Neuroscience
Do bilinguals have an internal switch that stops their two languages from interfering with each other, or are both languages always "on"? The fact that bilinguals aren't forever spurting out words from the wrong language implies there's some kind of switch. Moreover, in 2007, brain surgeons reported evidence for a language switch when their cortical prodding with an electrode caused two bilingual patients to switch languages suddenly and involuntarily.
On the other hand, there's good evidence that languages are integrated in the bilingual mind. For example, bilinguals are faster at naming an object when the word for that object is similar or the same in the two languages they speak (e.g. ship/schip in English and Dutch).
Now Eva Van Assche and colleagues have provided further evidence for the idea of bilingual language integration by showing that a person's second language affects the way that they read in their native language.
The researchers recorded the eye movements of 45 bilingual Belgian students as they read sentences in their native Dutch tongue. The key finding was that they read Dutch words faster when the equivalent word in their second language, English, was similar or the same as the Dutch word. Specifically, they spent less time fixating on words like "piloot" ("pilot" in English) than on control words like "eend" (that's "duck" in English).
Van Aassche and her colleagues said this shows that even when bilinguals read sentence after sentence in their native tongue, access to words in their second language remains open, rather than switched off, thus having an effect on the way the native language is processed.
"Becoming a bilingual means one will never read the newspaper again in the same way," they concluded. "It changes one of people's seemingly most automatic skills, namely, reading in one's native language."
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Van Assche E, Duyck W, Hartsuiker RJ, & Diependaele K (2009). Does Bilingualism Change Native-Language Reading? Cognate Effects in a Sentence Context. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS PMID: 19549082
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Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Second language changes the way bilinguals read in their native tongue
Do bilinguals have an internal switch that stops their two languages from interfering with each other, or are both languages always "on"? The fact that bilinguals aren't forever spurting out words from the wrong language implies there's some kind of switch. Moreover, in 2007, brain surgeons reported evidence for a language switch when their cortical prodding with an electrode caused two bilingual patients to switch languages suddenly and involuntarily.On the other hand, there's good evidence that languages are integrated in the bilingual mind. For example, bilinguals are faster at naming an object when the word for that object is similar or the same in the two languages they speak (e.g. ship/schip in English and Dutch).
Now Eva Van Assche and colleagues have provided further evidence for the idea of bilingual language integration by showing that a person's second language affects the way that they read in their native language.
The researchers recorded the eye movements of 45 bilingual Belgian students as they read sentences in their native Dutch tongue. The key finding was that they read Dutch words faster when the equivalent word in their second language, English, was similar or the same as the Dutch word. Specifically, they spent less time fixating on words like "piloot" ("pilot" in English) than on control words like "eend" (that's "duck" in English).
Van Aassche and her colleagues said this shows that even when bilinguals read sentence after sentence in their native tongue, access to words in their second language remains open, rather than switched off, thus having an effect on the way the native language is processed.
"Becoming a bilingual means one will never read the newspaper again in the same way," they concluded. "It changes one of people's seemingly most automatic skills, namely, reading in one's native language."
_________________________________
Van Assche E, Duyck W, Hartsuiker RJ, & Diependaele K (2009). Does Bilingualism Change Native-Language Reading? Cognate Effects in a Sentence Context. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS PMID: 19549082If you found this post interesting, you might also enjoy:
-Babies raised in a bilingual home show enhanced cognitive control.
-Change your personality, learn a new language.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- There Are Two Kinds Of Bilingual Brain
How do bilinguals avoid confusing the two languages they speak? One idea is that there's a kind of language switch that inhibits one tongue whilst the other is in use. A new investigation by researchers in Finland suggests that such a system probably...
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If I presented you with a silent video of someone speaking – do you think that you'd be able to tell if they switched from English to French? Remarkably, between the ages of four and six months, babies can tell. However, it's a skill they lose...
- Change Your Personality, Learn A New Language
The personality of people who are bilingual changes depending on which language they use, lending credence to the Czech proverb “Learn a new language and get a new soul”. That’s according to Nairan Ramirez-Esparza and colleagues who assessed the...
- Bilingualism And The Brain
A new study about the relation between the brain and bilinualism, as presented in a Reuters news report:Learning 2nd Language Changes Brain Anatomy - Study Wed 13 October, 2004 19:18 By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Being bilingual produces...
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