Some notes on language, memory and bilingualism

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-490
Author(s):  
Maria Teresa Guasti
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Linear Dimension ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Language Problems ◽  
Per Se

In this commentary on the Special Issue, I will address the question of what memory spans measure concerning language, as language has, at least, a linear and a hierarchical dimension. I suggest that if anything what is measured has to do with the linear dimension. Then, I will discuss the welcome results on bilingual children with language problems and reflect on what it means that working memory measures seem to be more relevant for bilingual children than for monolingual ones. I will tentatively suggest that what is at stake is not memory per se, but inhibitory skills.

scholarly journals Regular and Irregular Inflection in Different Groups of Bilingual Children and the Role of Verbal Short-Term and Verbal Working Memory

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Elma Blom ◽  
Evelyn Bosma ◽  
Wilbert Heeringa
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Linguistic Distance

Bilingual children often experience difficulties with inflectional morphology. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate how regularity of inflection in combination with verbal short-term and working memory (VSTM, VWM) influences bilingual children’s performance. Data from 231 typically developing five- to eight-year-old children were analyzed: Dutch monolingual children (N = 45), Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (N = 106), Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (N = 31), Tarifit-Dutch bilingual children (N = 38) and Arabic-Dutch bilingual children (N = 11). Inflection was measured with an expressive morphology task. VSTM and VWM were measured with a Forward and Backward Digit Span task, respectively. The results showed that, overall, children performed more accurately at regular than irregular forms, with the smallest gap between regulars and irregulars for monolinguals. Furthermore, this gap was smaller for older children and children who scored better on a non-verbal intelligence measure. In bilingual children, higher accuracy at using (irregular) inflection was predicted by a smaller cross-linguistic distance, a larger amount of Dutch at home, and a higher level of parental education. Finally, children with better VSTM, but not VWM, were more accurate at using regular and irregular inflection.

Guest Editors’ Note

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-120
Author(s):  
Sotiris Mitralexis ◽  
Georgios Steiris
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

We are most thankful to Forum Philosophicum, and its Editor-in-Chief Marcin Podbielski, for the invitation to act as guest editors in a special issue dedicated to looking at Maximus the Confessor from a philosophical perspective—by which we mean both the philosophical efflorescence of Maximus’ thought per se, approached within its historical context, and the attempt to find Maximian solutions to contemporary philosophical problems or to engage Maximus’ thought in dialogue with modern philosophy. In many ways, this special issue is a sister volume to the book Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher (Eugene: Cascade / Wipf & Stock, forthcoming later in 2016). Both form parts of a sustained attempt at highlighting Maximus the Confessor’s relevance for philosophical inquiry, without denying the explicitly theological nature of his thought in doing so. Believing that there is much philosophical fecundity in this approach, we remain with the hope that it will be continued.

scholarly journals Is association of preterm birth with cognitive-neurophysiological impairments and ADHD symptoms consistent with a causal inference or due to familial confounds?

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 1278-1284
Author(s):  
Sarah-Naomi James ◽  
Anna-Sophie Rommel ◽  
Fruhling Rijsdijk ◽  
Giorgia Michelini ◽  
Gráinne McLoughlin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Preterm Birth ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Error Processing ◽  
Adhd Symptoms ◽  
Family Level ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Preterm Born

AbstractBackgroundPreterm birth is associated with an increased risk for cognitive-neurophysiological impairments and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Whether the associations are due to the preterm birth insult per se, or due to other risk factors that characterise families with preterm-born children, is largely unknown.MethodsWe employed a within-sibling comparison design, using cognitive-performance and event-related potential (ERP) measures from 104 preterm-born adolescents and 104 of their term-born siblings. Analyses focused on ADHD symptoms and cognitive and ERP measures from a cued continuous performance test, an arrow flanker task and a reaction time task.ResultsWithin-sibling analyses showed that preterm birth was significantly associated with increased ADHD symptoms (β = 0.32, p = 0.01, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.58) and specific cognitive-ERP impairments, such as IQ (β = −0.20, p = 0.02, 95% CI −0.40 to −0.01), preparation-vigilance measures and measures of error processing (ranging from β = 0.71, −0.35). There was a negligible within-sibling association between preterm birth with executive control measures of inhibition (NoGo-P3, β = −0.07, p = 0.45, 95% CI −0.33 to 0.15) or verbal working memory (digit span backward, β = −0.05, p = 0.63, 95% CI −0.30 to 0.18).ConclusionsOur results suggest that the relationship between preterm birth with ADHD symptoms and specific cognitive-neurophysiological impairments (IQ, preparation-vigilance and error processing) is independent of family-level risk and consistent with a causal inference. In contrast, our results suggest that previously observed associations between preterm birth with executive control processes of inhibition and working memory are instead linked to background characteristics of families with a preterm-born child rather than preterm birth insult per se. These findings suggest that interventions need to target both preterm-birth specific and family-level risk factors.

