Bilingualism

The Sociopragmatic-Psycholinguistic Interface

Joel Walters

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781135612863
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

In the past 30 years, the study of bilingualism processing has been conducted independently by two fields, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. This volume merges these two fields, addressing one of the tough problems dividing researchers in bilingualism, conceptually as well as methodologically. Joel Walters proposes a new approach to bilingualism processing--the Sociopragmatic-Psycholinguistic (SPPL) Model--which presents language as a social phenomenon. The author accomplishes this by identifying and organizing evidence from a wide range of linguistic disciplines, merging sociopragmatics, discourse analysis, and ethnography with social cognition, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. By extension, the author offers convincing explanations of how related fields can profit from a comprehensive bilingual processing model. As a result, Joel Walters delivers a well-organized, comprehensive model that is thought through at every level.

This book appeals to graduate students, scholars in the fields of linguistics, bilingualism, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. It is useful to researchers for its comprehensiveness and methodological acumen and may be appropriate as a supplementary textbook for graduate-level courses in bilingualism or for seminars on similar topics.

1 Bilingual Phenomena

FROM PSYCHOLINGUISTICS TO SOCIAL COGNITION: TOWARD A COGNITIVE SOCIOLINGUISTICS

For a bilingual, speaking in two languages and flipping between them is as easy and as natural as breathing. It’s harder, however, to describe the phenomena of bilingualism than it is to come up with a scientifically reasonable way of talking about breath. Bilingualism is a complex facility, and any attempt to describe it, of necessity calls on distinctly different perspectives.

Within a sentence, across speaking turns, from topic to topic, setting to setting, listener to listener, bilinguals of all kinds weave their two languages in ways that mesmerize the untutored observer, not unlike a piano-violin duet. The child of a two language home, the native-born child of immigrant parents, the hearing impaired user of ASL and spoken English, the hotel desk clerk, the hospital intake nurse, the fruit vendor in the open market, the airport control tower operator, and the student on a study abroad program all play the tune in clearly different ways. There are both sociopragmatic and psycholinguistic factors involved in this duet, and it seems a matter of which–or both–perspectives one chooses. The tremendous progress in bilingualism research during the past five years, with two new journals and a variety of annual international conferences devoted solely to the topic, has created the need to adjust perspectives with a model that accounts for the breadth of progress being made.

The focus here is on bilingualism, but the center of gravity is language itself, and as such, this work chooses a linguistics that incorporates sociopragmatic as well as psycholinguistic schemata and structural as well as processing constructs to account for the variety of influences that are part of the bilingual experience and essential to explain bilingual phenomena.¹

This is not, however, the only level of complexity. When a bilingual speaks, even in the most extravagantly codeswitched sentence, words come out in an ordered, linear sequence. The factors that make this take place are densely layered and largely non-sequential. A bilingual might decide to choose a word or phrase based on participants in the conversation, the memory of similar previous interactions, the inability to match tenses, a stutter brought upon by the genre called for in the particular time or place, and the tools and impediments of routine and inclination she uses to stay focused on target while hearing and talking in two languages.

The dynamic nature of the various influences which created that linear codeswitched sentence make it intuitively obvious that structure alone will do a poor job of accounting for this dense interactive layering, and we need to go beyond the structure-function divide and incorporate the notions of both structure and processing into a sociopragmatic-psycholinguistic model. Things start to get complicated before we have even started the first sketch of the model that makes up this book.

To make navigation through this multidimensional construct easier and more productive, I have adopted a matrix-oriented approach that specifies how information flows through the model in a process of constant interaction with non-linear elements of consciousness, language and surroundings. The matrix with its granular foundations creates order, and may also be useful to identify areas of scientific interest worthy of future research or dialogue.

The methodological goals of the present work also aim for broad scope-including variety in data gathering settings and techniques. Research on social aspects of bilingualism is typically based on ethnographic field research or on ‘reported language use’ from interviews or questionnaires. Psycholinguistic studies, on the other hand, are generally conducted in laboratory settings, and tend to ignore social aspects of bilingualism. Both orientations tend to make assumptions based on aggregated data from anonymous individuals or groups, even when the real interest is individual bilingualism. Another purpose is to bring together a range of research settings and methodological approaches, while trying to make the methodology an integral part of substantive theory (e.g. Anderson, 1996).

