Methodological issues of studying the impact of bilingualism on cognitions and ethnocultural identity

Relevance. The relevance of identifying methodological problems in the study of bilingualism and its impact on individual and social processes is due to the economic, political and socio-psychological characteristics of modern multicultural and multilingual societies. The special significance of the study of bilingualism acquire in the Russian language context. It is characterized by the need to find a balance between raising the status of the Russian language (as the main unifying factor of civil identity) and the development and preservation of the languages of the peoples of Russia (as an important component of the ethnocultural identity of their representatives).

Objective. The work is aimed at the analysis of the main methodological problems that arise during the research of bilingualism, identifying its impact on cognitive processes and the relationship of bilingualism with ethnocultural identity.

Method. From the point of view of the system approach and cultural-historical psychology, a critical analysis of studies of bilingualism, its impact on cognitive processes and the relationship with ethno-cultural identity was carried out.

Results and conclusions. Methodological problems that complicate the study of bilingualism, systematization and generalization of their results, and the application of the results in various spheres of social practice are identified. A number of methodological challenges need to be overcome in the field of studying the impact of bilingualism and multilingualism in order to obtain valid and reliable research results and implement practical, socially significant tasks in the field of preserving the languages of the peoples of Russia along with strengthening the status of the Russian language. The need for interdisciplinary studies of bilingualism and its impact on cognitive processes and ethnocultural identity based on the application of a systematic approach, including in the Russian multilingual context, is shown.

References

Baetens Beardsmore, H. (1986). Bilingualism: Basic Principles. 2nd ed. Avon (UK): Multilingual Matters.

Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Bristol, UK; Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters.

Benet-Martínez,V., Haritatos, J. (2005). Bicultural Identity Integration (BII): Components and socio-personality antecedents. Journal of Personality, 73, 1015—1049.

Benet-Martínez,V., Leu, J., Lee, F., Morris, M.W. (2002). Negotiating biculturalism: cultural frame switching in biculturals with oppositional versus compatible cultural identities. J Cross Cult Psychol, 33, 5, 492—516. DOI: 10.1177/0022022102033005005

Bialystok, E. (1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development, 70, 636—644.

Bialystok, E. (2011). Reshaping the mind: The benefits of bilingualism. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue Canadienne de Psychologie Expérimentale, 65, 4, 229—235.

Bogulski, C.A., Bice, K., Kroll, J.F. (2018). Bilingualism as a desirable difficulty: Advantages in word learning depend on regulation of the dominant language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 2018. P. 1—16. URL: https://doi-org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.1017/S1366728918000858 (Date of retrieval: 07.09.2018). DOI:10.1017/S1366728918000858

Bogus,M.B. (2008). Vliyanie bilingvizma na intellektual'noe razvitie lichnosti obuchaemyh.Vestnik Adygejskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Ser. Pedagogika i psihologiya[Bulletin of Adyghe State University. Ser. Pedagogy and psychology], 7, 47—53.

Borgoyakov, S.A., Boziev, R.S. (2018). Yazykovoe obrazovanie i nacional'no-yazykovaya politika Rossii. Nauchno-teoreticheskij zhurnal RAO «Pedagogika»[Scientific and theoretical journal RAO "Pedagogy"], 11, 3—16.

Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D., Segui, J. (1992). The monolingual nature of speech segmentation by bilinguals. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 381–410.

Daller, M., Yildiz, C., De Jong, N., et al. (2011). Language dominance in Turkish German bilinguals: Methodological aspects of measurements in structurally different languages. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 15, 2, 215—236 (Special issue: The measurement of bilingual proficiency / Ed. by M.H. Daller). DOI: 10.1177/1367006910381197 

De Houwer, A. (2005). Early bilingual acquisition: Focus on morphosyntax and the separate development hypothesis. In J. Kroll, A. de Groot (eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 30—48). N.Y.: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, C., Kuipers, J.R., Thierry, G., et al. (2015). Language and culture modulate online semantic processing. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10, 5, 1392—1396.

Ervin, S.M. (1964). Language and TAT content in bilinguals. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 68, 500—507.

Grosjean, F. (2004). Studying bilinguals: Methodological and conceptual issues. In T.K. Bhatia, W.C. Ritchie (eds.), The Handbook of Bilingualism(pp. 32—63). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Grosjean, F. (2015). Bicultural bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19, 5, 572—586.

Hammers, J.F., Blanc, M. (1989). Bilinguality and Bilingualism. Cambridge: CUP.

Holowka, S., Brosseau-Lapré, F., Petitto, L.A. (2002). Semantic and conceptual knowledge underlying bilin­gual babies’ first signs and words. Language Learning, 52, 205—262.

Huang, B.H., Jun, S. (2011). The effect of age on the acquisition of second language prosody. Language and Speech, 54, 387—414. DOI:10.1177/0023830911402599

Kharkhurin, A.V. (2015). Bilingualism and creativity: An educational perspective. In W.E. Wright, S. Boun, O. Garcia (eds.), The Handbook of Bilingual and Multilingual Education (pp. 38—55). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Leontiev,A.A. (1986). Psiholingvisticheskie i sociolingvisticheskie problemy bilingvizma v svete metodiki obucheniya nerodnomu yazyku.In Zimnyaya et al. (eds.), Psihologiya bilingvizma(v. 260, pp. 25—31). Moscow: MGPIIYa im. Morisa Tereza.

