Project Details
Projekt
Bilingual flexibility: The impact of dispositional and situational language balance on bilinguals’ word learning of a third language
Applicant
Tanja Charlotte Römbke, Ph.D.
Subject Area
General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
Term
since 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 548577702
Many people do not just learn two languages, but three or even more (e.g., as part of their formal school education). Yet, word learning in a third language has received relatively little research attention. When learning a novel word in a third language, one typical method is to do so by pairing it with its translation in a known language. For a bilingual person, there are two possibilities: They could encode the novel word with the translation of their most proficient language (i.e., first language) or the translation of the second most proficient language (i.e., second language). Existing research suggests that learning a novel third language via the first language leads to better acquisition outcomes than when learning via the second language. One reason for this so called first language mediation advantage may be language control. Language control is the process which translates people’s more stable level of proficiency obtained in each language (i.e., their dispositional language balance) into the situationally required language balance, leading to bilingual flexibility (e.g., during language switching). During word learning of a third language, language control may reduce interference from the language of instruction by regulating its activation, where activation of the first language may be regulated more effectively than the activation of the second language. While it is well-established that the mechanisms underlying bilingual flexibility (i.e., language control) regulate how easy it is to produce a word in one language versus another, it has not been explored how they contribute to word learning in a third language. Thus, this project will investigate in what ways word learning in a third language is impacted by adjustments in situational and dispositional language balance. To do so, unbalanced German-English bilinguals will always learn words in a new-to-them language, either via German or English. Across several experiments, we will manipulate how active participants’ languages are, both due to the shorter-term and longer-term exposure to the second language. In addition, we will also investigate in what ways the original learning context of a word (i.e., whether it was originally learned via the first or second language) subsequently impacts control processes in other language use situations (e.g., language switching). Finally, we will explore how individual differences in bilinguals’ dispositional and situational language balance predicts ease of word learning in a third language. Together, this project will deliver insights into the ways in which bilingual flexibility can be observed in the context of word learning in a third language.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Co-Investigator
Professor Dr. Iring Koch
