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This dissertation examines whether enhanced executive function plays a role in successful second language acquisition (SLA). Specifically, I examine learners’ performance in language learning tasks and in three tasks argued to reflect components of Miyake et al.’s (2000) model of executive control. Many studies in the past decade have claimed to find superior performance in executive control tasks by lifelong bilinguals (e.g., Bialystok, 2011). There is also research that supports a relationship between bilingualism and success in third language acquisition (TLA) (e.g., Kaushanskaya & Marian, 2009). The purpose of the present research is to explore whether an advantage in learning an additional language might be due to enhanced executive function. If enhanced executive function aids language learning, then I expect to find a significant correlation between performance on a language learning task and performance on executive function tasks, even for learners without a history of bilingualism. In this dissertation, I first describe the literature that examines the variables that support SLA, as well as research showing a bilingual advantage in executive function. Next I present empirical studies I conducted in which monolinguals, language learners, and bilinguals were taught novel words in an unfamiliar language (Turkish) and completed a series of language learning and executive function tasks, as well as another study in which language learners and bilinguals currently enrolled in a second language course were tested in the same tasks. Results show some group effects for executive function and language learning tasks, but the results are not consistent with previous research. Furthermore, the relationship between executive function skills and language learning success is complex and inconsistent, suggesting that further research is needed.

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A persistent unanswered question in cognitive neuroscience has been what are the neural origins of human brain lateralization? Language is strongly lateralized to the left-hemisphere, however, lateralization varies with language experience. Bilinguals demonstrate a greater extent and variability of right-hemisphere involvement for language relative to monolinguals. Here, bilingualism is used as a lens into the conditions that drive brain lateralization. Why does bilingual language processing yields more robust bilateral neural activation relative to monolingual language processing? Neural activation and functional connectivity were measured to test hypotheses about the temporal dynamics of hemispheric recruitment during language processing in monolingual and bilingual children with varying ages of first bilingual language exposure. Hypothesis (1), The human brain is strongly left-hemisphere lateralized for language, but, when faced with the demands of two languages, additional right-hemisphere resources are recruited. Hypothesis (2), The human brain has the potential for enhanced dual hemispheric language processing that can be either potentiated or not based on early life bilingual versus monolingual language experience. If dual language experience places increased cognitive demands on the bilingual brain requiring additional right-hemisphere resources, asynchronous neural activation in left and right hemispheres was predicted. If dual language experience potentiates dual hemispheric language processing, synchronous neural activation in left and right hemispheres was predicted. Furthermore, only early-exposed bilinguals but not later-exposed bilinguals or monolinguals, would show synchronous neural activation across the hemispheres. Early experience with one language (monolinguals) or two languages at different times during a child's development (early-exposed bilinguals, later-exposed bilinguals) revealed differences in the time-course of activation across the two hemispheres' language areas, supporting Hypothesis (2). Monolinguals and later-exposed bilinguals showed asynchronous activation between the hemispheres. Early-exposed bilinguals showed synchronous activation between the hemispheres. The results provide a new view on how different experiences can drive lateralization in development and reveal the neural basis of bilateral activation in the bilingual brain. Synchronous temporal accessing of the hemispheres in bilinguals suggests early life bilingual language experience may support more equal and efficient hemispheric involvement, and, in turn, constitute the brain-based mechanism that makes possible the widely observed linguistic and cognitive advantages in young bilinguals.

This is a study of the effect of pre-school bilingual experience on a child's later ability to use language to help himself to think and learn - his psycholinguistic ability. The existing literature on the effect of bilinguality on children's performance gives conflicting evidence. [...]

Fourteen-month-old infants raised in a monolingual English environment confuse phonetically similar words in a word-object association task (Stager & Werker, 1997); however, older infants, who are more proficient at word learning, do not (Werker, Corcoran, Fennell, & Stager, 2000). This temporary confusion of phonetic detail occurs despite the fact that 14- month-old infants still have the ability to discriminate native language phonemes in speech perception tasks not involving word learning. Therefore, it has been hypothesized that 14- month-olds fail because linking words to objects is difficult at the beginning stages of word learning, leaving infants with insufficient attentional resources to listen closely to the words. Extending this hypothesis to infants raised in a bilingual environment generates two possibilities. (1) Bilingual infants will not show the temporary deficit at 14 months. As a function of growing up with two languages, they will have already developed a greater awareness of the sounds of words because more detail is needed to discriminate words in two languages. (2) Bilingual infants will perform at least as poorly as infants being raised with only English because of the cognitive load of learning two languages. Bilingual infants of 14 months were tested in the word-object association task using the phonetically similar labels 'bih' and 'dih' paired with two distinct and colourful moving objects. Following habituation, infants were tested on their ability to detect a 'switch' in the word-object pairing. Bilingual language exposure was assessed with a structured parental interview. The 16 infants included in the sample had been exposed to two languages from birth and had at least 30% exposure to one language and no more than 70% to the other. The results showed that, like the monolingual-learning infants of the same age, the 14-month-old bilingual-learning infants confused similar sounding words. These data are consistent with the cognitive load hypothesis, and argue against the proposition that early bilingual exposure facilitates metalinguistic awareness. Future research with slightly older bilingual word learners who have reached the age at which monolingual infants can successfully learn phonetically similar words will help to clarify if these bilingual infants maintain, or diverge from, a monolingual pattern of development.

