Lecturer:Rizki Amelia, M.Pd

PsycholinguisticsBilingualism and Cognition

Name of members:Suciati Anandes11214201482Class E/6

State Islamic University Of Sultan Syarif Kasim RiauFaculty Of Education And Teachers TrainingEnglish Education Department2015

PREFACEAlhamdulillahhirabbil Alamin, the writers have finished writing this paper. We should not forget Allah Almighty, The Lord of the universe Who has given his guidance and blessings, which finally we could complete and keep this paper existing. This paper entitles: Psycholinguistics : Bilingualism and CognitionThis paper was one of the duties and requirements to complete Applied Grammar 1 task. Thanks to Mrs. Rizki Amelia, M.Pd and all of our friends who have supported us for finishing this task.Finally, the writer realizes that this paper is still far from perfection. Therefore, readers comments, criticisms, and constructive suggestions will be highly appreciated.We expect this may be useful for all of us, and to contribute ideas for the readers, especially the expected goals can be achieved, Aamiin.

Pekanbaru, May 16th, 2015

The Writers

Table of contents

Preface2Table of contents3Chapter I4Introduction 4Chaper II6Verities of Bilingual 5Is bilingualism beneficial or detrimental? 7Simultaneous And Sequential Learning Situation9Transfer Effect Of L1 On L2 Learning10Chaper III13Conclusion13References14

CHAPTER I

A. IntroductionGenerally, bilingualism is an ability to use two or more languages. In the past decade, there has been an upsurge of research on bilingualism. A theme in this work is that the bilingual's two languages are always active, at times converging with one another to produce benefits to comprehension and production, but at other times conflicting, with the requirement to negotiate cross-language competition. A goal in the recent work has been to characterize the cognitive processes that enable bilinguals to negotiate the cross-talk between their two languages. The ease with which highly proficient bilinguals are able to speak each of their languages without frequent errors or intrusions and, at the same time, switch between the two languages in contexts in which code switching is appropriate or encouraged, suggests the presence of a high level of cognitive control. At the same time, behavioral and neurocognitive studies have shown that bilinguals differ from monolinguals in their performance on tasks that are purely cognitive, often showing advantages relative to monolinguals, and clear differences in neural function and structure.Bilingualism or being a bilingual has been looked upon as having both advantages and disadvantages in real life. Research points out at bilinguals outperforming monolinguals at all ages in numerous cognitive tasks and abilities ranging from perceptual disembodying problems (Duncan & De Avila, 1979 as cited in Bialystok, 1997) and the Simon task (Bialystok, Craik, Klien & Vishvanathan, 2004).[footnoteRef:1] It was also viewed as resulting in cognitive retardation or causing detrimental effects on intelligence and language development (Yang & Lust, 2004). This view, however, changed by the work of Peal and Lambert in 1962 (cited in Bialystok, 1997) concluding with positive outcomes of bilingualism. Bilinguals who have the merit of knowing two or more languages have been more expressive in thoughts, ideas and their communication skill is improved and facilitated tremendously. [1: Bialystok E., Craik F. I., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. 2004. Bilingualism, aging, and cognitivecontrol: Evidence from the Simon task. p.290-303.]

Cognitive control involves filtering out of irrelevant information i.e. interference suppression, inhibiting an inappropriate response, maintaining goals of the task in hand even in conflicting conditions, switching conditions or switching between tasks and selecting among different responses. Cognitive control has been experimentally found to be associated with a wide range of processes and is not restricted to a particular cognitive domain. For instance, presence of impairments in cognitive control functions may be associated with specific deficits in attention, memory, language comprehension and emotional processing. In the procedure of selecting a word it has been found that it gives rise to interference between different representations that are activated and that the selection of the correct word is made possible through the mechanism of cognitive control (Rodriguez-Fornells, De Diego Balaguer, & Mnte, 2006). And prefrontal cortex is importantly engaged in this phenomenon of cognitive control (Badre and Wagner, 2004).[footnoteRef:2] [2: Badre, D. & Wagner, A. D.2004.Selection, integration, and conflict monitoring: Assessing thenature and generality of prefrontal cognitive control mechanisms. p. 473-487.]

CHAPTER II

A. Varieties of Bilinguals Most of us without the second thought would think that bilingual is a person who is able to speak and understand two languages, like English and Russian. That, beyond this, there might be varieties of bilinguals are likely to strike many of us as odd. But, we should realize that there are people who know a sign language, too, such as British sign language and Swedish sign language, these are true languages in their own right. Moreover there are people who can read a second language fluently, even writes it well, but who cannot speak or understand it to any significant degree. We need to recognize that bilingualism is a complex cognitive and linguistic phenomenon, which may vary widely among individuals, and even within individuals with respect to their competence in the languages concerned.Language in all its complexity can be acquired through a variety of modalities sound (speech), vision (writing) and visual motion (signs) an adequate concept of a bilingual should allow for any of these realizations. A person is bilingual if he or she knows:a. More than one realization of language in the same modality such as two sound based languages or two sign based languages. b. Two languages based on different modalities such as Dutch and American Sign Language. c. A person who can read and write the second language fluently and correctly but cannot speak or understand its spoken form very well (written mode). But, there is some researcher who not agreed about this point because this is not fulfilling the standard for knowing a language.There is no good reason to exclude any of these combinations from the label of bilingualism because the languages that are mostly involved in research of bilingualism are speech based, the discussion in this chapter focus on the speech modality. Proficiency in all language may be evaluated with respect to a variety of variables, including knowledge of syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation (signing or writing for non-speech). In the other hand, someone who knows two dialects of same language, e.g. British English and American English, with differ in significant aspects (but not so great differences), this phenomenon is called Bidialectalism.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Danny D. Steinberg. 1993. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. p.242-243]

