A Systematic Review on Bilingualism and Language Processing from 2015-2019

Abstract

Over the past few decades, research on bilingualism has been extensively covered but still leaves room for much to be discovered especially in the context of language processing. There is a lack in systematic review on studies that examine the trends, effects, methodological approaches, challenges and limitations on bilingualism in relation to language processing. Therefore, this article aims to offer current understanding on bilingualism and language processing through a process of a critical analysis and synthesis. A total of 20 articles published from 2015-2019 in peer-reviewed journals both abroad and locally were selected to be included in this review for content analysis. Hence, this paper attempts to give a systematic report on the findings categorized by trends, effects, methodological approaches, challenges and limitations. Few main findings emerged: (a) An increasing trend in the study on internal language processing and individual factors affecting bilingualism; (b) The existence of inconsistent effects; (c) The need to re-evaluate methodological approaches; and (d) The lack of research conducted in Malaysia. This review also provides suggestions and opportunities for future research in bilingualism and language processing.

Eye Tracking in Measuring the Relation of Anaphor Processing, Reading Fluency and Working Memory (WM) Capacity among University Students

“…Just and Carpenter (1992) pointed out that WM capacity has the potential to provide adequate and accurate explanations of individual variations in language comprehension and processing efficiency during reading tasks. In reading tasks, WM capacity is highly influential whereby it must be allocated to the various processes involved in act ivating lexical representations and integrating them into developing syntactic and discourse representations (Caplan & Waters, 1990, 1999MacDonald & Christiansen, 2002;Soh, Hazita & Ho, 2020), such as anaphoric processing. It is presumed that large WM capacit ies increased the ability of individuals to execute more processes in a g iven period of time and thus shorter fixation durations.…”

Grammatical Features in Language Contact Setting: The Case of 3è and 1ère students of GBHS Koza and GHS Mozogo

“…According to some authors (Goebl & Nelde, 1997;Myers-Scotton & Carol 2002;Winford, 2003), the roots of contact linguistics can be traced back to the end of the eighteenth century when lexicographers, collecting material for dictionaries, encountered the problem of numerous words of foreign origin, which they were compelled to analyse and decide whether to include in their dictionaries, and to what extent. As interest in these problems grew, some authors examined borrowing (Daulton, 2008;Ogasawara, 2008;Ramat, Othman & Unin, 2019;Soh, Azman & Su-Mei, 2020) as the consequence of language contact, which in turn makes two languages in contact to influence each other (Bennui, 2019;Ferrer & Sankoff, 2004;Piller, 2004), creating a sort of bilingualism (Ayafor, 2005;Fishman, 1967;Kouega, 2018;Romaine, 1989;Sosso, 2020). Moreover, code-switching/code-mixing (Myers-Scotton, 1993aOtundo & Mühleisen, 2022;Panhwar & Buriro, 2020;Tabe, 2023;Wardhaugh, 2010) is considered as a social dynamic in bilingual or multilingual discourse and so is language shift (Gal, 1979;Tasah, 2023).…”

Examining Co-activation Through Cross-Linguistic Influence among Bilinguals in Spoken Language Processing: Evidence from Eye Movements

“…This is because the AoA is also often associated with language proficiency as the critical period for language development determines the level of possible proficiency especially in second language acquisition, which in turns affects the level of language activation in bilinguals as proposed by Grosjean (2001). However, there is a paucity of studies conducted on how AoA affects the bilingual experience specifically in the language processing context (Soh, Hazita & Ho, 2020). Hence, this study aims to examine how individual difference in the AoA, which classifies bilinguals into early and late bilinguals, influences language processing.…”