everything else

• Improving chances of being bilingual

  frequency of usage of both languages - various contexts
• Improving chances of being bilingual - mode of acquisition

  • Native Bilingualism - growing up in 2 language environment
  • Immersion - schooling in a non-native language
  • Submersion - learning surrounded by non-native speakers
• Language exposure - language order

  early exposure (critical period)

  • simultaneous
  • early sequential (most common) - learning 2nd after 1st
  • late sequential - 3nd learned later in life - post adolescence
• Language exposure -

  languages = interconnected & influence each other

  • L1 - Increasing proficiency in L2 may have negative effects on L1
  • = decreased fluency, vocabulary, accuracy in L1
  • L2 Proficiency = may not reach same level as L1
  • deficits in vocabulary, grammar, fluency
  • mix elements of both = language interchange, code-switching
• Critical period - language = biologically triggered behaviour

  • shares characteristics with biologically triggered behaviour
  • development begins before necessary & doesn't require conscious intention, unfolds in stages & may have an optimal period for development.
• critical period - non-human

  • imprinting in ducks
  • visual orientation selectively in cats
  • song learning in some birds
  • visuo-motor co-ordination in barn owls
• Event related fMRI

  • Adoptees & French Ss scanned while listening to sentences in French, Japanese, Polish
  • comparisons between groups don't show any significant differences