Professional translators know that the act of converting complex thoughts and images into another language often exposes problems that are superficially imperceptible to the native reader because semantic differences in concepts across languages tend to test the chains of argumentation. Those acts of translation go beyond the words and grammar of a particular sentence or paragraph, beyond the structure of the source text. They depend on whatever we choose to call meaning–a kind of substance that the act of translation moves from one context with its places, people and language to another.

Analogously, a model of bilingual processing must by default test the robustness and resilience of monolingual models and concepts, not because it sets out to do so, but because the transposition of assumptions, models and theoretical constructs to a two language situation can expose cracks in seemingly solid foundations. We must not forget that bilingualism is not a ‘special case’ with unique phenomena. Many hundreds of millions of people are bilingual and language models have to take this into account. This book does not intend to enter the labyrinth of monolingual processing, but if that does happen to the reader, it will be fortuitously interesting.

The book is structured as follows: Chapter 1 describes the issues, delineates some borders and raises the big questions it is hoped this book will have some part in answering. Chapter 2 describes the depth of work and context created by those researchers in the field whose work is most relevant to this investigation. Chapters 3 and 4 are the heart of the book, with Chapter 3 describing the structure of the Sociopragmatic Psycholinguistic (SPPL) Model and Chapter 4 specifying the processing mechanisms in the model. In Chapter 5 we return to use the SPPL Model to explain unique bilingual phenomena, and in Chapter 6 to look at applications–to language acquisition, language loss, and language disturbances.

The rest of this chapter proceeds as follows: After situating the study of bilingualism in a range of disciplines that deal with language contact and doing some simple fence work, I lay out some issues in cognitive science this work relates to. Then I introduce the SPPL Model along with the phenomena the model intends to account for. Finally, I present four arguments motivating the need for the model.

To summarize, an integrated framework to study bilingualism is intended:

	to show that language is essentially a social phenomenon
	to delineate the interaction between structures and processes in bilingualism
	to create a clearinghouse for examining data from the various disciplines involved in researching bilingualism
	to show that methodology does not have to be compromised to accommodate sociopragmatic as well as psycholinguistic phenomena

SITUATING BILINGUALISM: CONSTRAINTS, BORDERS AND LIMITS

The limits of this book are indicative of its biases, and implicitly indicative of those with whom we wish to engage in dialogue. Some of the biases have already been referred to. There are several others that need to be made more explicit, with reasons given for the roads not taken.

Three related (but relatively independent) lines of research have addressed some of the issues in this book: second language acquisition, cross-linguistic studies, and bilingualism.

Second language acquisition (SLA) studies have been concerned with the course of development as well as with processes and strategies at various stages of language learning. Data collection in SLA studies tends to be motivated recently by linguistic theory, focused on structural or functional aspects of spoken language and based on natural language speech samples. Generally, this line of research has been less interested in social and pragmatic aspects of language use, be it language use in social contexts or language use and processing in laboratory experiments. On the other hand, language use is the primary focus of this work. (For exceptions to this trend in SLA, see the work in inter-language pragmatics, Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Kasper, 2001 and studies on age and critical period, Birdsong, 1999.)

Cross-linguistic studies take language structure and language acquisition as primary concerns. They are usually conducted in the framework of generative linguistic theory, following the lead of first language acquisition research. The present work is interested in structure and generative theory only as much as it can tell us something about bilingual processing and bilingual individuals.

Studies in bilingualism have proliferated so widely and rapidly in recent years that most scholars will now find it difficult even to keep up with the reading. A great deal of bilingual research has roots in both sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic approaches, but by and large bilingual studies have followed disciplinary tracks. My focus on structural as well as functional aspects of bilingualism is an attempt to integrate methods and findings in a model of bilingual processing.²

To attempt this synthesis, I had to sacrifice comprehensive coverage of the wealth of bilingualism research published recently. In choosing to enter into dialogue with a particular researcher, I have sought those works that address questions of processing as well as representation, the sociopragmatic as well as the psycholinguistic. In doing so, primarily syntactic/structural approaches to the study of second language acquisition (e.g. Epstein, Flynn, & Martohardjono, 1996), bilingual codeswitching (e.g. MacSwan, 2000; Poplack, 1997), and contact linguistics (e.g. Winford, 2002) are largely ignored. Poplack’s goals and assumptions will help clarify why. Her main interest is to address questions in linguistic theory, which focus on language and its structure, rather than on use and processing. In Poplack’s words: “A primary goal of any study of language mixture is to determine the properties of internal grammars of bilinguals” (1997:199). Her assumption is that structural analysis should precede and guide sociolinguistic investigation (1997:178).

