Bilingualism and Cognition

Abstract

Bilingualism affects various aspects of verbal and nonverbal cognition. The first part of this entry discusses the influence of bilingualism on language representation and use—verbal cognition. The second part demonstrates its effect on various aspects of nonverbal cognition. The effect of bilingualism on language shows from many studies exhibiting the ubiquitous interaction between bilinguals’ two languages, even in purely monolingual communicative settings. The mutual influence of the two languages is evident in both production and comprehension, in all linguistic subdomains (e.g., phonology, syntax, semantics), and occurs across both pairs of similar and dissimilar languages. A consequence of the inherently interactive nature of the bilingual language system is “accented” language, that is, differences in the linguistic expressions and comprehension processes of monolinguals and bilinguals. This phenomenon is illustrated with examples of phonological, grammatical, and semantic accents, and two possible sources of accented bilingual language are considered: differences between the representations of specific linguistic units in monolinguals and bilinguals, and cross-language activation of linguistic representations in bilinguals. Concerning the effect of bilingualism on nonverbal cognition the question is first posed how linguistic relativity—the idea that the different ways in which languages encode the surrounding world cause their speakers to think about the world differently—affects bilinguals’ conceptual worlds. Next, the relation between bilingualism and intelligence is discussed, recent evidence suggesting that bilingualism is advantageous for intelligence and cognitive functioning in general. The final section focuses on the relation between bilingualism and one specific aspect of cognitive functioning: executive control.