Second Language Impact on First Language Grammatical Processing in Chinese-English Bilinguals

Most of the world speaks two or more languages and the first language clearly plays a role in learning the second, as we hear in foreign accents. But bilingualism research is now giving increased attention to effects in the opposite direction, where the second language impacts the first. This process is known as first language attrition. In 2017, Canadian researchers found the first neurocognitive evidence that immigrants begin to lose their native grammar and process their native language like their second language. However, we still do not understand how attrition occurs, and my PhD project focuses on characterizing the underlying mechanisms of attrition by studying Chinese-English bilinguals using state-of-the-art electroencephalography (EEG) methods. EEG can measure real-time language processing, and is sensitive enough to detect small processing differences. To distinguish attrition from other effects of bilingualism, I will compare different populations of Chinese-English bilinguals to monolingual Chinese controls. To this end, I am forging a new collaboration with Nanjing Normal University in China. Understanding the mechanisms of attrition is relevant for all bilinguals, and has important implications for treating language disorders in immigrant populations and language learning policy.

Faculty Supervisor:

Karsten Steinhauer

Student:

Partner:

Nanjing Normal University

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

McGill University

Program: