Cognitive Effects of Third Language Experience and the Role of Language Proficiency

Yıl 2020, Cilt: 37 Sayı: 1, 69 - 83, 30.06.2020

Mehmet Akıncı

Öz

This study aimed to investigate the extension of bilingual advantage into trilingualism and the role of proficiency in possible cognitive effects of third language (L3) experience. To this end, the data were collected from 51 Turkish young adults in three language groups through the administration of the Stroop task. The first group had 17 high-school graduates learning English and Arabic at intermediate-level. The second group consisted of 17 junior students studying Islamic Studies offering instruction in Turkish (30%), English (40%) and Arabic (30%). The last group had 17 junior students from English medium Social Sciences programs. Results revealed no additional cognitive benefits of trilingualism compared to bilingualism, yet high proficiency in L3 was associated with the enhancement of inhibition.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Trilingualism, bilingual advantage, inhibition, language proficiency

Üçüncü Dil Deneyiminin Bilişsel Etkileri ve Dil Yetisinin Rolü

Öz

Bu çalışma, ikidillilik avantajının üçdilliliğe uzantısını ve dil yeterliliğinin üçüncü dil deneyiminin muhtemel bilişsel etkisi üzerindeki rolünü araştırmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu doğrultuda, Stroop task kullanarak, üç gruptaki 51 genç yetişkinden veri toplanmıştır. Birinci grupta, orta seviyede İngilizce ve Arapça öğrenen 17 lise mezunu vardır. İkinci grup, öğretim dili Türkçe (%30), İngilizce (%40) ve Arapça olan İslami Bilimler bölümünde okuyan 17 üçüncü sınıf üniversite öğrencisinden oluşmaktadır. Son grupta, öğretim dili İngilizce olan Sosyal Bilimlerin ilgili bölümlerinde okuyan 17 üçüncü sınıf üniversite öğrencisi vardır. Sonuçlar, üç dilliliğin, ikidilliliğe göre ilave bilişsel etkisinin olmadığını, ancak üçüncü dildeki yüksek dil yeterliliğinin ketlemeyi olumlu yönde etkilediğini göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

