Download or read book Associative Shifts in the Bilingual Mind written by Marek Kuczyński and published by Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogorskiego. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Adaptive Bilingual Mind written by Evangelia Adamou and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At present, much of the research on bilingual cognition focuses on late second language learners of a small number of languages. In this fascinating book, Evangelia Adamou widens the net by integrating advances in the field of bilingualism with the study of endangered languages. Drawing on recent studies from Europe and Latin America, she demonstrates that experimental psycholinguistic methods can be successfully applied outside the lab and, conversely, how data from these understudied populations provide new insights into the adaptive capacities of the bilingual mind. Adamou shows how bilinguals manage competing conceptualizations of time and space, how their grammars and language mixing patterns adapt to cognitive constraints such as the need for simplification, and how language processing concurrently adapts to their complex bilingual experience. Combining statistical analyses with detailed linguistic and ethnographic information, this essential book will appeal to scholars of bilingualism, cognitive sciences, language endangerment, and language contact.
Download or read book The Bilingual Mind written by Aneta Pavlenko and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-06 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If languages influence the way we think, do bilinguals think differently in their respective languages? And if languages do not affect thought, why do bilinguals often perceive such influence? For many years these questions remained unanswered because the research on language and thought had focused solely on the monolingual mind. Bilinguals were either excluded from this research as 'unusual' or 'messy' subjects, or treated as representative speakers of their first languages. Only recently did bi- and multilinguals become research participants in their own right. Pavlenko considers the socio-political circumstances that led to the monolingual status quo and shows how the invisibility of bilingual participants compromised the validity and reliability of findings in the study of language and cognition. She then shifts attention to the bilingual turn in the field and examines its contributions to the understanding of the human mind.
Download or read book The Ecosystem of the Foreign Language Learner written by Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines selected aspects of the foreign language learning process from an ecological perspective, adopting a holistic view on complex interrelations among and within organisms (L2 language learners) and their milieus (family, school and society). First of all, the personal ecosystem of the learner is taken into consideration, whereby two powerful influences are intertwined: cognitive and affective aspects. The learning space formed by the individual is largely shaped by their affective states coexisting in conjunction with their cognitive processes. Moreover, this specific space is also modified by a wider array of other personal ecosystems or those of cultures. Hence, the ecosystem of the foreign language learner is also subject to influences coming from sociocultural leverage that can be represented by people they know, like parents and language teachers, who can both directly and indirectly manipulate their ecosystem. At the same time other important forces, such as culture as a ubiquitous element in the foreign language learning process, also have the power to shape that ecosystem. Accordingly, the book is divided into three parts covering a range of topics related to these basic dimensions of foreign language acquisition (the cognitive, affective and socio-cultural). Part I, Affective Interconnections, focuses on the body of original empirical research into the affective domain of not only L2 language learners but also non-native language teachers. Part II, Cognitive Interconnections, reports on contributions on language learners’ linguistic processing and cognitive representations of concepts. The closing part, Socio-cultural Interconnections, provides new insights into language learning processes as they are affected by social and cultural factors.
Download or read book The Bilingual Mind written by Rafael Art Javier and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-08-06 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book fills a critical gap in the cross-cultural literature by illuminating the bilingual experience in both its social and clinical contexts. Rafael Javier makes a convincing, empirically founded case for what he terms the bilingual mind, with its own particular approach to cognition, memory, and emotional and social development. Using this framework, he provides answers to important questions about the way bilingualism affects cognition and development.
Download or read book Variability and Stability in Foreign and Second Language Learning Contexts written by Liliana Piasecka and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-02-22 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains a wide spectrum of topics organized within a relatively fixed framework of Applied Linguistics theory and practice, revolving around the concepts of stability and variability that capture the dynamic nature of the phenomena characterizing language, learning and teaching. The primary strength of individual chapters lies in the fact that the vast majority report original empirical studies carried out in diverse second/foreign language learning contexts – investigating interesting issues across various nationalities, ages, educational and professional groups of language learners, and teachers. The issues under scrutiny entail the ‘classic’ recurrent topics related to language learning and teaching, such as communicative competence, input, orality and literacy, learner characteristics and strategies, and teacher development – to mention just a few. In addition, ‘recent arrivals,’ to borrow a marketing metaphor, are also present, as the authors consider learning and teaching implications resulting from the status of English as a language of international communication, and discuss related concepts of intercultural competence along with language learners’ identity and creativity. The multilingual and multicultural contributors to the present volume are researchers – foreign and second language learners and teachers themselves – who offer the reader a range of methodological designs that have been successfully used in Applied Linguistics research. The framework of stability and variability suggests that changes leading to progress and development derive from stable foundations that account for the sense of continuity and belonging in applied linguists’ communities of practice.