Corpus linguistics in language and sexuality studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heiko Motschenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
American English ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sexuality Studies ◽  
Linguistic Methodology ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Queer Linguistics ◽  
Per Se

Abstract As an introduction to the special issue, this paper presents an overview of previous corpus linguistic work in the field of language and sexuality and discusses the compatibility of corpus linguistic methodology with queer linguistics as a central theoretical approach in language and sexuality studies. The discussion is structured around five prototypical aspects of corpus linguistics that may be deemed problematic from a poststructuralist, queer linguistic perspective: quantification and associated notions of objectivity, reliance on linguistic forms and formal presence, concentration on highly frequent features, reliance on categories, and highlighting of differences. It is argued that none of these aspects rules out an application of corpus linguistic techniques within queer theoretically informed linguistic work per se and that it is rather the way these techniques are employed that can be seen as more or less compatible with queer linguistics. To complement the theoretical discussion, a collocation analysis of sexual descriptive adjectives in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is conducted in an attempt to address some of the issues raised. The concluding section makes suggestions for future research.

Working with working memory and language

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Sharwood Smith
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Storage Facility ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Memory Research ◽  
Second Language Development ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind

Working memory is generally understood to refer to a limited storage facility for information temporarily needed during online processing. It figures with increasing frequency both in studies on second language development and more widely in research on bilingual and multilingual acquisition and attrition studies. The importance of the concept to our understanding justifies the appearance of this special issue, in which both general and specifically second language (L2) oriented topics related to working memory are discussed. Unsurprisingly, working memory is a theoretical concept that remains subject to controversy since we still have much to learn about how the mind and brain work. Many researchers do not do research that focuses on the nature of memory itself but at the same time still rely on the concept and the various types of related measures that have been developed in psychology for their own investigations: for these researchers, it is still important to keep abreast of developments in memory research both within and beyond their own area.

Bilingualism matters

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole
Keyword(s):  
Birth Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
The Family ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
Future Work

The articles in this special issue provide a complex picture of acquisition in bilinguals in which the factors that contribute to patterns of performance in bilingual children’s two languages are myriad and diverse. The processes and contours of development in bilingual children are influenced, not only by the quantity, quality, and contexts of input, but by whether the child hears monolingual or bilingual speech, who is the source of that speech, the proportion of speakers of the heritage language in the community, the child’s birth order in the family, the family’s SES, the timing and the child’s stage of development, profile effects in performance, and characteristics of the languages being learned. One constant across the research is the finding that the majority language fairs well in development, while the minority language is threatened. The insights gained are relevant to future work on bilingual children, whether of a theoretical or applied focus.

scholarly journals Perspectives on working memory: introduction to the special issue

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Logie ◽  
Nelson Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Special Issue

scholarly journals Cognitive Mechanisms of Monolingual and Bilingual Children in Monoliterate Educational Settings: Evidence From Sentence Repetition

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Andreou ◽  
Ianthi Maria Tsimpli ◽  
Elvira Masoura ◽  
Eleni Agathopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Educational Setting ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Sentence Repetition

Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been extensively employed to assess bilingual children’s linguistic and cognitive resources. The present study examined whether monoliterate bilingual children differ from their monolingual (and monoliterate) peers in SR accuracy and cognitive tasks, and investigated links between vocabulary, updating, verbal and visuospatial working memory and SR performance in the same children. Participants were two groups of 35 children, 8–12 years of age: one group consisted of Albanian-Greek monoliterate bilingual children and the other of Greek monolingual children attending a monolingual-Greek educational setting. The findings demonstrate that the two groups performed similarly in the grammaticality scores of the SR. However, monolinguals outperformed the monoliterate bilinguals in SR accuracy, as well as in the visuospatial working memory and updating tasks. The findings did not indicate any bilingual advantage in cognitive performance. The results also demonstrate that updating and visuospatial working memory significantly predicted monolingual children’s SR accuracy scores, whereas Greek vocabulary predicted the performance of our monoliterate bilingual children in the same task. We attribute this outcome to the fact that monoliterate bilingual children do not rely on their fluid cognitive resources to perform the task, but instead rely on language proficiency (indicated by expressive vocabulary) while performing the SR.

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