Cognitive and Linguistic Predictors of Language Control in Bilingual Children

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Megan C. Gross¹  Margarita Kaushanskaya² 

[1] Department of Communication Disorders, University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States;Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

关键词: bilingualism;    children;    language switching;    language control;    cognitive control;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00968

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In order to communicate effectively with a variety of conversation partners and in a variety of settings, bilingual children must develop language control, the ability to control which language is used for production. Past work has focused on linguistic skills as the limiting factor in children’s ability to control their language choice, while cognitive control has been the focus of adult models of language control. The current study examined the effects of both language ability and cognitive control on language control in 4−6 year old Spanish/English bilingual children with a broad range of language skills, including those with low skills in both languages. To measure language control, children participated in an interactive scripted confederate dialogue paradigm in which they took turns describing picture scenes with video partners who presented themselves as monolingual speakers of English or monolingual speakers of Spanish. The paradigm had two conditions: a single-language context, in which children interacted with only one partner, and a dual-language context, in which children needed to switch between languages to address different partners. The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) indexed cognitive control. The findings revealed an overall effect of language ability, such that children with lower language skills were more likely to produce words in the language not understood by their conversation partner. There was also an effect of cognitive control on children’s ability to adjust to the dual-language context. Based on these findings, we suggest that a model of language control in children should consider both linguistic and cognitive factors. However, language ability appears to be the main limiting factor, with cognitive control playing a more restricted role in adapting to a dual-language context.

【 授权许可】

CC BY