Download or read book Understanding Language and Cognition through Bilingualism written by Gigi Luk and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bilingualism is a ubiquitous global phenomenon. Beyond being a language experience, bilingualism also entails a social experience, and it interacts with development and learning, with cognitive and neural consequences across the lifespan. The authors of this volume are world renowned experts across several subdisciplines including linguistics, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. They bring to light bilingualism’s cognitive, developmental, and neural consequences in children, young adults, and older adults. This book honors Ellen Bialystok, and highlights her profound impact on the field of bilingualism research as a lifelong experience. The chapters are organized into four sections: The first section explores the complexity of the bilingual experience beyond the common characterization of “speaking multiple languages.” The next section showcases Ellen Bialystok’s earlier impact on psychology and education; here the contributors answer the question “how does being bilingual shape children’s development?” The third section explores cognitive and neuroscientific theories describing how language experience modulates cognition, behavior, and brain structures and functions. The final section shifts the focus to the impact of bilingualism on healthy and abnormal aging and asks whether being bilingual can stave off the effects of dementia by conferring a “cognitive reserve.”
Download or read book Perspectives on the Bilingual Advantage Challenges and Opportunities written by Peter Bright and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The claim that multilanguage acquisition drives advantages in ‘executive function’ is currently an issue of vigorous debate in academic literature. Critics argue that evidence for this advantage has been confounded by unsound or questionable methodological practices, with some investigators abandoning research in this area altogether, indicating either that there is no bilingual advantage or that it is impossible to capture and therefore rule out alternative explanations for group differences. Over the past decade, and against this backdrop, theory has developed from a relatively narrow focus on inhibitory control to incorporate theory of mind, rule-based learning, reactive and proactive control, visuo-spatial memory, and control of verbal interference in speech comprehension. Most recently, authors have claimed that the process of becoming bilingual may also impact on metacognitive abilities. The fundamental issue is whether the limited capacity and goal-directed selectivity of our executive system can somehow be enhanced or otherwise profit from the continuous, intense competition associated with communicating in multilingual environments. However, although this issue has received much attention in academic literature, the question of which cognitive mechanisms are most influenced by the enhanced competition associated with multilingual contexts remains unresolved. Therefore, rather than dismissing this important topic, we advocate a more systematic approach in which the effects of multilinguistic experience are assessed and interpreted across well-defined stages of cognitive development. We encourage a broad, developmentally informed approach to plotting the trajectory of interactions between multi-language learning and cognitive development, using a convergence of neuroimaging and behavioral methods, across the whole lifespan. Moreover, we suggest that the current theoretical framing of the bilingual advantage is simplistic, and this issue may limit attempts to identify specific mechanisms most likely to be modulated by multilingual experience. For example, there is a tendency in academic literature to treat ‘executive function’ as an essentially unitary fronto-parietal system recruited in response to all manner of cognitive demand, yet performance across so called ‘executive function’ tasks is highly variable and intercorrelations are sometimes low. It may be the case that some ‘higher level’ mechanisms of 'executive function' remain relatively unaffected, while others are more sensitive to multilingual experience – and that there may be disadvantages as well as advantages, which themselves may be sensitive to factors such as age. In our view, there is an urgent need to take a more fine-grained approach to this issue, so that the strength and direction of changes in diverse cognitive abilities associated with multilanguage acquisition can be better understood. This book compiles work from psychologists and neuroscientists who actively research whether, how, and the extent to which multilanguage acquisition promotes enhanced cognition or protects against age-related cognitive or neurological deterioration. We hope this collection encourages future efforts to drive theoretical progress well beyond the highly simplistic issue of whether the bilingual cognitive advantage is real or spurious.
