processing Mixed Language: Issues, Findings, and Models. In: De Groot, A. and Kroll, J. (eds.) (1997) Tutorials in Bilingualism. Psycholinguistic Perspectives. Mahwah, New Jersey: LEA, 225–255.
Haist, F. and Song, A. W. (2001) Linking sight and sound: fMRI evidence of primary auditory cortex activation during visual word recognition. Brain and Language 76 (3), 340–50.
Heredia, R. and Altarriba, J. (Eds.) (2014) Foundations of Bilingual Memory. New York: Springer.
Heredia, R. R. (1996) Bilingual Memory: A Re-Revised Version of the Hierarchical Model of Bilingual Memory. CRL Newsletter 10/3. http://crl.ucsd.edu/newsletter/10-3/.
Hervais-Adelman, A. G., Moser-Mercer, B. and Golestani, N. (2011) Executive Control of Language in the Bilingual Brain: Integration the Evidence from Neuroimaging to Neuropsychology. Frontiers in Psychology. 2: 234. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00234
Huster, R., Westerhausen, R., Pantev, C. and Konrad, C. (2010) The role of the cingulate cortex as neural generator of the N200 and P300 in a tactile response inhibition task. Human Brain Mapping. 31, 1260–1271.
Illes, J., Francis, W. S., Desmond, J. E., Gabrieli, J. D. E., Glover, G. H., Poldrack, R., Lees, C. J., and Wagner, A., D. (1999) Convergent cortical representation of semantic processing in bilinguals. Brain and Language. 70, 347–363.
Issa, M. F., Csizmadia, F., Juhász, Z. and Kozmann, Gy. (2017) EEG-assisted Reaction Time Measurement Method for Bilingual Lexical Access Study Experiments. In: Ján Manka, Milan Tysler, Viktor Witkovsky, Ivan Frollo, Andrej Dvurecenskij (Eds.) Measurement 2017: 11th International Conference on Measurement. Bratislava: Historický ústav SAV; Vydavatelstvo Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (VEDA), 229–232.
Kehoe, M. (2015) Lexical-phonological interactions in bilingual children. First Language. 35/2. 93-125. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723715574398
Kim, K. H., Relkin, N. R., Lee, K. M., and Hirsch, J. (1997) Distinct cortical areas associated with native and second languages. Nature 388, 171–174.
Kootstra, G., van Hell, J. and Dijkstra, T. (2010) Syntactic alignment and shared word order in code-switched sentence production: Evidence from bilingual monologue and dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language 63(2), 210–231.
Kovelman, I., Baker, S. and Petitto, L-A. (2008) Bilingual and Monolingual Brains Compared: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Syntactic Processing and a Possible “Neural Signature” of Bilingualism. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20(1), 153–169. Doi: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20011.
Kroll, J. F., Dijkstra, A., Janssen, N. & Schriefers, H. (2000) Selecting the language in which to speak. Experiments on lexical access in bilingual production. Paper presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, LA.
Kroll, J. and Stewart, E. (1994) Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence from asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language 33, 149–174.
Kroll, J. and Stewart, E. (1994) Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence from asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language 33, 149–174.
Kroll, J. F., & Tokowicz, N. (2005). Models of Bilingual Representation and Processing: Looking Back and to the Future. In J. F. Kroll & A. M. B. de Groot (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press 531–553
Kroll, J., van Hell, J., Tokowicz, N. and Green, D. (2010) The Revised Hierarchical Model: A critical review and assessment. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13/3, 373–381.
Lanza, E. (1997a) Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism. OUP
Lanza, E. (1997b) Language Contact in Bilingual Two-Year-Olds and Code-Switching: Language Encounters of a Different Kind? In: International Journal of Bilingualism 1/2, 135–162.
Laszlo, S. and Plaut, D. (2012) A neutrally plausible Parallel Distributed Processing model of Event-Related Potential word reading data. Brain and Language 120, 271–281.
Leonard, M., Brown, T., Travis, K., Gharapetian, L., Hagler, D., Dale, A., Elman, J. and Halgren, E. (2010) Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Bilingual Word Processing. Neuroimage 15: 49(4): 3286–3294. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.12.009
Marian, V., & Spivey, M. (2003). Bilingual and monolingual processing of competing lexical items. Applied Psycholinguistics 24(2), 173–193.
Marian, V., Blumenfeld, H. K. and Kaushanskaya, M. (2007) The language experience and proficiency questionnaire (LEAP-Q): assessing language profiles in bilinguals and multilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 50, 940–967.
