Multilingualism and cognition
1. Introduction
• Psycholinguistics is traditionally oriented towards monolingualism
• Individual multilingualism has become more common and is still on the rise
• Multilinguals master different language systems with different rules: how does this
work in the brain? Central question of this course
• Terms:
o Bilingual: knowing more than one language (= multilingual)
o Polyglot: same as multilingual but from Greek, refers to a person speaking
more than one language (in a clinical context or someone who speaks a large
amount of languages)
o Cognition: information/knowledge processing (related to language)
o Linguistic knowledge: words and rules used for speaking, listening, reading
and writing
• Three mechanisms in the brain:
o Information acquisition: processing/acquiring words and rules, linked to
listening and reading skills, related to attention in cognitive studies
o Knowledge representation: storing/representing the knowledge in the brain,
linked to grammar and vocabulary, related to memory in cognitive studies
o Knowledge production: using the acquired knowledge, linked to speaking and
writing
1.1 Approaches - introduction
• Cognition itself is not perceptible (as opposed to language skills). In order to research
cognition, it has to be visualised
• Psycholinguistic approach
• Neurolinguistic approach
• Clinical linguistic approach (brain impairments that affect language, ex. aphasia,
dyslexia…)
• Computational linguistic approach (linked to artificial intelligence)
,1.2 Psycholinguistic approach
• Observing and measuring language behaviour by testing the speed and accuracy of
processing
• First psycholinguist: Noam Chomsky
o First person to ask how language works in the brain
o Generative grammar
o Language acquisition device: young children get poor stimuli but their
outcome is rich
▪ Allows people to make sentences that have never been made before
o Universal grammar with parameters per language
o Behaviourism
o Skinner: human language is related to animal behaviour; children learning a
language react to stimuli (Chomsky disagrees: these stimuli are too poor)
• Bottom up processes vs. top down processes
o Bottom up: based on expectations
o Top down: driven by stimuli
o Happen at the same time in the brain
o The brain automatically corrects mistakes because it does not expect them to
be there
• Usually experimental research in a laboratory: tasks composed of stimuli and
responses, measured in terms of speed and accuracy of processing
o Give an indirect view of how language works in the brain
o The lower the speed and accuracy, the less automatic the process is and the
more processes are happening simultaneously
o Example: Stroop task: colours written in their own colour, in different colours,
or in all black. Exercise: name the colour in which the word is written. Reading
the word is more automatic than categorising the colour, making it more
difficult to identify the colour of the text
• Problem of task impurity: it is impossible to isolate a single process in tests; there are
always multiple processes active in the brain
• Limitations:
o Ecological validity: a laboratory is not the real world (artificial setting)
o Indirect measures (speed and accuracy of processing to determine processes
in the brain)
o Vague theories, no or few predictions
o Task specificity: can the results be generalised? Are the results only valid for
the test itself or for the tested process as a whole?
o Cognition split up in various domains: little collaboration between researchers
of different fields (attention, memory…)
, 1.3 Neurolinguistic approach
• Observing cognition inside the brain itself, using:
o Neuroimaging; fMRI scans (functional resonance magnetic imaging) – has no
health risks and works for patients as well as healthy people and children
o Physiological techniques: mapping signals between cells and parts of the
brain, shows where activity takes place
o Direct stimulation in cases of brain damage (surgery with an ‘open brain’),
very rare
o Scanners are a recent development
• Psycholinguistic approach = indirect; neurolinguistic approach = direct
• Name comes from ‘neurons’
1.3.1 Neuroanatomy
• Brain = central part of the nervous system (most nerve cells are found in the brain);
weighs 1-2 kg but the energy consumption is extremely high
• Cerebrum (big brain) + cerebellum (little brain) + brain stem
o Most of the functions related to cognition are found in the cerebrum
o Recent findings: the cerebellum is also involved in cognition
o Brain stem is not relevant for cognition: regulates basic functions like
temperature and breathing
• Outer part of cerebrum: cerebral cortex; folded in order to fit in the skull
o Mountains/upper parts: gyri (singular gyrus)
o Valleys/lower parts: sulci (singular sulcus)
• The cortex is divided into lobes with specific functions
o Frontal lobe: output (speaking, writing)
o Others: input
▪ Occipital lobe: related to vision (reading)
▪ Temporal lobe: related to hearing (listening)
▪ Parietal lobe: related to touching
o All the exact areas are numbered
• The left and right side of the cerebrum and cerebellum are perfectly symmetrical
o Input from the left side is processed on the right side
o Right-handed people process and produce language on the left side
o Left-handed people process and produce language on either the left or right
side (fixed with birth); left-handed people are usually excluded from
neurolinguistic tests for this reason
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