B. Is bilingualism beneficial or detrimental? At a personal level, the pleasure and cultural benefits of bilingualism are obvious. This being the case, where then is the controversy? How can one reasonably be against bilingualism? There are some reasons for this term, as follows: First, some of the arguments are not against bilingualism itself but the early acquisition of the second language. Acquiring a second language can be harmful in two main respects: linguistically (retarding the acquisition of the first or the second language) and intellectually (retarding the development of thinking and cognitive abilities). Second, the critism that has been leveled against early bilingualism is primarily of another era, the early half of the twentieth century.

a. Effects on the development of language There is a concern (not all illogical) that bilingualism might somehow retard first or second-language development so that a child raised with two languages might never really learn either languages as well as would monolingual speakers of those languages. Negative reports: The most well-known and influential piece of research for its time was Madorah Smith back in the 1930s. The principal finding was that the bilingual children from Hawaii had many more errors in their English speech than did their Iowa counterparts, which led Smith to conclude that bilingualism caused retardation in language development. Positive reports: More sophisticated investigations in comparing the linguistic skills of monolinguistic and bilinguals have been done by Lambert and his associated in Canada, where English and French are the official languages. Many of the research studies have involved children in so called language immersion. It is being exposed to a substantial amount of academic instruction and social interaction in that second language. The immersion group did better than the English monolingual control group on creativity tests. There is no way it can be resolved unless researchers are allowed to randomly assign children to monolingual or bilingual programmers regardless of the wishes of their parents. Conclusion regarding effect on language there is no evidence that early bilingualism has an adverse effect on language acquisition. It would be difficult today to find any reputable theorist who would conclude that early bilingualism itself causes negative linguistic effects.

b. Effect on the development of intelligence The burden of learning an additional language considered to have an adverse effect on the child abilities. The possibility that learning a second language could in some way have a positive effect on intelligence was not something that was considered viable until relatively recently. Negative reports: Goddard (1917) gave the English language version of the Binet intelligence test to 30 recently arrived Lewis adult immigrants at Ellis Island. Goddard classified 25 of the 30 lews as feeble-minded. Psycholinguist seriously began to consider that knowledge of language was not a fair measure of intelligence and that the language content or many widely used intelligence tests was culturally based.Positive reports: The work Lambert in early 1960s led the way in this regard. Unexpectedely, possitive effects began to be found and such results have continued to be reported even to the present. To date, Bain and Yu studied, they compared monolingual and bilingual young children in different part of the world. Linguistically, the children were bilingual in either English and French, or, English and Chinese. The children were raised either monolingually or bilingually by their parents under the guidence of the resarcher. By the time the children were around 4 years old, the result on some cognitive performance tests showed the bilinguals to be superior to the monolinguals, in addition to their having acquired two different languages. As a conclusion, there is no harms effect either regarding language (first or second) intelligence, because there are many beneficial effects of bilingualism.

C. Simultaneous And Sequential Learning SituationThere are essentially two conditions according to which person may become bilingual: the two languages can acquire at the same time or in sequence. The simultanes learning of two languages occurs only with children, since in only the most abnormal of circumstances would a child when exposed to a language not learn it. On the other hand, sequential learning can occur with children and adults; the second language can be learned in childhood or after the person has become an adult.

a.Simultaneous acquisitionSimultaneous acquisition is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child becomes bilingual by learning two languages from the birth. There are two situations in which a child may acquire more than one language at the same time.1. 1P 1LThe one parent using one language only situation. For example, a mother might speak only Spanish while the father might speak only English. Each parents are using one language only situation.2. 1P 2LWhen the same person uses two different languages while speaking to the child. For example, the mother and father us both Spanish and English when talking to the child.

It seems that children are so flexible that they can become bilingual in both languages by the age of 3 or 4 years, regardless of their language situation. Based on that issue, it seems likely that the child in 1P 1L situation will learn the two languages faster than 1P 2L situation simply because of consistency. But, the researcher said that 1P 2L will learn faster than 1P -1L, but it may be 1P 2L children produce more mixed language sentences, where the vocabulary and syntax of the different languages are used in the same sentence, e.g. Open the reizoko. In time, the child will overcome the mixed input and get things right.

b.Sequential acquisitionThe sequential kind of bilingual situation occurs for a child when parents speak one language and the community at large speaks another. The parents could be an immigrant. The parents speak one language at home; the child will expose the different language at outside. Sequential acquisition of the second language may take place at a variety of ages and under a variety of situations. In acquiring the second language, speed, proficiency, and fluency will be determined by certain psychological and social variables.

