31.2472, Review: Neurolinguistics; Sociolinguistics: Schwieter, Paradis (2019)
The LINGUIST List
linguist at listserv.linguistlist.org
Wed Aug 5 02:02:04 UTC 2020
LINGUIST List: Vol-31-2472. Tue Aug 04 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 31.2472, Review: Neurolinguistics; Sociolinguistics: Schwieter, Paradis (2019)
Moderator: Malgorzata E. Cavar (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Student Moderator: Jeremy Coburn
Managing Editor: Becca Morris
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Everett Green, Sarah Robinson, Lauren Perkins, Nils Hjortnaes, Yiwen Zhang, Joshua Sims
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
Editor for this issue: Jeremy Coburn <jecoburn at linguistlist.org>
================================================================
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2020 22:01:42
From: Teresa Ong [ongtesa at gmail.com]
Subject: The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Multilingualism
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36607997
Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-1647.html
EDITOR: John W Schwieter
EDITOR: Michel Paradis
TITLE: The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Multilingualism
PUBLISHER: Wiley
YEAR: 2019
REVIEWER: Teresa Wai See Ong, Griffith University
SUMMARY
The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Multilingualism, edited by John W.
Schwieter, comprises five parts. There is a special forward by Michel Paradis,
an emeritus professor who plays a vital role in the field of neurolinguistics
and psycholinguistics, followed by an overview of the handbook, written by
John W. Schwieter and Rebecca Mueller. The handbook also includes a list of
figures and tables, and an index.
Part I, entitled Theories and Methods, consists of eight articles defining the
concepts related to multilingualism. The first chapter, written by Kess de
Bot, defines multilingualism and provides models of multilingualism. The
second chapter by Edna Andrews discusses some foundational concepts in
linguistic theory and provides a glance at fMRI studies of languages. In the
third chapter, Angela Grant, Jennifer Legault, and Ping Li talk about the
bilingual interactive activation model and the extended versions. The fourth
chapter by Eleonora Rossi, Kyra Krass, and Gerrit Jan Kootstra presents an
overview of the major behavioural psycholinguistic methods that were used to
investigate bi- and multilingual language processing. This part is continued
by Nicole Y. Y. Wicha, Eva María Moreno, and Haydée Carrasco-Ortíz who discuss
the methods used for studying the multilingual brain and present techniques to
address the questions regarding the multilingual brain. In the next chapter,
Angélique M. Blackburn deals with neuroimaging techniques to clarify our
understanding of multilingual speech. Ludmila Isurin lists studies
investigating memory traces of a forgotten language, while Vincent DeLuca,
David Miller, Christos Pliatsikas, and Jason Rothman end this part with a
review of EEG/ERP and FMRI data in search of the best account to address
questions related to age for language acquisition/processing.
Part II, Neural Representations, includes eight articles on language
organisation in the brain (Nicola Del Maschio and Jubin Abutalebi), bilingual
word production (Jana Klaus and Herbert Schriefers), brain plasticity
(Christos Pliatsikas), factors affecting cortical representation (Angélique M.
Blackburn), individual differences in non-native speech perception (Begoña
Díaz, Miguel Burgaleta, and Nuria Sebastian-Galles), lexical organisation
(Gary Libben and John W. Schwieter), emotion concepts (Stephanie A. Kazanas,
Jared S. Mclean, and Jeanette Altarriba), and humour representation (Jennifer
Hofmann and Frank A. Rodden). Each article is distinctive in its own
discussion on various functional neuroanatomy representations of the
multilingual brain, and most authors conclude their articles by offering
recommendations for further research. Hofmann and Rodden end the section by
reviewing several case studies to provide insights into the processing of
humour as a cognitive task.
Part III, called Functions and Processes, is comprised of nine chapters.
First, Peter Bright, Julia Ouzia, and Roberto Filippi explore the process of
metacognition. Second, Edalat Shekari and John W. Schwieter discuss the
factors, including age of acquisition, that affect multilingual processing.
Third, Allison M. Wilck, Jeanette Altarriba, Roberto R. Heredia, and John W.
Schwieter examine the function of learning and memory in the bilingual brain.
This is followed by a chapter, written by Zahra Hejazi, Jungna Kim, Teresa
Signorelli Pisano, Yasmine Ouchikh, Aviva Lerman, and Loraine K. Obler, on
second language learning in older adults and brain-based challenges related to
the learning. In the next chapter, David W. Green explores the relationship
between language control and attentional states during a conversation. This
latter chapter is continued by another discussion on the relationship between
language and executive control, written by Marco Calabria, Cristina Baus, and
Albert Costa. Subsequently, Paola E. Dussias, Jorge R. Valdés Kroff, Anne L.
Beatty-Martínez, and Michael A. Johns gather information about cognition based
on an analysis of language experience, while Bruce J. Diamond and Geogory M.
