Cognitive control of language in the bilingual brain : behavioral and brain correlates in (a)typical populations
(2018)
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- Authors
Van der Linden, Lize 
- Supervisors
- Abstract
- The majority of the world’s population is bilingual nowadays, meaning that they are able to communicate in at least two languages. One of the most remarkable scientific findings in research on bilingualism is that multiple languages are simultaneously active in the bilingual brain, but that this rarely leads to cross-language intrusions during communication (e.g., saying a word in French while the target language is English). This shows that bilinguals have a very effective language control system that enables them to confine their speech to the appropriate language. But how exactly do bilinguals manage to keep their languages separated if they are continuously active in parallel in their mind? This question has intrigued many researchers. There is currently a scientific debate about whether language control is a language-specific mechanism or rather part of domain-general cognitive control, which manages non-verbal goal-directed behavior. In this dissertation, we postulate that studying the interactions between bilingualism and language pathologies that are (partially) linked to a cognitive control impairment might offer another perspective to obtain a better understanding of bilingual language control. The findings reported here support the idea that bilingual language control is achieved by a domain-general cognitive control mechanism rather than being language-specific. They also offer a promising framework to further investigate the precise nature of bilingual language control.
- Affiliations
Citations
Van der Linden, L. (2018). Cognitive control of language in the bilingual brain : behavioral and brain correlates in (a)typical populations. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/47773