Role of the Bilingual Environment and Orthography in Language and Cognitive Processing

Knowing two languages has obvious social and communication benefits, but do these benefits extend to other areas as well? Does being bilingual also improve one’s information management and decision making abilities? This field of research has opponents and proponents, but the findings are generally positive. However, these bilingual benefits only appear when the second language has been learned under specific conditions. The goal of this project is to investigate these conditions, focusing on the environment in which the second language was learned and the writing system which it uses. By using non-invasive experimental methods, it will examine cognitive skills and language skills in Japanese-English bilinguals, and compare these outcomes to English-French bilinguals, who have learned their second language in a different setting from their Japanese counterparts. This will provide valuable data about language in the mind and the skills developed as a result of speaking two languages, and has practical applications for second language education programs.

Faculty Supervisor:

Laura Sabourin

Student:

Partner:

Konan University

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

University:

University of Ottawa

Program:

Globalink Research Award