My Viet Ha Nguyen, Evelyn Dianne Rodarte, Arturo E. Hernandez, Kelly A. Vaughn
{"title":"Beyond bilingual and monolingual: Cognitive, language and demographic profiles of adolescents in the United States","authors":"My Viet Ha Nguyen, Evelyn Dianne Rodarte, Arturo E. Hernandez, Kelly A. Vaughn","doi":"10.1017/s1366728926101023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728926101023","url":null,"abstract":"Research teams studying bilingualism often focus on a specific population of bilinguals, which can limit the generalizability of their findings. This study explored how U.S. adolescents who speak a non-English language vary in their language experiences and cognition using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The sample included 6683 English monolinguals, 1138 heritage bilinguals, 592 dual language education (DLE) bilinguals and 1751 other bilinguals. SES varied across groups: sequential bilinguals (i.e., DLE and other bilinguals) had higher parental education and income than monolinguals, while heritage bilinguals had the lowest SES. Sequential bilinguals reported higher English proficiency and greater English use with family and friends than heritage bilinguals. Sequential bilinguals initially outperformed monolinguals on cognitive tasks, who in turn outperformed heritage bilinguals. However, these differences disappeared once SES was controlled. Findings highlight the importance of considering SES and language experiences when studying bilingualism’s cognitive effects and help explain inconsistencies in prior research.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"299 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146169583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joyce Lysanne van Zwet, Sharon Unsworth, Rob Schoonen, Eva Knopp
{"title":"Cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch as a heritage language in bilingual children","authors":"Joyce Lysanne van Zwet, Sharon Unsworth, Rob Schoonen, Eva Knopp","doi":"10.1017/s1366728926101060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728926101060","url":null,"abstract":"The influence of one of a bilingual’s languages on the other is known as cross-linguistic influence (CLI). In grammatical gender acquisition, CLI can occur during gender discovery, assignment and agreement. The present study investigates CLI in Dutch as a heritage language, a language with a non-transparent gender system, in two groups of bilingual children. One (i.e., Dutch-German bilingual children) is acquiring languages with similar gender systems and the other (i.e., Dutch-French bilingual children) is acquiring languages with more distant gender systems. We found CLI in gender discovery, gender assignment and gender agreement for the Dutch-German group but not for the Dutch-French group. Moreover, CLI simultaneously facilitated and hindered gender acquisition within the children, depending on the gender congruency of the nouns. This suggests co-activation of grammatical gender values in bilingual children. The findings help us better understand when cross-linguistic influence takes place and how it affects acquisition in bilingual children.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"107 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146169486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yanan Hou, Yong Jiang, Wanying Xie, Dingyi Li, Yan Huang
{"title":"Revisiting the moral foreign language effect: The interplay of cognitive control, emotional distress and victim vulnerability in bilingual moral judgment","authors":"Yanan Hou, Yong Jiang, Wanying Xie, Dingyi Li, Yan Huang","doi":"10.1017/s1366728926101047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728926101047","url":null,"abstract":"The moral foreign language effect (MFLE) suggests that using a second language promotes utilitarian moral decisions, though its robustness and underlying mechanisms remain debated. This study investigated the MFLE and its potential moderators, including cognitive control, emotional distress and contextual variability (operationalized as victim vulnerability through narrative cues signaling physical fragility), among 255 Chinese-English bilinguals who judged moral dilemmas in either their native or second language. Contrary to prior findings, no significant MFLE emerged, nor did cognitive control or emotional distress alone moderate moral judgments. In contrast, victim vulnerability showed a robust main effect, with higher vulnerability increasing utilitarian responses. Moreover, this effect interacted with emotional distress: it was pronounced under low distress but diminished under high distress. These findings challenge the generalizability of the MFLE and highlight the pivotal influence of emotional and contextual factors, particularly emotional arousal and perceived victim vulnerability, on moral judgments across languages.