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Speaking Two Languages for the Price of One: Bypassing Language Control Mechanisms via Accessibility-Driven Switches.

ABSTRACT: How do bilinguals switch easily between languages in everyday conversation, even though studies have consistently found that switching slows responses? In previous work, researchers have not considered that although switches may happen for different reasons, only some switches-including those typically studied in laboratory experiments-might be costly. Using a repeated picture-naming task, we found that bilinguals can maintain and use two languages as efficiently as a single language, switching between them frequently without any cost, if they switch only when a word is more accessible in the other language. These results suggest that language switch costs arise during lexical selection, that top-down language control mechanisms can be suspended, and that language-mixing efficiency can be strategically increased with instruction. Thus, bilinguals might switch languages spontaneously because doing so is not always costly, and there appears to be greater flexibility and efficiency in the cognitive mechanisms that enable switching than previously assumed.

SUBMITTER: Kleinman D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4875860 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Speaking Two Languages for the Price of One: Bypassing Language Control Mechanisms via Accessibility-Driven Switches.

Kleinman Daniel D Gollan Tamar H TH

Psychological science 20160325 5

How do bilinguals switch easily between languages in everyday conversation, even though studies have consistently found that switching slows responses? In previous work, researchers have not considered that although switches may happen for different reasons, only some switches-including those typically studied in laboratory experiments-might be costly. Using a repeated picture-naming task, we found that bilinguals can maintain and use two languages as efficiently as a single language, switching ...[more]

PMID: 27016240

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Project description:PurposeThe purpose of this study was to identify and describe latent dual language profiles in a large sample of school-age Spanish-English bilingual children designated as English learners (ELs) by their school district.MethodData for this study include 847 Spanish-speaking ELs from kindergarten to third grade. Spanish and English narrative retell language samples were collected from all participants. Four oral language measures were calculated in Spanish and English, including the subordination index, moving average type-token ratio, narrative structure scheme (NSS), and words per minute using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcript. These indicator measures were used in a latent profile analysis to identify dual language profiles.ResultsThe optimal model represents a four-profile solution, including a Spanish-dominant group (average Spanish, low English), an English-dominant group (low Spanish, average English), and two balanced groups (a balanced-average group and a balanced-high group). Additionally, participants displayed uneven performance across language domains and distinct patterns of unique strength or weakness in a specific domain in one of their two languages.ConclusionsFindings from this study highlight the large variability in English and Spanish oral language abilities in school-age Spanish-speaking ELs and suggest that a dichotomous classification of ELs versus English-proficient students may not be sufficient to determine the type of educational program that best fits a specific bilingual child's need. These findings highlight the need to assess both languages across multiple language domains to paint a representative picture of a bilingual child's language abilities. The dual language profiles identified may be used to guide the educational program selection process to improve the congruence among the linguistic needs of an individual child, teachers' use of instructional language, and the goals of the educational program (i.e., improving English proficiency vs. supporting dual language development).Supplemental materialhttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20151836.

Dataset Information

Speaking Two Languages for the Price of One: Bypassing Language Control Mechanisms via Accessibility-Driven Switches.

Publications

Speaking Two Languages for the Price of One: Bypassing Language Control Mechanisms via Accessibility-Driven Switches.

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