from Part V - L3/Ln and Cognition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 July 2023
Multilingualism affects cognitive, behavioral, and neural function across the lifespan. Here, we review the neuroimaging literature on bilingualism, multilingualism, and executive functions, focusing on three multilingual groups who rely on language control to varying degrees to overcome competition from other languages: third-language learners, multilingual adults, and simultaneous interpreters. In third-language learners, changes in brain regions underlying executive functions occur during the early stages of acquiring another language. In multilingual adults, effects of language experience reflect a qualitative difference between monolingual and multilingual processing rather than cumulative effects of increased linguistic knowledge. In simultaneous interpreters, changes in gray matter volume and white matter integrity are found in areas underlying language selection and executive functions, reflecting neural efficiency due to experience with rapid translation. The implications of these findings for our understanding of multilingualism and the value of moving beyond the monolingual–bilingual dichotomy are discussed.
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