Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:39:20.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2009

ELLEN BIALYSTOK
ELLEN BIALYSTOK*
Affiliation:
York University
*
Address for correspondence: Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canadaellenb@yorku.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present paper summarizes research showing that bilingualism affects linguistic and cognitive performance across the lifespan. The effect on linguistic performance is generally seen as a deficit in which bilingual children control a smaller vocabulary than their monolingual peers and bilingual adults perform more poorly on rapid lexical retrieval tasks. The effect on cognitive performance is to enhance executive functioning and to protect against the decline of executive control in aging. These effects interact to produce a complex pattern regarding the effect of bilingualism on memory performance. Memory tasks based primarily on verbal recall are performed more poorly by bilinguals but memory tasks based primarily on executive control are performed better by bilinguals. Speculations regarding the mechanism responsible for these effects are described.

Type
International Symposium on Bilingualism Lecture
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 3 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The research reported in this chapter was funded by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). The paper is based on a plenary address given at the International Symposium on Bilingualism, University of Hamburg, 30 May – 2 June 2007.

References

Abutalebi, J. & Green, D. (2007). Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20, 242–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1986). Factors in the growth of linguistic awareness. Child Development, 57, 498–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1988). Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness. Developmental Psychology, 24, 560–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development, 70, 636–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2006). Effect of bilingualism and computer video game experience on the Simon task. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 68–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M. & Freedman, M. (2007). Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Neuropsychologia, 45, 459–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Grady, C., Chau, W., Ishii, R., Gunji, A. & Pantev, C. (2005). Effect of bilingualism on cognitive control in the Simon task: Evidence from MEG. NeuroImage, 24, 40–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Klein, R. & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19, 290–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M. & Luk, G. (2008). Cognitive control and lexical access in younger and older bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 34, 859–873.Google ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E. & Feng, X. in press. Language proficiency and its implications for monolingual and bilingual children. In Durgunoglu, A. (ed.), Challenges for language learners in language and literacy development. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. & Feng, X. in preparation. Effect of variation in executive control for working memory performance in monolinguals and bilinguals. Ms., York University.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. & Majumder, S. (1998). The relationship between bilingualism and the development of cognitive processes in problem-solving. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 69–85.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. & Martin, M. M. (2004). Attention and inhibition in bilingual children: Evidence from the dimensional change card sort task. Developmental Science, 7, 325–339.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. & Senman, L. (2004). Executive processes in appearance–reality tasks: The role of inhibition of attention and symbolic representation. Child Development, 75, 562–579.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. & Shapero, D. (2005). Ambiguous benefits: The effect of bilingualism on reversing ambiguous figures. Developmental Science, 8, 595–604.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, S. M. & Meltzoff, A. N. (2008). Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children. Developmental Science, 11, 282–298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chee, M. W. L. (2006). Dissociating language and word meaning in the bilingual brain. Trends in Cognitive Science, 10, 527–529.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A. (2005). Lexical access in bilingual production. In Kroll, & de Groot, (eds.), pp. 308–325.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Hernández, M. & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2008). Bilingualism aids conflict resolution: Evidence from the ANT task. Cognition, 106, 59–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Craik, F. I. M. (1983). On the transfer of information from temporary to permanent memory. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 302, 341–359.Google Scholar