Liu,L. (2011). Social categorization and Bao in the age of AIDS: The Case of China. In I. Marková, A. Gillespie (ed.), Trust and conflict: Representation, culture and dialogue(pp. 123—136). London: Routledge.

Marian, V., Blumenfeld, H.K., Kaushanskaya, M. (2007). The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q): Assessing language profiles in bilinguals and multilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 4, 940—967. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2007/067)

Medeiros, M. (2017). The language of conflict: The relationship between linguistic vitality and conflict intensity. Ethnicities, 17, 5, 627—645.

Mikhaylov,M.M. (1969). Dvuyazychiye (printsipy i problemy)[Bilingualism (principles and problems)]. Cheboksary: Chuvash. gos. un-t im. I.N. Ul'yanova.

Pearson, B.Z., Fernández, M.C., Oller, D.K. (1993). Lexical development in bilingual infants and toddlers: Comparison to monolingual norms.Language Learning, 43, 93—120.

Petitto, L.A., Berens, M.S., Kovelman I., et al. (2012). The “Perceptual Wedge Hypothesis” as the basis for bilingual babies’ phonetic pro­cessing advantage: New Insights from fNIRS brain imaging. Brain and Language, 121, 130—143.

Printer, R., Keller, R. (1922). Intelligence tests for foreign children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 13, 1—23.

Ramírez-Esparza, N., García-Sierra, A. (2014). The bilingual brain: language, culture and identity. In Benet-Martínez V., Hong Y-Y. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Multicultural Identity: Basic and Applied Perspectives(pp. 35—56). Oxford: Oxford Library of Psychology.

Ronjat, J. (1913). Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue. Paris: Librairie ancienne H. Champion.

Saer, O.J. (1923). The effect of bilingualism on intelligence. British Journal of Psychology, 14, 25—28.

Sepir,E. (1993). Izbrannye trudy po yazykoznaniyu i kul'turologii[Selected Works on Linguistics and Cultural Studies] / Trans. from Engl. by S.A. Krylov. Moscow: Progress-Univers.

Schwartz, M., Geva, E., Share, D.L., Leikin, M. (2007). Learning to read in English as third language: The cross-linguistic transfer of phonological processing skills. Written Language and Literacy, 10, 1, 25—52.

Shaigerova, L., Zinchenko, Y. (2016). Ethnocultural identity in the modern Russian society: impact of the region. International Journal of Psychology, 51, Suppl. S1, 437—437. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12310

Shcherba,L.V. (1974). K voprosu o dvuyazychii.In Shcherba L.V. Yazykovaya sistema i rechevaya deyatel'nost'[Language system and speech activity] (pp. 313—318). Leningrad: Nauka.

Tishkov, V.A., Stepanov, V.V. (2016). Nacional'nye yazyki i etnokul'turnoe obrazovanie v regionah Rossii. In V.A. Tishkov, V.V. Stepanov (eds.), Mezhetnicheskie otnosheniya i etnokul'turnoe obrazovaniye v regionah Rossii [Interethnic relations and ethno-cultural education in the regions of Russia] (pp. 4—19). Moscow: IEA RAN.

Verbitskaya, L.A. (2015). Russkij yazyk kak gosudarstvennyj: sovremennoe sostoyanie i mery po ego ukrepleniyu i razvitiyu. Rossiyskiy GumanitarnyyZhurnal[Russian humanitarian magazine], 4, 2, 90—100. DOI: 10.15643/libartrus-2015.2.1

Verbitskaya, L.A., Malykh, S.B., Zinchenko, Y.P., Tikhomirova, T.N. (2015). Cognitive predictors of success in learning Russian. Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 8, 4, 91—100.

Vereshchagin,E.M. (1973). Psikhologicheskaya i metodicheskaya harakteristika dvuyazychiya (bilingvizma)[Psychological and methodological characteristics of bilingualism (bilingualism)]. Moscow: MSU Press.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1983a). Sobranie sochinenij: V 6 t.[Collected Works: in 6 v.], vol.5. Moscow: Pedagogika. 

Vygotsky, L.S. (1983b). Sobranie sochinenij: V 6 t. [Collected Works: in 6 v.], vol. 3. Moscow: Pedagogika.

Zhang, S., Morris, M.W., Cheng, C., Yap, A.J. (2013). Heritage-culture images disrupt immigrants’ second-language processing through triggering first language interference. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1304435110

Zinchenko,Yu.P. (2017, ed.).Rossijskaya identichnost'. Psikhologicheskoe blagopoluchie. Sotsial'naya stabil'nost'[Russian identity. Psychological well-being. Social stability]. Moscow: MSU Press.

Zinchenko, Yu.P., Shaigerova, L.A., Raevsky, A.E. (2018). Sistemnoe vliyanie dvuyazychiya i mnogoyazychiya na kognitivnoe i lichnostnoe razvitie uchastnika obrazovatel'nogo processa. Gertsenovskie chteniya: psihologicheskie issledovaniya v obrazovanii[Herzen readings: psychological studies in education] (v. 1, pp. 65—71). St. Petersburg: Izd-vo RGPU im. A.I. Gertsena.