The danger of bilingual–monolingual comparisons in applied psycholinguistic research

Abstract

The pervasive monolingual bias present within many societies threatens the well-being of bilingual children and their families. Unfortunately, such bias is present in much psycholinguistic research as well. Bilingual–monolingual comparisons with methodological approaches upholding monolingual norms are not equitable to bilinguals. We do not need such comparisons to learn more about bilingual use and processing. Instead, psycholinguistic research investigating the impact of different kinds of environments for language learning, use, and processing within bilingual populations can be transformative. Applied psycholinguistic research with an increased focus on investigating all the languages bilingual children and their families need for day-to-day communication, and on the factors supporting their learning and use, can help inform educators, policy makers, and language and speech professionals. This will hopefully contribute to the well-being of the people we study.

Towards a just and equitable applied psycholinguistics

“…Importantly, Leivada et al share how impactful the arbitrary lines of language borders are: Many dialects that could be labeled as different languages are not actually able to be labeled as such due to geographical borders, which complicates the study of those individuals who do speak these varieties. In a piece titled “The danger of bilingual–monolingual comparisons in applied psycholinguistic research” De Houwer (2023, this issue) summarizes years of research on how pursuing monolingualism in bilinguals has direct impacts on the well-being of bilinguals.…”

Subcortical and cerebellar volume differences in bilingual and monolingual children: An ABCD study

“…Over half of the world’s population is functionally bilingual ( Grosjean, 2010 , Wolck, 1988 ). Yet, monolingual language development is still considered the norm in various fields of research (i.e., monolingual bias; Barratt, 2018 ; Bhatia, 2017 ; De Houwer, 2023 ; Grosjean, 2008 ). In fact, understanding the development of the bilingual brain is an important topic in developmental neuroscience research ( Byers-Heinlein et al, 2019 , Claussenius-Kalman et al, 2021 , Kroll and Fricke, 2014 , Li, 2015 , Petitto, 2009 ).…”