üçdillilik, ikidilliliğin üstünlüğü, ketleme, dil yetisi

Kaynakça

• Abunuwara, E. (1992). The structure of the trilingual lexicon. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4(4), 311-322.
• Antón, E., Carreiras, M., & Duñabeitia, J. A. (2019). The impact of bilingualism on executive functions and working memory in young adults. PloS one, 14(2).
• Baggetta, P., & Alexander, P. A. (2016). Conceptualization and operationalization of executive function. Mind, Brain, and Education, 10(1), 10-33.
• Baumgart, C. Q., & Billick, S. B. (2018). Positive cognitive effects of bilingualism and multilingualism on cerebral function: A review. Psychiatric Quarterly, 89(2), 273-283.
• Bialystok, E. (2017). The bilingual adaptation: How minds accommodate experience. Psychological Bulletin, 143(3), 233-262.
• Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Green, D. W., & Gollan, T. H. (2009). Bilingual Minds. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 10, 89–129.
• Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 240-250.
• Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Ryan, J. (2006). Executive control in a modified antisaccade task: Effects of aging and bilingualism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32, 1341– 1354.
• Blumenfeld, H. K., & Marian, V. (2011). Bilingualism influences inhibitory control in auditory comprehension. Cognition, 118, 245–257.
• Blumenfeld, H. K., & Marian, V. (2014). Cognitive control in bilinguals: Advantages in stimulus–stimulus inhibition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(3), 610-629.
• Brainbaseline (2015). Brainbaseline Lab. Retrieved from https://www.brainbaseline.com/lab/
• Burgess, P. W., & Shallice, T. (1996). Response suppression, initiation and strategy use following frontal lobe lesions. Neuropsychologia, 34(4), 263-272.
• Chung-Fat-Yim, A., Sorge, G. B., & Bialystok, E. (2017). The relationship between bilingualism and selective attention in young adults: Evidence from an ambiguous figures task. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(3), 366-372.
• Costa, A., Santesteban, M., & Ivanova, I. (2006). How do highly proficient bilinguals control their lexicalization process? Inhibitory and language-specific selection mechanisms are both functional. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32(5), 1057.
• Cuevas, K., Rajan, V., & Bryant, L. J. (2018). Emergence of executive function in infancy. In S. A. Wiebe & J. Karbach (Eds.), Executive function: Development across the life span (pp. 25-42). Routledge.Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135-168.
• Draheim, C., Mashburn, C. A., Martin, J. D., & Engle, R. W. (2019). Reaction time in differential and developmental research: A review and commentary on the problems and alternatives. Psychological Bulletin, 145(5), 508.
• Draheim, C., Tsukahara, J. S., Martin, J. D., & Engle, R. W. (in Review). Attention control: Its measurement and nature. Manuscript submitted for publication in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
• Driemeyer, J., Boyke, J., Gaser, C., Büchel, C., & May, A. (2008). Changes in gray matter induced by learning—revisited. PloS one, 3(7), e2669.
• Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1(2), 67-81.
• Gurunandan, K., Carreiras, M., & Paz-Alonso, P. M. (2019). Functional plasticity associated with language learning in adults. NeuroImage, 201, 116040.
• Guðmundsdóttir, M. D., & Lesk, V. E. (2019). Does the bilingual advantage extend to trilingualism?. International Journal of Multilingualism, 16(4), 549-562.
• Heidlmayr, K., Moutier, S., Hemforth, B., Courtin, C., Tanzmeister, R., & Isel, F. (2014). Successive bilingualism and executive functions: The effect of second language use on inhibitory control in a behavioural stroop colour word task. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(3), 630-645.
• Hutton, S. B., & Ettinger, U. (2006). The antisaccade task as a research tool in psychopathology: a critical review. Psychophysiology, 43(3), 302-313. Kalia, V., Wilbourn, M. P., & Ghio, K. (2014). Better early or late? Examining the influence of age of exposure and language proficiency on executive function in early and late bilinguals. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26, 699 –713.
• Kousaie, S., Sheppard, C., Lemieux, M., Monetta, L., & Taler, V. (2014). Executive function and bilingualism in young and older adults. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8, 250-262.
• Lehtonen, M., Soveri, A., Laine, A., Järvenpää, J., De Bruin, A., & Antfolk, J. (2018). Is bilingualism associated with enhanced executive functioning in adults? A meta-analytic review. Psychological bulletin, 144(4), 394.
• Lenneberg, E. H. (1967). The biological foundations of language. Hospital Practice, 2(12), 59-67. Li, P., Legault, J., & Litcofsky, K. A. (2014). Neuroplasticity as a function of second language learning: Anatomical changes in the human brain. Cortex, 58, 301-324.
• Linck, J.A., Schwieter, J.W., & Sunderman, G. (2012). Inhibitory control predicts language switching performance in trilingual speech production. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 651-662.
• Marian, V., Blumenfeld, H. K., Mizrahi, E., Kania, U., & Cordes, A. K. (2013). Multilingual stroop performance: Effects of trilingualism and proficiency on inhibitory control. International Journal of Multilingualism, 10(1), 82-104.
• Mårtensson, J., Eriksson, J., Bodammer, N. C., Lindgren, M., Johansson, M., Nyberg, L., & Lövdén, M. (2012). Growth of language-related brain areas after foreign language learning. NeuroImage, 63(1), 240-244.
• Miyake, A., & Friedman, N. P. (2012). The nature and organization of individual differences in Executive functions: Four general conclusions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 8–14.
• Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41(1), 49-100.
• Paap, K. R., (2019). The Bilingual Advantage Debate. In J. W. Schwieter & M. Paradis (Eds.), The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Multilingualism (pp. 701-735). Wiley Blackwell.
• Paap, K. R., Anders-Jefferson, R., Zimiga, B., Mason, L., & Mikulinsky, R. (2020). Interference scores have inadequate concurrent and convergent validity: Should we stop using the flanker, Simon, and spatial Stroop tasks?. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 5(1), 1-27.
• Paap, K., Mason, L., Zimiga, B., Silva, Y., & Frost, M. (2020). Author accepted manuscript: The alchemy of confirmation bias transmutes expectations into bilingual advantages: A tale of two new meta-analyses. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1747021819900098.
• Paap, K. R., & Greenberg, Z. I. (2013). There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology, 66(2), 232–258.
• Paap, K. R., Johnson, H. A., & Sawi, O. (2014). Are bilingual advantages dependent upon specific tasks or specific bilingual experiences? Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26(6), 615–639.
• Paap, K. R., & Sawi, O. (2014). Bilingual advantages in executive functioning: Problems in convergent validity, discriminant validity, and the identification of the theoretical constructs. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences, 5, 962. Poarch, G. J., & Bialystok, E. (2015). Bilingualism as a model for multitasking. Developmental Review, 35, 113–124.
• Poarch, G. J., & van Hell, J. G. (2012). Executive functions and inhibitory control in multilingual children: Evidence from second-language learners, bilinguals, and trilinguals. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 113(4), 535–551.
• Qi, Z., Han, M., Wang, Y., de los Angeles, C., Liu, Q., Garel, K., & Perrachione, T. K. (2019). Speech processing and plasticity in the right hemisphere predict variation in adult foreign language learning. NeuroImage, 192, 76-87.
• Rey-Mermet, A., Gade, M., & Oberauer, K. (2018). Should we stop thinking about inhibition? Searching for individual and age differences in inhibition ability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 44(4), 501.
• Schroeder, S. R., & Marian, V. (2017). Cognitive consequences of trilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 21(6), 754-773.
• Schlegel, A. A., Rudelson, J. J., & Tse, P. U. (2012). White matter structure changes as adults learn a second language. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(8), 1664-1670.
• Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643.
• Sullivan, M. D., Janus, M., Moreno, S., Astheimer, L., & Bialystok, E. (2014). Early stage second-language learning improves executive control: Evidence from ERP. Brain and Language, 139, 84–98.
• Van den Noort, M., Struys, E., Bosch, P., Jaswetz, L., Perriard, B., Yeo, S., ... & Lim, S. (2019). Does the bilingual advantage in cognitive control exist and if so, what are its modulating factors? A systematic review. Behavioral Sciences, 9(3), 27.
• Vega-Mendoza, M., West, H., Sorace, A., & Bak, T. H. (2015). The impact of late, non-balanced bilingualism on cognitive performance. Cognition, 137, 40-46.
• Weinreich, U. (1953). Languages in contact: Findings and problems. New York: Linguistic Circle.
• Xie, Z. (2018). The influence of second language (L2) proficiency on cognitive control among young adult unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 412.
• Yang, S., & Yang, H. (2016). Bilingual effects on deployment of the attention system in linguistically and culturally homogeneous children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 146, 121–136.