Download or read book New approaches to how bilingualism shapes cognition and the brain across the lifespan Beyond the false dichotomy of advantage versus no advantage written by Mark Antoniou and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-04-18 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mind Shift written by John Parrington and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes human consciousness unique? John Parrington draws on early Russian ideas and the latest neuroscience to argue that humans went through a 'mind shift' when we developed language, and words and the shared cultural world they enabled altered our brains, and have shaped them ever since.
Download or read book Changing Minds written by Roger Kreuz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why language ability remains resilient and how it shapes our lives. We acquire our native language, seemingly without effort, in infancy and early childhood. Language is our constant companion throughout our lifetime, even as we age. Indeed, compared with other aspects of cognition, language seems to be fairly resilient through the process of aging. In Changing Minds, Roger Kreuz and Richard Roberts examine how aging affects language—and how language affects aging. Kreuz and Roberts report that what appear to be changes in an older person's language ability are actually produced by declines in such other cognitive processes as memory and perception. Some language abilities, including vocabulary size and writing ability, may even improve with age. And certain language activities—including reading fiction and engaging in conversation—may even help us live fuller and healthier lives. Kreuz and Roberts explain the cognitive processes underlying our language ability, exploring in particular how changes in these processes lead to changes in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. They consider, among other things, the inability to produce a word that's on the tip of your tongue—and suggest that the increasing incidence of this with age may be the result of a surfeit of world knowledge. For example, older people can be better storytellers, and (something to remember at a family reunion) their perceived tendency toward off-topic verbosity may actually reflect communicative goals.
Download or read book The Symbolic Species The Co evolution of Language and the Brain written by Terrence W. Deacon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1998-04-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.
Download or read book The Bilingual Brain written by Martin L. Albert and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 1978-10-28 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Bilingual Brain written by Albert Costa and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2020-01-30 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Fascinating. . . This engaging book explores just how multiple languages are acquired and sorted out by the brain. . . Costa's work derives from a great fund of knowledge, considerable curiosity and solidly scientific spirit' Philip Hensher Spectator The definitive study of bilingualism and the human brain from a leading neuropsychologist Over half of the world's population is bilingual and yet few of us understand how this extraordinary, complex ability really works. How do two languages co-exist in the same brain? What are the advantages and challenges of being bilingual? How do we learn - and forget - a language? In the first study of its kind, leading expert Albert Costa shares twenty years of experience to explore the science of language. Looking at studies and examples from Canada to France to South Korea, The Bilingual Brain investigates the significant impact of bilingualism on daily life from infancy to old age. It reveals, among other things, how babies differentiate between two languages just hours after birth, how accent affects the way in which we perceive others and even why bilinguals are better at conflict resolution. Drawing on cutting-edge neuro-linguistic research from his own laboratory in Barcelona as well from centres across the world, and his own bilingual family, Costa offers an absorbing examination of the intricacies and impact of an extraordinary skill. Highly engaging and hugely informative,The Bilingual Brain leaves us all with a sense of wonder at how language works. Translated by John W. Schwieter
Download or read book The Making of a Mixed Language written by Maarten Mous and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mbugu (or Ma'á) language (Tanzania) is one of the few genuine mixed languages, reputedly combining Bantu grammar with Cushitic vocabulary. In fact the people speak two languages: one mixed and one closely related to the Bantu language Pare. This book is the first comprehensive description of these languages. It shows that these two languages share one grammar while their lexicon is parallel. In the distant past the people shifted from a Cushitic to a Bantu language and in the process rebuilt a language of their own that expresses their separate ethnic identity in a Bantu environment. This linguistic history is explained in the context of the intricate history of the people. The discussion of the processes that were involved in the formation of Ma'a/Mbugu is extremely relevant for both creole studies and for contact linguistics in general.
Download or read book Bilingualism in Development written by Ellen Bialystok and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-04-16 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes how intellectual development of bilingual children differs from that of monolingual children.
Download or read book Brain Signal Complexity and Creative Ability in Bilingual and Monolingual Children written by William Joshua Villafuerte and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