Meisel, J. (1994) Code-switching in young bilingual children: The acquisition of grammatical constraints. In: Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16 (4), 413–439.
Meisel, J.M. (1989) Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In: Hyltenstam, K., és Obler, L.K. (szerk.) Bilingualism across the lifespan. Aspects of acquisition, maturity, and los CUP, 13–40.
Moreno, E., Rodríguez-Fornells, A and Laine, M. (2008) Event-related potentials (ERPs) in the study of bilingual language processing. Journal of Neurolinguistics 21, 477–508.
Navracsics, J. (1999a) The Acquisition of Hungarian by Trilingual Children. (Unpublished PhD thesis)
Navracsics, J. (1999b) A kétnyelvű gyermek. (The Bilingual Child) Budapest: Corvina.
Navracsics, J. and Sáry, Gy. (2017) Phonological and Semantic Awareness of Bilinguals and Second Language Learners: Potential Implications for Second Language Instruction. In: Pfenninger, S. and Navracsics, J. (Eds.) Future Research Directions for Applied Linguistics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 53–74.
Ng, S. and Wicha, N. (2013) Meaning first: a case for language-independent access to word meaning in the bilingual brain. Neuropsychologia 51(5), 850–863. Doi: 10.1016/j.neurpsychologia.2013.01.017.
Paradis, M. (1997) The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Bilingualism. In: De Groot, A. and Kroll, J. (eds) (1997) Tutorials in Bilingualism. Psycholinguistic Perspectives. Mahwah, New Jersey: LEA, 331–355.
Paulesu, E., McCrory, E., Fazio, F., Menoncello, I., Brunswick, N., Cappa, S., Cotelli, M., Cossu, G., Corte, F., Lorusso, M., Pesenti, S., Gallagher, A., Perani, D., Price, C., Frith, C. and Frith, U. (2000) A cultural effect on brain function. Nature Neuroscience 3, 91–96.
Pavlenko, A. (1999) New approaches to concepts in bilingual memory. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 2, 209–230.
Penfield, W. és Roberts, L. (1959) Speech and Brain Mechanisms. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press.
Perani, D., Paulesu, E., Galles, N.S., Dupoux, E., Dehaene, S., Bettinardi, V., Cappa, S. F., Fazio, F. & Mehler, J. (1998). The bilingual brain. Proficiency and age of acquisition of the second language. Brain 121 (10), 1841–1852.
Pillai, J., Allison, J., Sethuraman, S., Araque, J., Thiruvaiyaru, D., Ison, C., Loring, D. and Lavin, T. (2004) Functional MR imaging study of language-related differences in bilingual cerebellar activation. American Journal of Neuroradiology 25(4), 523–532.
Price, C. (2000) The anatomy of language: contributions from functional neuroimaging. Journal of Anatomy 197, 335–359.
Price, C. (2012) A review and synthesis of the first 20 years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading. Neuroimage 62, 816–847.
Price, C., Wise, R. and Frackowiak, R. (1996) Demonstrating the implicit processing of visually presented words and pseudo-words. Cerebral Cortex 6, 62–70.
Protopapas, A., Orfanidou, E., Taylor, J., Karavasilis, E., Kapnoula, E., Panagiotaropoulou, G., Velonakis, G., POulou, L., Smyrnis, N. and Kelekis, D. (2016) Evaluating cognitive models of visual word recognition using fMRI: Effects of lexical and sublexical variables. Neuroimage 128, 328–341.
Rastle, K. (2007) Visual Word Recognition. In: Gaskell, M.G. (Ed.) Handbook of Psycholinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Singleton, D. (1999) Exploring the Second Language Mental Lexicon. Cambridge: CUP
Tan, L. and Perfetti, C. (1999) Phonological and associative inhibition in the early stages of English word identification: Evidence from backward masking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 99, 59–69.
Tokowitz, N. (2014) Lexical Processing and Second Language Acquisition. Oxford, UK: Routledge.
Van Heuven, W. and Dijkstra, T. (2010) Language comprehension in the bilingual brain: fMRI and ERP support for psycholinguistic models. Brain Research Review 64(1), 104–122. doi.: 10.1016/j.brainresrev.2010.03.002.
Vihman, M. (1985) Language Differentiation by the Bilingual Infant. In: Journal of Child Language 12, 297–324.
Vihman, M. (2016) Prosodic structures and templates in bilingual phonological development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 19, 69–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728914000790
Volterra, V. és Taeschner, T. (1978) The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children. In: Journal of Child Language 5. 311–326.