Bilingualism And Bilingualism

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According to the estimates, bilinguals make up more than half of the global population (Grosjean, 2010). Bilingualism can be described as the ability to use two with certain degree of proficiency, whereas linguistic skills of monolinguals are restricted to just one language (for further definitions of bilingualism, see Moradi, 2014). Being bilingual means that both languages are always active to some degree, even in contexts that require just one of the languages. The ability to manage attention to two languages the entire time requires higher involvement of the non-linguistic executive control system (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2012). Numerous behavioural studies have demonstrated a beneficial effect of bilingualism …show more content…

Neuroimaging studies have shown differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in the neural processing during executive function tasks, suggesting that bilingualism influences neural processes of executive functioning (e.g., Bialystok et al., 2005; Garbin et al., 2010; Luk, Anderson, Craik, Grady, & Bialystok, 2010; Rodríguez-Pujadas et al., …show more content…

We will select participants with similar socioeconomic background based on maternal education, since it was indicated that socioeconomic status might have an impact on the performance in the executive control tasks (Calvo & Bialystok, 2014). Prior to the study, an intelligence quotient (IQ) will be assessed, whereas only participants with an average IQ score will be further selected for the study. For all bilinguals, the age and manner of second language acquisition, as well as the frequent use of both languages and proficiency in both languages will be reported. In order to investigate the potential role of the age of the second language acquisition on the executive functioning, bilingual participants will be further subdivided into three groups: simultaneous bilinguals (B0; concurrent exposure to both languages from birth at home), early bilinguals (B3; second language acquisition at the age of 3) and late bilinguals (B8; second language acquisition at the age of 8). Dividing the bilinguals into three groups regarding the age of the second language acquisition corresponds with the developmental

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