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146160330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring the cognitive interplay between multilingualism, inhibitory control and mind wandering","authors":"Zihan Xu, Paola Bonifacci, Roberto Filippi","doi":"10.1017/s1366728926101035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728926101035","url":null,"abstract":"This study examined whether self-assessed multilingual proficiency and use of additional languages predict individual differences in inhibitory control (IC) and mind wandering (MW) among UK university students. Sixty-five participants completed a Go/No-Go task measuring response inhibition and the BMW-3 questionnaire, which assessed unintentional, intentional and meta-awareness dimensions of MW. Multilingualism was operationalised using a continuous composite index integrating self-rated proficiency and daily use of non-native languages. The index scores were not significantly associated with response inhibition or meta-awareness. However, higher multilingual proficiency index scores were significantly associated with lower levels of unintentional MW. These findings suggest that, moving beyond categorical comparisons, greater self-reported multilingual proficiency and use of additional languages may support the regulation of internally directed thought, rather than externally triggered IC. Implications for future research and potential applications in education and attention-related interventions are discussed.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146160329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Factors influencing L2 learners’ use of the English dative construction: Insights from a learner corpus","authors":"Junya Fukuta, Akira Murakami, Masato Terai, Yu Tamura","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925100965","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925100965","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines when and how second language (L2) learners begin to exhibit sensitivity to key factors influencing the choice between the English double object and prepositional object constructions. While previous research has shown that such choices in native speakers are influenced by such factors as animacy, pronominality and verb bias, little is known about the developmental timing of these effects in L2 production. Using 5,785 dative constructions from a large-scale learner corpus, we analyzed how these variables interact with learners’ proficiency levels across 23 verbs. We found that learners showed systematic sensitivity to all of these factors, including statistical verb bias derived from a native speaker corpus (Corpus of Contemporary American English), at much earlier stages than previously suggested. These results suggest that learners may possess a cognitive bias that maps preexisting conceptual structures onto linguistic constructions, reflecting more than mere statistical learning.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146109852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Inka Romero-Ortells, Manuel Perea, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia
{"title":"Hearing once, reading twice: How dual subtitles shape visual attention in bilingual viewing","authors":"Inka Romero-Ortells, Manuel Perea, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia","doi":"10.1017/s1366728926100984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728926100984","url":null,"abstract":"Dual subtitles, combining captions (audio transcription) with subtitles translated into another language, are increasingly used in language learning. However, how they shape visual attention remains unclear. In the present experiments, we tracked the eye movements of Spanish–English bilinguals, as they viewed instructional videos with either no subtitles (Experiment 1) or dual subtitles (Experiment 2), manipulating subtitle position and audio language. Without subtitles, L1 audio focused gaze on the speaker’s eyes, while L2 audio distributed it between the eyes and mouth. With dual subtitles, gaze shifted strongly to the text, with a preference for the top line, which attracted more viewing time regardless of language. Viewers selectively attended to the line matching the audio. Comprehension improved for L2 audio with subtitles, while L1 comprehension was unaffected. Our findings demonstrate that display layout and language alignment jointly govern attentional allocation in bilingual viewing, with direct implications for L2 instructional design.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146089519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Harald Clahsen, Ioannis Iliopoulos, Constantina Maltezou, Silke Paulmann
{"title":"Limits of variability in bilingual language processing: An event-related potential study of German and English verb morphology","authors":"Harald Clahsen, Ioannis Iliopoulos, Constantina Maltezou, Silke Paulmann","doi":"10.1017/s1366728926100972","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728926100972","url":null,"abstract":"Previous research has highlighted that supplementing standard group-level event-related potential analyses with assessments of individual variation can enhance our understanding of language-related brain activity. The present study pursues this approach by examining bilingual speakers’ brain responses to morphologically complex word forms in both their native (German, L1) and their second language (English, L2). We tested 108 bilingual speakers using an ERP violation paradigm examining overapplications of regular verb inflections (‘regularizations’) and of irregular ones (‘irregularizations’). We found a striking L1/L2 contrast within the same bilingual speakers, a left-anterior negativity for regularizations in the L1 and a positivity (P600) for both violation types in the L2. Consistent with previous research, individuals’ brain responses were found to vary along negativity-/positivity-dominant effects. However, the crucial L1/L2 contrast in participants’ brain responses to regularizations was stable across individual differences. We conclude that linguistic constraints, that is, violation type and language status (L1 vs. L2), limit individual variability.