So, simultaneous is different with sequential acquisition. Simultaneous acquisition makes the child becomes the native of both languages in the same time while Sequential acquisition occurs when the child becomes bilingual by first learning one language and then the child learn another language in different time..D. Transfer Effect Of L1 On L2 LearningLanguage transfer (also known as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and cross linguistic influence) refers to speakers or writers applying knowledge from one language to another language. It is the transfer of linguistic features between languages in the speech repertoire of a bilingual or multilingual individual, whether from first to second, second to first or many other relationships. It is most commonly discussed in the context of English language learning and teaching, but it can occur in any situation when someone does not have a native-level command of a language, as when translating into a second language.a. Similarity of syntax, vocabulary, and sound system.While linguists agree that no one language is more complex overall than any other language, and psycholinguists agree that no one language is easier to learn than any other language., nonetheless, not every pair of language can be expected to be acquired at the same rate. Compare for instance English, French, Russian, Japanese. Which one of these languages will be easiest/ most difficult to learn for a Macedonian/ Korean/ German learner? . The greater the similarity between two languages in terms of their syntax, vocabulary and sound system, the more rapid the rate of acquisition.

b. Facilitation, errors, interference, Second Language Strategy and First Language Strategy. FacilitationThe knowledge one has of ones first language may help or facilitate the learning of a second language. Even when two languages are very different, from both a linguistic and psycholinguistic processing viewpoint, there is much facilitation. Facilitation can be so great that given the proper environment where children are placed in a natural not a classroom situation a second language can be acquired more quickly than the first. Errors, interference, Second Language Strategy and First Language Strategy.There is some confusion, however, when it comes to interpreting just what the cause of errors might be. Consider the following errors made by Japanese:1. Now Tom happy is. (Interference)In the process of constructing the sentence perhaps because of haste or in hurry (native speaker too make errors in such circumstances), the happiness order of constituents intruded on the process so as to cause the error.2. Afterwards they ate the dinner. (Second language strategy)Second language strategy means that the speaker uses general knowledge of Second language to choose the appropriate word to complete their sentence. In the example above, the speaker uses article the to show whether dinner is countable noun or may be the speaker unsure about the status of dinner.

This is the example of an error which is made by English speaker who learns Japanese:1. John merry met at the theatre yesterday. (First language strategy)First language strategy means that, the bilingual does not really know about the rule of the second language or when the second language knowledge is lacking, they can use the first language rule or strategy, especially when conversational situation. The example above explain about an English native speaker who tries to speak Japanese the rule should be Adverbial + Subject + Object + Verb (Japanese rule) but the speaker uses Subject + Object + Verb + Adverbial (commonly English rule).

c. The double trouble phenomenonDouble trouble phenomenon is a phenomenon of a bilingual when he/she tries to speak a language but the other language that he/she knows come to his/her mind so they get difficulties to speak the target language, for instance, john is a native speaker of English. When he starts to speak Japanese, France (he never spoke since leaving Paris for the US 15 years earlier) come to his mind and when John took a trip to France a few years later, his smattering of Japanese unexpectedly came to mind when he tried to speak France. Perhaps foreign languages all are tossed into the same bag in the mind before they get sorted out.

CHAPTER IIIA. ConclusionThere are some varieties of Bilingual (1) people who able to speak 2 languages (2) people who able to speak 1 language and understand 1 sign language (3) people who able to speak 1 language and can write and understand the other language (but not speak) or it is called written mode. Those kinds are happened because language is complex and it just can be acquired through a variety of modalities sound (speech), vision (writing) and visual motion (signs). A consideration of the research evidence shows no harm effect either regarding language (first and second) intelligence. In fact, some researcher suggest there many even be beneficial effect. There are two condition according to which person may become bilingual: the two language can be acquired at the same time (simultaneous) or the two language can be acquired at different time (sequential).

REFERENCESBadre, D. & Wagner, A. D.2004.Selection, integration, and conflict monitoring: Assessing the nature and generality of prefrontal cognitive control mechanisms. Neuron: Cell Press. Vol. 41Bialystok E., Craik F. I., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. 2004. Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive. Toronto: York University Department of Psychology.Steiberg, D Danny. 1993. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London and Newyork: Longman.Dopke, Sussane. 1996. The Simultaneous Acquisition of Two Language. Australia: Monash.http://www.bilingualoptions.com.au/consTXT2xL1.pdf. Retrieved May 10th 2015.http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/The-Advantages-of-Being Bilingual/. Retrieved May 12th 2015.http://imoed-forum.blogspot.com/2010/01/bilingualism-and-cognition.html. Retrieved May 12th 2015.