PYSCHOLINGUISTIC

AND
BILINGUALISM

ENDAH KURNIANINGSIH
LOCATION OF LANGUAGE IN THE BILINGUAL BRAIN

Bilinguals rely in general on the same

mechanisms in acquiring, producing, and
understanding languange that
monolinguals employ.

Studies of electro-magnetic imaging of

the brains of right-handed bilinguals
show activation for language in the same
of the brain as those activated in
monolinguals.
Languange capacity in general are
located in the Left Hemisphere of
brain for almost all humans.
 Theme in
psycholinguistic and bilingualism
1. The bilingual lexicon, as a sort of abstract dictionary in the
mind.
2. The levels of activation of the bilinguals,
3. Word recognition task, include lexical decision task and
lexical access task.
4. The study of memory.
5. Studies of aphasic patients.
 Classifying bilinguals

Bilinguals are classified in regard to either the supposed mental

organization of their languange or their history as bilinguals.
1. How the language were acquired:
•Coordinate bilinguals
Refers to someone whose two languages are learnt at the same time, often in
the same context.
•Compound bilinguals
Refers to someone whose two languages are learnt in distinctively separate
contexts.
 Classifying bilinguals

2. How the language are organized:

•Bilingualsm active or Bilingualism passive.
•A simultaneous bilinguals (both language acquired at the same
time) or a sequential bilingual (one language acquired before
the other).
 The mental lexicon
The mental lexicon is defined as a mental dictionary that contains information
regarding a word's meaning, pronunciation, syntactic characteristics, and so on.

How are words accessed and activated from the mental lexicon ?
- A mental lexicon has many ways to classify word.
Eg: rhyme, length or frequency
- According to william marslen- wilson, we can identify a word even while it is
being heard.
- However, the entries of words are not accessed, it is activated from the mental
lexicon.
- Neural structure stores information of the mental lexicon.
 Level of activation
Activation varies, Grosjean (2001) speak of continuum along
which speakers can move in his Language mode model, if the
bilingual has just been using both languages and then shift to
speaking only one language, the speaker is still “ in the bilingual
mode”
A variety of level activation language hypotheses can be tested,
most having to do with level of activation of bilinguals two
languages. Reaction time under different conditions offer indirect
support for such hypotheses.
Bilinguals have selective access or
simultaneous access for one language
Both language seem to be active at some level, even when the
speaker is speaking or identifying only one language in one
condition. Bilinguals have simultaneous access for just one
language, the process of responding to language is the basic of
these condition. For example:
In monolingual english studies, if word “dog” appears on the
screen, followed “cat” after a brief delay, response to “cat” as a
possible word in English is faster than the semantic of “dog”.
 Distractors of respon time
(one language)
Distractors are strings of letters that resemble the test word in some
way.
1. Neighbors distractors, defined as words differing by a single
letter.
2. Enemies distractors, differs in how word pronounced.
3. Word from the other language, a translation generally speeds
up reaction time.
Distractors from both languages
The study showed that response time was slowed down if there
were neighbors from either language on the screen at the same
time as the test word. (Van Heuven et al.,1998)
For example in English-Dutch bilinguals. Monolingual English
speakers do not access Dutch words, but English-Dutch
bilinguals may well access them, even when told to pay
attention only to English word.
 Models of language production
Two of the models discussed are production models, The Inhibitory
Control model and The Revised Hierarchical Model. These are
accounts begining at a conceptual level and comparing languages in
regard to how one language is more activated than the other or how
meanings may be differently accessed in the two languages.
The third model is The Bilingual Interactive Activation + Model,
is model of how both languages may be activated in word recognition
or comprehension. It is deals with word form, not word meaning.
 Bilinguals memories

Bilingualism enhances working memory in sequential bilingual

children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. Bilingual
benefits are found in language-independent working memory
tasks that involve both storage and processing. Higher bilingual
proficiency is associated with better verbal working memory
performance.
 Bilingualism, the brain and aphasia
Aphasia, the formal term for the partial or
total loss of the ability to speak and
comprehend language; it is caused by injuries
or disease, including stroke.

Aphasia

Fluent aphasia (receptive) Non fluent aphasia (expressive)

poor comprehension, words may lack meaning. good comprehension, difficulty finding words

* Pitres in 1895 suggested when a language is lost, whether temporariy or pemanently, it is

not destroyed, but inhibited. Language loss seems misdirected.
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