FOR 5905:  Bilingual Flexibility – The Psychology of Language Control

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 548577702

Bilingualism refers to the ability to communicate in more than one language. Bilingual speakers need to flexibly select the intended target language and resolve interference from the non-target language in line with current communicative demands. This selection demand is particularly challenging when speaking in a less proficient language due to competition with the more proficient language. Thus, language balance is a crucial factor affecting the ease with which a language is selected. Bilingual flexibility requires the resolution of between-language competition based on context-sensitive cognitive language control processes. The proposed Research Unit (RU) is aimed at refining the concept of language balance to account for the flexibility of bilingual language use. We propose a framework assuming that cognitive mechanisms of language control can shift a bilingual’s dispositional (i.e., longer-term) balance between two (or more) languages to a context-sensitive, situational language balance that guides current language use. The RU will use this framework to examine bilingual flexibility at several levels. Our focus will be on (1) short-term shifts of language balance due to language control processes responding to task and social demands, and (2) longer-term adaptations of dispositional language balance due to language learning and development. The expertise of our group will allow us to investigate bilingual flexibility using a broad methodological approach, including cognitive-behavioural and neuroscientific methods. Specifically, the RU will examine bilingual flexibility with respect to cognitive mechanisms (e.g., inhibition of non-target language), learning mechanisms (e.g., word learning in second- or third-language acquisition), its social-cultural embedding (e.g., interactive, communicative settings), and applied contexts (e.g., bilingual work environments). Our approaches are united by a psychological and cognitive perspective on language control as the mechanism underlying bilingual flexibility.

• DFG Programme: Research Units

Projects

• Bilingual flexibility: How everyday fluctuations in language environment shape short-term language control and long-term language adaptation (Applicant Neubauer, Andreas )
• Bilingual flexibility: Item- and language-specific situational language balance (Applicant Philipp, Andrea M. )
• Bilingual Flexibility: Language control in the interplay of cross-linguistic transfer and language prediction in morphosyntactic processing for adults and children (Applicant Günther, Thomas )
• Bilingual flexibility: Partner-adapted language balance and bilingual switching in social interaction (Applicants Koch, Iring ;  Kuhlen, Ph.D., Anna Katharina )
• Bilingual Flexibility: The Impact of Background Language on Verbal Performance and Situational Language Balance (Applicants Kuhlen, Ph.D., Anna Katharina ;  Schlittmeier, Sabine Janina )
• Bilingual flexibility: The impact of dispositional and situational language balance on bilinguals’ word learning of a third language (Applicant Römbke, Ph.D., Tanja Charlotte )
• Bilingual Flexibility: The Neurocognitive Basis of Language Control and Adaptation (Applicant Heim, Stefan )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Kuhlen, Ph.D., Anna Katharina )

• Spokesperson: Professorin Anna Katharina Kuhlen, Ph.D.