Poplack’s approach is specifically concerned with grammatical constraints on codeswitching. In this tradition, the grammar is autonomous while the speaker is subservient to the syntax. This orientation fits well with interests in language as an autonomous system, but not with a focus on integrating social and psycholinguistic aspects of processing, where the speaker’s intentions and behavior may be more important than the grammar.

The present work also slights developmental issues, focusing on processing in language use. Thus, Pienemann’s (1998) contributions to the role of processing in second language acquisition and developmental studies of bilingualism (e.g. Bialystok, 2001; Dopke, 1992; Muller & Hulk, 2001) are not treated here. In the same vein, research that examines correlations between bilingualism and cognitive development is not referred to explicitly (e.g. Cummins, 1991).

Beyond the ten models and approaches reviewed here explicitly (see Chapter 2), there are others potentially relevant for their interactive and processing perspectives, e.g. Dijkstra’s Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA) Model (Van Heuven, Dijkstra, & Grainger, 1998), Emmorey’s (2003) studies of bilingual signers, and Herdina and Jessner’s (2001) Dynamic Model of trilingualism. Although this work is not examined in detail, due to limitations of space and in the interests of simplicity, it is referred to when relevant, for example, when issues such as language tags and interactivity come up.

Beyond the domestic concerns of these three disciplines spawned by an interest in the study of bilingualism, there are general issues in cognitive science that bear on the work that follows. Three such issues are introduced in the following section.

BETWEEN MIND AND METHOD: THE COGNITIVE PRISM OF BILINGUALISM

The attempt to create an integrated framework for the study of social and psychological aspects of bilingualism raises several issues: one substantive, another methodological, and a third which is as yet unresolvable, but is becoming so important that it deserves serious consideration by anyone conducting research in the field.

	The substantive issue is how to get at the hinges that link structure and processing. The position here is that those hinges are in fact the intentions of the individual bilingual speaker manifested through various stages of speech production. Language data, from codeswitching in spontaneous speech to latencies in bilingual lexical decision tasks, need to be evaluated in terms of the roles that intentionality, will, and purpose play in human behavior. The idea of a stimulus as the beginning of a linear chain that causes a response is very different from the notion of a stimulus in a human being who should give himself some credit for intentional behavior if he chooses to write about the subject.
	A problem that has haunted social psychologists and has only recently begun to raise its specter in the study of bilingualism is the discrepancy between attitudes and behavior. Voters don’t always respond in pre-election surveys in the same ways they vote; and bilinguals don’t always speak straight about codeswitching even though they codeswitch fluently and frequently. This problem is important for integrating data about language attitudes with findings about language behavior, in laboratory tasks as well as in field-based investigations. Even a tentative resolution of this question is needed to assess the kind of data that would be both relevant and desirable in the integrated study of sociopragmatic and psycholinguistic information in bilingual processing.
	A third issue, not addressed expressly in this book, but which is likely to increase in importance as new technologies expose more and more detail about the anatomy and physiology of the brain, is the language-brain connection. In neurolinguistics, this issue revolves around ‘localization of function,’ but it goes beyond, touching on the extent to which structure (of the brain) and processing (of language) are mapped one onto the other. In second language acquisition, one question that follows from this one is whether cognitive activity, for example, when a monolingual learns a second language, might bring about changes in human neurobiology. An affirmative response to this question helps make an argument for a bilingual processing model that is more than just a monolingual clone. For studies of bilingualism, this question is reversed, and monolingual processing is seen as a subset of plurilingual processing. The question then becomes: How does the human brain, eminently capable of multi-tasking, function in a situation of reduced cognitive demand such as monolingual processing?

These three issues, addressed briefly here, form different parts of the book which follows, the first as a core part of the argument, the second as methodological subtext, and the third as something for the reader to keep in the back of his/her mind.

CONSISTENT ENDS BY VARIABLE MEANS: A ROLE FOR INTENTION AND VARIATION

Two constructs that have yet to come under close scrutiny in bilingual research are intention and variation. Often, in what’s considered the ‘best’ of experimental psychology, the only place ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Bilingual Phenomena
• 2 Ten Perspectives on Bilingualism
• 3 A Functional Architecture of Bilingualism
• 4 Four Processing Mechanisms in Bilingual Production
• 5 Accounting for Bilingual Phenomena with the SPPL Model
• 6 Acquisition, Attrition, and Language Disturbances in Bilingualism
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index