Individual differences in cognitive control advantages of elderly late Dutch-English bilinguals

Abstract

This study addresses a gap in the literature on executive function advantages among bilingual speakers by investigating a group of elderly, long-term, immersed bilinguals. Our participants are native Dutch speakers who emigrated to Australia as adults and have spent many years in that country. They are compared on a range of cognitive and linguistic measures to native Dutch and native English control groups. We argue that, due to the massive differences in the bilingual experience, group analyses may fall short of capturing the full picture. We argue instead for a more qualitative approach, which takes into account as detailed a picture of bilingual development, daily language habits and, in particular, codeswitching habits as possible.

“I'm gonna Spanglish it on you”: Self-reported vs. oral production of Spanish–English codeswitching

“…Finally, for executive function, we expected to find a positive relationship between self-reported codeswitching and executive function, based on Hofweber et al’s (2016) results with heritage German speakers, a similar population to ours. At the same time, Keijzer and Schmid's (2016) study of older Dutch speakers in Australia, also a population similar to ours, found no relationship between internally generated, orally produced codeswitching with executive function, hindering formation of a directional hypothesis for that part of our research question.…”

Starting Age Overshadowed: The Primacy of Differential Environmental and Family Support Effects on Second Language Attainment in an Instructional Context

“…As Cenoz () and Aronin and Hufeisen () suggest, we cannot ignore the fact that many factors affect the language acquisition process: Multilingualism is an important but not exclusive influence. Generalizations from past research may have gone further than our current understanding of the phenomenon of the bilingual advantage warrants (Keijzer & Schmid, ).…”

“…Bilingualism has also been hypothesized to result in more efficient language learning, in terms of the attainment of both general language proficiency (Cenoz & Valencia, ; Swain, Lapkin, Rowen, & Hart, ) and of literacy skills (e.g., Kovelman, Baker, & Petitto, ). However, a whole body of evidence questioning the notion of a general bilingual advantage has emerged recently, relating to: the hybridity of experiences of bilinguals in these studies, which may be associated with a subject selection bias (De Angelis, ); the social dimensions of bilingualism, that is, the influence of and changes in lifestyle, L2 learning motivation, overall well‐being, general communicative skills, the status/prestige of the languages in question, teachers’ cultural responsiveness, and so forth (e.g., Agirdag, ; Goriot et al., ); a priori cognitive ability (Keijzer & Schmid, ); methodological inconsistencies, for example, the differential effects of bilingualism on verbal and nonverbal task performance (Duñabeitia & Carreiras, ; Paap, Johnson, & Sawi, ; Vaughn, Greene, Ramos Nuñez, & Hernandez, ); and an alleged publication bias favoring positive outcomes over null effects and possibly leading to a false representation of the true situation (see Bialystok, Kroll, Green, MacWhinney, & Craik, ; de Bot, ; de Bruin, Treccani, & Della Sala, ). …”

The Study of Heritage Language Development From a Bilingualism and Social Justice Perspective

“…As L1 and L2 change, the preferred patterns of codeswitching or language separation can change as well, particularly for parents who once viewed themselves as monolingual but became increasingly more bilingual over time. Some G1 parents may become so‐called habitual dense code‐switchers (Keijzer & Schmid, ) who freely exploit and mix their languages, while others can become skilled in both languages but use them in separate domains, such as work and home.…”