A persistent unanswered question in cognitive neuroscience has been what are the neural origins of human brain lateralization? Language is strongly lateralized to the left-hemisphere, however, lateralization varies with language experience. Bilinguals demonstrate a greater extent and variability of right-hemisphere involvement for language relative to monolinguals. Here, bilingualism is used as a lens into the conditions that drive brain lateralization. Why does bilingual language processing yields more robust bilateral neural activation relative to monolingual language processing? Neural activation and functional connectivity were measured to test hypotheses about the temporal dynamics of hemispheric recruitment during language processing in monolingual and bilingual children with varying ages of first bilingual language exposure. Hypothesis (1), The human brain is strongly left-hemisphere lateralized for language, but, when faced with the demands of two languages, additional right-hemisphere resources are recruited. Hypothesis (2), The human brain has the potential for enhanced dual hemispheric language processing that can be either potentiated or not based on early life bilingual versus monolingual language experience. If dual language experience places increased cognitive demands on the bilingual brain requiring additional right-hemisphere resources, asynchronous neural activation in left and right hemispheres was predicted. If dual language experience potentiates dual hemispheric language processing, synchronous neural activation in left and right hemispheres was predicted. Furthermore, only early-exposed bilinguals but not later-exposed bilinguals or monolinguals, would show synchronous neural activation across the hemispheres. Early experience with one language (monolinguals) or two languages at different times during a child's development (early-exposed bilinguals, later-exposed bilinguals) revealed differences in the time-course of activation across the two hemispheres' language areas, supporting Hypothesis (2). Monolinguals and later-exposed bilinguals showed asynchronous activation between the hemispheres. Early-exposed bilinguals showed synchronous activation between the hemispheres. The results provide a new view on how different experiences can drive lateralization in development and reveal the neural basis of bilateral activation in the bilingual brain. Synchronous temporal accessing of the hemispheres in bilinguals suggests early life bilingual language experience may support more equal and efficient hemispheric involvement, and, in turn, constitute the brain-based mechanism that makes possible the widely observed linguistic and cognitive advantages in young bilinguals.

The purpose of this research was to determine if Chinese- English bicultural individuals show discomfort when conflicting behavioural norms are simultaneously activated. I first identified behaviours that differentiated Canadian and Chinese along a cultural value dimension. Participants then rated four muted video clips of female actors engaged in the behaviours that were either consistent with Chinese or Canadian behavioural norms identified earlier. Within the set four video clips, the language spoken (English versus Chinese) and the topic (representing Canadian values or Chinese values) were crossed, such that each video contained a unique combination of the language and topic. As predicted, when actors spoke Chinese, they were rated more positively for the Chinese value topic than for the Canadian value topic. Additionally, within the Canadian topic, a comparison of the language spoken revealed that actors were rated significantly more positively when they spoke English than when they spoke Chinese. Contrary to predictions, however, European-Canadians in the control condition were better than chance at guessing the language actors spoke. European-Canadians in the experimental condition and Chinese participants in either condition did not perform better than chance levels in the language guessing task. One major weakness of the study was that none of the behaviours thought to reflect Chinese culture were rated significantly differently by Chinese and European-Canadians. For that reason, the results did not completely support the predicted outcomes. Furthermore, European-Canadians’ familiarity with body language associated with speaking English may have accounted for the results of the language guessing task. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-24 15:17:20.623

Twenty-seven years after the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982, the Constitution of Canada is still not officially bilingual in its entirety. A new translation of the unilingual English texts was presented to the federal government by the Minister of Justice nearly twenty years ago, in 1990. These new French versions are the fruits of the labour of the French Constitutional Drafting Committee, which had been entrusted by the Minister with the translation of the texts listed in the Schedule to the Constitution Act, 1982 which are official in English only. These versions were never formally adopted. Among these new translations is that of the founding text of the Canadian federation, the Constitution Act, 1867. A look at this translation shows that the Committee chose to depart from the textual tradition represented by the previous French versions of this text. Indeed, the Committee largely privileged the drafting of a text with a modern, clear, and concise style over faithfulness to the previous translations or even to the source text. This translation choice has important consequences. The text produced by the Committee is open to two criticisms which a greater respect for the prior versions could have avoided. First, the new French text cannot claim the historical legitimacy of the English text, given their all-too-dissimilar origins. Its adoption through a constitutional amendment will not grant it the requisite legitimacy, as the nature of such an amendment is generally misunderstood by lawyers, let alone the ordinary citizen. In addition, the new text is, in many instances, anachronistic, as a result both of the purism and the modernism of the Committee. This desire to erase the “mistakes” of our ancestors, to “refrancize” the language of the era, leads to the drafting of a text which is entirely divorced from its original context, a text which cannot be a true reflection of the historical source text. This necessarily results in a lack of historical accuracy in the new translation. These two problems might have been avoided by giving greater weight to the translations of the past. In the current circumstances, the unreflecting adoption of the new text would have unfortunate effects for the understanding of our constitutional law and its history. / Thesis (Master, Law) -- Queen's University, 2009-10-06 18:32:47.602