Craik, F. I. M. & Bialystok, E. (2006). Cognition through the lifespan cognition: Mechanisms of change. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 131–138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crinion, J. T., Turner, R., Grogan, A., Hanakawa, T., Noppeney, U., Devlin, J. T., Aso, T., Urayama, S., Fukuyama, H., Stockton, K., Usui, K., Green, D. M. & Price, C. J. (2006). Language control in the bilingual brain. Science, 312, 1537–1540.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cromdal, J. (1999). Childhood bilingualism and metalinguistic skills: Analysis and control in young Swedish–English bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T. (2005). Bilingual visual word recognition and lexical access. In Kroll, & de Groot, (eds.), pp. 179–201.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T., Grainger, J. & van Heuven, W. J. B. (1999). Recognition of cognates and interlingual homographs: The neglected role of phonology. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 496–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elbert, T., Pantev, C., Wienbruch, C., Rockstroh, B. & Taub, E. (1995). Increased cortical representation of the fingers of the left hand in string players. Science, 270, 305–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Emmorey, K., Borinstein, H. B., Thompson, R. & Gollan, T. H. (2008). Bimodal bilingualism. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fabbro, F., Skrap, M. & Aglioti, S. (2000). Pathological switching between languages after frontal lesions in a bilingual patient. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 68, 650–652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Sommer, T., Raz, A. & Posner, M. I. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 340–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feng, J., Spence, I. & Pratt, J. (2007). Playing an action game reduces gender differences in spatial cognition. Psychological Science, 18, 850–855.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feng, X., Diamond, A. & Bialystok, E. (2007). Manipulating information in working memory: An advantage for bilinguals. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Fernandes, M. A., Craik, F. I. M., Bialystok, E. & Kreuger, S. (2007). Effects of bilingualism, aging, and semantic relatedness on memory under divided attention. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 128–141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E. & McHugh, P. R. (1975). “Mini-mental state”: A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 12, 189–198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fratiglioni, L., Paillard-Borg, S. & Winblad, B. (2004). An active and socially-integrated lifestyle in late life might protect against dementia. Lancet Neurology, 3, 343–353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goetz, P. (2003). The effects of bilingualism on theory of mind development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 6, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gollan, T. H. & Acenas, L.-A. R. (2004). What is a TOT? Cognate and translation effects on tip-of-the-tongue states in Spanish–English and Tagalog–English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 246–269.Google ScholarPubMed
Gollan, T. H., Fennema-Notestine, C., Montoya, R. I. & Jernigan, T. L. (2007). The bilingual effect on Boston Naming Test performance. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 13, 197–208.Google ScholarPubMed
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., Fennema-Notestine, C. & Morris, S. K. (2005). Bilingualism affects picture naming but not picture classification. Memory & Cognition, 33, 1220–1234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., Cera, C. & Sandoval, T. C. (2008). More use almost always means a smaller frequency effect: Aging, bilingualism, and the weaker links hypothesis. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 787–814.Google Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I. & Werner, G. (2002). Semantic and letter fluency in Spanish–English bilinguals. Neuropsychology, 16, 562–576.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, C. S. & Bavelier, D. (2003). Action video game modifies visual selective attention. Nature, 423, 534–537.Google Scholar
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico–semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D. W., Crinion, J. & Price, C. J. (2007). Exploring cross-linguistic vocabulary effects on brain structures using voxel-based morphometry. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10, 189–199.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hernandez, A. E., Bates, E. & Avila, L. X. (1996). Processing across the language boundary: A cross-modal priming study of Spanish–English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 846–864.Google Scholar
Hernandez, A. E., Dapretto, M., Mazziotta, J. & Bookheimer, S. (2001). Language switching and language representation in Spanish–English bilinguals: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 14, 510–520.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hernandez, A. E. & Li, P. (2007). Age of acquisition: Its neural and computational mechanisms. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 638–650.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, E. F., Goodglass, H. & Weintraub, S. (1983). Boston Naming Test. Philadelphia, PA: Lea & Febiger.Google Scholar
Kaushanskaya, M. & Marian, V. (2007). Bilingual language processing and interference in bilinguals: Evidence from eye tracking and picture naming. Language Learning, 57, 119–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, A. F., Bherer, L., Colcombe, S. J., Dong, W. & Greenough, W. T. (2004). Environmental influences on cognitive and brain plasticity during aging. Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 59, 940–957.Google ScholarPubMed
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S. C. & Wodniecka, Z. (2006). Language selectivity is the exception, not the rule: Arguments against a fixed locus of language selection in bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 119–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroll, J. R. & de Groot, A. M. B. (eds.) (2005). Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lu, C.-H. & Proctor, R. W. (1995). The influence of irrelevant location information on performance: A review of the Simon and spatial Stroop effects. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 2, 174–207.Google Scholar