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"117 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146071701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining the reliability and validity of bilingual language use and switching measures","authors":"Angela de Bruin","doi":"10.1017/s1366728926100996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728926100996","url":null,"abstract":"Bilinguals vary in their daily-life language use and switching behaviours, which are also frequently studied in relation to other processes (e.g., executive control). Measuring daily-life language use and switching often relies on self-reported questionnaires, but little is known about the validity of these questionnaires. Here, we present two studies examining test–retest reliability and validity of language-use questionnaires (relative to Ecological Momentary Assessment, Study 1) and language-switching questionnaires and tasks (relative to recorded daily-life conversations, small-scale Study 2). Test–retest reliability and validity of the LSBQ (Anderson et al., 2018) were high and moderate, respectively, suggesting this questionnaire can capture daily-life language use well. Although only examined with a small sample size, Study 2 suggested relatively low validity of most language-switching questionnaires, with short language-production tasks potentially offering a more valid assessment. Together, these studies suggest that tools are available to reliably capture language use and switching with (a certain degree of) validity.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146071480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Magdalena Kachlicka, Ashley E. Symons, Yaoyao Ruan, Kazuya Saito, Frederic Dick, Adam Tierney
{"title":"Effects of targeted perceptual training on L2 suprasegmental weighting strategies","authors":"Magdalena Kachlicka, Ashley E. Symons, Yaoyao Ruan, Kazuya Saito, Frederic Dick, Adam Tierney","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925100850","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925100850","url":null,"abstract":"Learning a second language (L2) is challenging partly due to perceptual strategies inherited from learners’ first language. For example, speakers of tone languages like Mandarin over-use pitch in English prosody perception and production. We developed a novel training paradigm to help Mandarin learners adopt more native-like strategies by enhancing their use of duration relative to pitch cues during prosody categorization. After prosody training, participants used duration more during phrase boundary categorization but showed no clear change for contrastive focus and lexical stress, suggesting that cue weighting training is most effective when targeting a feature’s primary cue. The control group, who practiced English vocabulary, relied more on pitch in lexical stress categorization and phrase boundary production after training, suggesting that without targeted instruction, listeners default to existing strategies. Our findings demonstrate that although default strategies in L2 speech perception are difficult to resist, lifelong perceptual habits can be adjusted with training.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146021820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Haoyan Ge, Albert Lee, Hoi Kwan Yuen, Fang Liu, Virginia Yip
{"title":"Production of focus in Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children: An acoustic analysis","authors":"Haoyan Ge, Albert Lee, Hoi Kwan Yuen, Fang Liu, Virginia Yip","doi":"10.1017/s1366728925100953","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728925100953","url":null,"abstract":"This study examined the acoustic realization of focus in Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children’s first language (L1) Cantonese, compared to bilingual typically developing (TD) children and adults, and explored the effects of bilingualism on the production. Results from an elicitation task showed that bilingual autistic children primarily relied on duration to mark focus in L1 Cantonese, similar to adults, but exhibited weaker use of pitch and intensity compared to bilingual TD children. Second language (L2) English exposure and proficiency did not influence focus marking in bilingual autistic children likely due to their later and reduced English exposure compared to TD children. Conversely, bilingual TD children’s prosodic use was modulated by English exposure and proficiency. These findings reveal that bilingualism does not hinder autistic children’s prosodic focus production in their L1 Cantonese and highlight distinct bilingualism effects on prosodic focus production in autistic and TD children.","PeriodicalId":8758,"journal":{"name":"Bilingualism: Language and Cognition","volume":"177 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146000841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}