RESUMEN
This study sheds new light on the relative impact of switching between languages and switching between cultures on Executive Functions (EFs) in bilinguals. Several studies have suggested that bilingualism has a measurable impact on executive functioning, presumably due to bilinguals' constant practice in dealing with two languages, or two cultures. Yet, the evidence on the relative contribution of culture and bilingualism to EFs is not well understood, because disentangling language, culture and immigration status is very difficult. The novelty of our approach was to keep the language pair and immigration status constant, whilst the cultural identity of participants was systematically varied, and measured at the individual level (not just at group level). Two groups of Turkish-English bilinguals, all adult immigrants to the United Kingdom, took part in the study, but one group (n = 29) originated from mainland Turkey and the other (n = 28) from Cyprus. We found that the bilinguals experienced smaller Conflict Effects on a Flanker task measuring inhibition, by comparison with monolingual British participants (n = 30). The key variable explaining EF performance variance at the individual level turned out to be bilinguals' Multicultural Identity Style. In particular those who indicated that they attempted to alternate between different British and Turkish (Cypriot) identity styles were found to have shorter RTs on incongruent trials of the Flanker task. The two multicultural identity variables, Alternating and Hybrid Identity Styles, together explained 32% in RTs over and above Education, Working Memory and Nonverbal reasoning (overall explained variance 49%). Thus, the data provide strong evidence for the impact of culture on EFs. We suggest that, as a result of their daily practice in recognizing cultural cues which highlight the need to switch to a different cultural frame, multicultural bilinguals develop a heightened context-sensitivity, and this gives them an advantage over monolinguals in a Flankers task. Our approach, which draws on models from cross-cultural psychology, bilingualism and executive functioning, illustrates the importance of theory building in which sociolinguistic and cultural variables are integrated into models of EFs.
RESUMEN
Bilingualism may modulate executive functions (EFs), but the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated two potential sources of variability in bilinguals' EF performance: (1) interactional contexts and code-switching, and (2) dominance profiles. Previous research on code-switching often relied on self-reports of regular code-switching habits. In this study, we investigated the effects of experimentally induced language modes (single language versus code-switching modes) on bilinguals' EF performance. Crucially, in the bilingual conditions, we differentiated between different types of intra-sentential code-switching (Insertion, Alternation, and Dense code-switching). Moreover, we investigated the interaction of the effects of temporary language modes with bilinguals' sociolinguistic code-switching habits. All our participants were L1-dominant German-English bilinguals (N = 29) immersed in an L2 context. We assessed the effects of dominance by correlating individual bilinguals' L1-dominance with their EF performance. In addition, we investigated whether language modes activate different EF patterns in bilinguals, as opposed to monolinguals, i.e., individuals who have no additional language to suppress. Based on models of bilingual language processing, we predicted our bilinguals to display the best EF performance in L2 single language contexts, as these require them to activate inhibitory schemata to suppress their dominant L1. Indeed, bilinguals performed better in the single language than in the code-switching conditions. The results also suggested that bilinguals activated more inhibitory control compared to monolinguals, supporting the notion that bilingual processing involves inhibition. The task conditions inducing different code-switching modes differed only in terms of the predictors explaining EF performance in the regression. We observed negative correlations between the frequency of engaging in a given type of code-switching and performance in language modes inducing non-corresponding control modes. The results suggested that Dense code-switching draws upon proactive control modes that differ from the reactive control involved in Alternation. Importantly, bilinguals' dominance profiles played a crucial role in explaining EF performance. The more balanced individuals in our overall L1-dominant sample displayed better EF performance in the bilingual conditions, suggesting that more balanced bilingualism trains the control modes involved in code-switching. This highlights the importance of assessing bilinguals' sociolinguistic profiles in bilingualism research.
RESUMEN
We present a new set of subjective Age of Acquisition (AoA) ratings for 299 words (158 nouns, 141 verbs) in seven languages from various language families and cultural settings: American English, Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Lebanese Arabic, Malaysian Malay, Persian, and Western Armenian. The ratings were collected from a total of 173 participants and were highly reliable in each language. We applied the same method of data collection as used in a previous study on 25 languages which allowed us to create a database of fully comparable AoA ratings of 299 words in 32 languages. We found that in the seven languages not included in the previous study, the words are estimated to be acquired at roughly the same age as in the previously reported languages, i.e. mostly between the ages of 1 and 7 years. We also found that the order of word acquisition is moderately to highly correlated across all 32 languages, which extends our previous conclusion that early words are acquired in similar order across a wide range of languages and cultures.