Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Bilinguals: do they switch off one language?

Recently it happened again: in the middle of a lecture about the history of psychology, I used a German expression. I didn't even notice it at first, only the puzzled look of my students told me that something was wrong.

As I'm even thinking now more and more in English, it surprises me that occasionally German words would unconsiously sneak in when I'm speaking English. A group of Dutch psychologists now found an explanation:

Bilinguals Are Unable To 'Turn Off' A Language Completely, Study Shows

ScienceDaily (2009-08-19) -- With a vast majority of the world speaking more than one language, it is no wonder that psychologists are interested in its effect on cognitive functioning. For instance, how does the human brain switch between languages? Are we able to seamlessly activate one language and disregard knowledge of other languages completely? ... > read full article

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi there! And what a coincidence! I am a Croatian in the USA, just starting a year of the exchange program at Arizona State University in Phoenix. I am an old broadcaster trying to learn more about new media and therefore starting a blog I named Arizona 4 Outsiders. So, while browsing for similar contents I bumped in your blog. It is so fresh, funny with simple human approach to living abroad and... so European. I would love to exchange thoughts, experiences and maybe find other people from the Old Continent to interact with Fellow Americans :)

August 30, 2010 at 4:49 PM

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