Bilingualism Across the Lifespan

Bilingualism Across the Lifespan explores the opportunities and challenges that are inherent in conducting cognitive research in an increasingly global and multilingual society. Divided into three sections, the book highlights the multifaceted and complex nature of bilingualism. The first section focuses on what every cognitive psychologist ought to know about bilingualism: the impact of bilingualism on cognition across the lifespan, the idea that bilinguals are not a special case, and the importance of bilingualism in cognitive research beyond language. The second section focuses on challenges inherent in bilingual research: diversity of bilingual experience, the assessment of proficiency, and finding matched comparison groups and materials. Finally, the book considers opportunities that are created when bilingualism is incorporated into the cognitive research enterprise. It illustrates how researchers of bilingualism leverage theory, methodology, and findings from single-language research, incorporate uniquely bilingual processes or representations, and target populations of bilinguals that help to establish universal properties. Bringing together leading international contributors, the book provides the reader with a better understanding of the nature of bilingualism and bilingual research as it relates to human cognition. It will be an essential read for all researchers and upper-level students of bilingualism and cognitive psychology more generally.

Wendy S. Francis is the Mary H. C. Stern and J. Edward Stern Endowed Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her research focuses on mental representations and processes in implicit, semantic, and associative memory, with an emphasis on bilingual memory.

1. Introduction to the Volume Wendy S. Francis Part 1: What Every Cognitive Psychologist Needs to Know about Bilingualism 2. Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism: An Evolving Perspective Ellen Bialystok 3. Bilingualism Moves us Beyond the Ideal Speaker Narrative in Cognitive Psychology Mehrgol Tiv, Ethan Kutlu, & Debra Titone 4. Including Bilingual Participants in Cognitive Research Anat Prior & Janet G. van Hell Part 2: Challenges Inherent in Cognitive Research with Bilingual Participants and Bilingual Materials 5. Diversity of Bilingual Circumstances and Implications for Language and Cognition Allison M. Wilck & Jeanette Altarriba 6. Assessment of Language Proficiency and Dominance in Monolinguals and Bilinguals Elizabeth D. Peña, Lisa M. Bedore, & Julio Torres 7. Design Challenges: Development of Bilingual Materials and Making Appropriate Comparisons Natasha Tokowicz & Tamar Degani Part 3: Opportunities Created by Including Bilingual Participants and Bilingual Materials in Cognitive Research 8. Using Existing Cognitive Constructs to Better Understand Bilingual Memory Wendy S. Francis 9. Adapting Monolingual-Based Models and Frameworks to Bilingualism: Opportunities and Obstacles Ana I. Schwartz 10. Bilingualism in Deaf and Hearing Signers: A Window into the Dynamics of Language Variation Jill P. Morford & Judith F. Kroll Index