Luk, G., Pyers, J., Emmorey, K. & Bialystok, E. (2007). The source of enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals: Evidence from bimodal bilinguals. Poster presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Long Beach, CA.Google Scholar
Maguire, E. A., Gadian, D. G., Johnsrude, I. S., Good, C. D., Ashburner, J., Frackowiak, R. S. & Frith, C. D. (2000). Navigation-related structural changes in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of America, 97, 4398–4403.Google Scholar
Mahon, M. & Crutchley, A. (2006). Performance of typically-developing school-age children with English as an additional language (EAL) on the British Picture Vocabulary Scales II (BPVS II). Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 22, 333–353.Google Scholar
Marian, V., Spivey, M. & Hirsch, J. (2003). Shared and separate systems in bilingual language processing: Converging evidence from eyetracking and brain imaging. Brain and Language, 86, 70–82.Google Scholar
Martin-Rhee, M. M. & Bialystok, E. (2008). The development of two types of inhibitory control in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mechelli, A., Crinion, J. T., Noppeney, U., O'Doherty, J., Ashburner, J., Frackowiak, R. S. & Price, C. J. (2004). Structural plasticity in the bilingual brain. Nature, 431, 757.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Michael, E. B. & Gollan, T. H. (2005). Being and becoming bilingual: Individual differences and consequences for language production. In Kroll & de Groot (eds.), pp. 389–407.Google Scholar
Milner, B. (1971). Interhemispheric differences in the localization of psychological processes in man. British Medical Bulletin, 27, 272–277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H. & Howerter, A. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (eds.) (2002). Language and literacy in bilingual children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perani, D., Abutalebi, J., Paulesu, E., Brambati, S., Scifo, P., Cappa, S. F. & Fazio, F. (2003). The role of age of acquisition and language usage in early, high-proficient bilinguals: An fMRI study during verbal fluency. Human Brain Mapping, 19, 170–182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Petrides, M. & Milner, B. (1982). Deficits on subject-ordered tasks after frontal- and temporal-lobe lesions in man. Neuropsychologia, 20, 249–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Polk, T. A. & Farah, M. J. (1998). The neural development and organization of letter recognition: Evidence from functional neuroimaging, computational modelling, and behavioural studies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95, 847–852.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portocarrero, J. S., Burright, R. G. & Donovick, P. J. (2007). Vocabulary and verbal fluency of bilingual and monolingual college students. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 22, 415–422.Google Scholar
Price, C. J., Green, D. W. & von Studnitz, R. (1999). A functional imaging study of translation and language switching. Brain, 122, 2221–2235.Google Scholar
Ransdell, S. E. & Fischler, I. (1987). Memory in a monolingual mode: When are bilinguals at a disadvantage? Journal of Memory & Language, 26, 392–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, P. M., Garcia, L. J., Desrochers, A., Hernandez, D. (2002). English performance of proficient bilingual adults on the Boston Naming Test. Aphasiology, 16, 635–645.Google Scholar
Rodriguez-Fornells, A., Van Der Lugt, A., Rotte, M., Britti, B., Heinze, H.-J. & Munte, T. F. (2005). Second language interferes with word production in fluent bilinguals: Brain potential and functional imaging evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 422–433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rogers, C. L., Lister, J. J., Febo, D. M., Besing, J. M. & Abrams, H. B. (2006). Effects of bilingualism, noise, and reverberation on speech perception by listeners with normal hearing. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 465–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., Araujo, K., Weekes, V. A., Caracciolo, V., PadillaM. & Ostrosky-Solis, F. M. & Ostrosky-Solis, F. (2000). Verbal fluency and verbal repetition skills in healthy older Spanish–English bilinguals. Applied Neuropsychology, 7, 17–24.Google Scholar
Salthouse, T. A. & Mitchell, D. R. D. (1990). Effects of age and naturally occurring experience on spatial visualization performance. Developmental Psychology, 26, 845–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staff, R. T., Murray, A. D., Deary, I. J. & Whalley, L. J. (2004). What provides cerebral reserve? Brain, 27, 1191–1199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, Y. (2002). What is cognitive reserve? Theory and research application of the reserve concept. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 8, 448–460.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stern, Y., Habeck, C., Moeller, J., Scarmeas, N., Anderson, K. N., Hilton, H. J., Flynn, J., Sackeim, H. & vanHeertum, R. Heertum, R. (2005). Brain networks associated with cognitive reserve in healthy young and old adults. Cerebral Cortex, 15, 394–402.Google Scholar
Sumiya, H. & Healy, A. F. (2004). Phonology in the bilingual Stroop effect. Memory & Cognition, 32, 752–758.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Valenzuela, M. J. & Sachdev, P. (2006). Brain reserve and dementia: A systematic review. Psychological Medicine, 36, 441–454.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zelazo, P. D., Frye, D. & Rapus, T. (1996). An age-related dissociation between knowing rules and using them. Cognitive Development, 11, 37–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar