NSF-BSF: The Dominance Shift in Mixed-Language Production vs. Comprehension

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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about one in five people in the US speak a language other than English at home. The value of knowing more than one language is becoming increasingly relevant as technology develops and US industry connects with individuals all over the world, even with just a handheld device. People who speak multiple languages have greater potential to connect with a broader audience or customer base and speaking more than one language is often a key component for success in economic, educational, and professional realms. Hence, there is a great need to understand how people acquire, maintain, and proficiently switch among languages. Learning another language obviously requires learning new words, sounds, and rules, but it also requires learning to control the automatic tendency to think and speak in the first-learned or dominant language. This research program directly examines whether, when, and by how much speakers actively inhibit their dominant language to enable speaking a language in which they are less proficient. Hypotheses to be tested are that more inhibition is required for bilingual speakers with one more clearly dominant language and/or when fewer cues are present to aid language selection. To test these hypotheses, the investigators detail a series of behavioral experiments that compare different Spanish-English vs. Hebrew-English bilingual speakers as they produce and/or comprehend pictures, names, single words, and full sentences. Each speaker's response times, spoken word durations, and eye movements will be measured in single and mixed-language contexts. Relationships among these tasks will help clarify links between inhibitory control and bilingual language proficiency. The insights gained in the proposed studies will contribute to theoretical models of bilingual language processing, laying the groundwork needed to improve theory-driven approaches to second language acquisition and teaching, and for assessment and treatment of cognitive and linguistic abilities in diverse types of bilinguals.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.