Shreve investigate the implications for executive control and neuroplasticity
in the bilingual brain in relation to cross-language activity such as
translation and interpreting. The last chapter, written by Anna
Siyanova-Chanturia, Paolo Canal, and Roberto R. Heredia, explores
event-related potentials in both monolingual and bilingual language
processing.
Part IV – Impairments and Disorders – is comprised of six chapters related to
various clinical conditions that affect language learning, comprehension, and
production. Elisa Cargnelutti, Barbara Tomasino, and Franco Fabbro begin by
providing insights into conceptual overlap related to the process of
metacognition. Claudia Peñaloza and Swathi Kiran continue the discussion by
primarily looking at the pre-morbid language-related and lesion factors that
affect the degree of language impairment. Taryn Malcolm, Aviva Lerman, Marta
Korytkowska, Jet M. J. Vonk, and Loraine K. Obler focus on reporting three
variations of aphasia in bilinguals and multilinguals: non-fluent, semantic,
and logopenic. Mira Goral’s chapter presents an exploration into reading
disorders in bilinguals. Mariana Vega-Mendoza, Suvarna Alladi, and Thomas H.
Bak continue by looking at the types of dementia that have small or great
effects on multilinguals. Finally, Daria Smirnova, Sveta Fichman, and Joel
Walters attempt to isolate language phenomena by providing a detailed
description of the linguistic characteristics of schizophrenia and
bilingualism.
Part V, Cognitive and Neurocognitive Consequences, has five chapters. In the
beginning chapter, Hannah L. Claussenius-Kalman and Arturo E. Hernandez take
on a developmental perspective by discussing the neurocognitive effects of
multilingualism. This is followed by Yanping Dong and Fei Zhong’s report on
the intense bilingual experience of interpreting. Kenneth Paap debates on the
bilingual advantage in the next chapter through both qualitative and
quantitative evidence. Angela de Bruin and Sergio Della continue the debate by
looking at publication biases. The final chapter in this handbook, written by
Robin L. Thompson and Eva Gutierrez-Sigut, compares speech-sign bilinguals
with spoken language bilinguals.
EVALUATION
In the current globalised era, bilingualism and multilingualism are considered
the norms in the world’s population. Over the last 30 years, their importance
has drawn much attention among the research community with mass migration
worldwide, increasing travel, and development of electronic communication.
Today, many researchers have moved away from the Chomskyan view of language
apprehension. Instead, they view language as “grounded in mechanisms of
sensory processing and motor control” (Paradis, 2019, p. xxxiii). Hence,
various neuroscientific approaches are employed to study bilingualism and
multilingualism and to discover valuable insights about how the brain handles
various languages. Nevertheless, many questions regarding the relationship
between the brain and language remain unanswered and therefore this handbook
compiles answers to those questions.
The answers are divided into five parts. In the first part, various theories
and methods used for examining the multilingual brain are discussed. What is
interesting in this part is the extensive synthesis that covers foundational
aspects of theory and mechanisms involved in the study of brain and language.
In the second part, diverse examples of neural representations that
demonstrate the unique functional anatomy of cognition are presented. Such
studies have given remarkable insights into the processing and production of
languages in the brain. The third part continues by exploring the functions
and processes of learning and memory in the multilingual brain, while the
fourth part further examines language impairments and disorders. Both parts
are carefully linked – when a reader is informed of the multilingual
processing of the brain, the reader will inevitably have queries regarding
clinical conditions that affect the processing – and that is when both parts
would provide significant answers to the reader’s queries. The final part
engages with discussions on the neurocognitive effects of multilingualism. An
interesting chapter to take note of in this part concerns publication bias –
positive findings have higher probability of getting published as compared to
null findings. Such bias brings further debate among researchers regarding the
significance of presenting all data in regard to the results obtained and
that reviewers should be fair when evaluating manuscripts regardless of the
results presented.
The handbook has successfully achieved its goal in compiling answers to those
unanswered questions. First, it serves as a window for researchers to probe
into studying the multilingual brain, and second, the review of case studies
in various chapters supports further examination and analysis that corresponds
to the current trend in this field. Although some chapters include a table of
past case studies, I find the lack of newly conducted experiments hinders my
understanding of certain theories. It would be beneficial if results from the
newly conducted experiments were integrated. A list of further references
should also be included within each chapter to make everything clearer. Note
that some chapters needed the reader to have basic knowledge of the topic
prior to reading.
Overall, this handbook presents an inclusive evaluation from various scholars,
ranging from psychologists to applied linguists, who have come together to
raise key issues and theories on the literature of neuroscience of
multilingualism. It also includes a chapter on speech-sign bilingualism, which
is rarely seen in such a handbook, but it is worth reading and learning about
a vulnerable group. With concrete review of past studies in most chapters,
this handbook should be of interest to scholars and students in this field.
Most importantly, seeing those studies allows us to better understand the
complex phenomenon of multilingualism.
REFERENCES
Paradis, M. (2019). Special foreword. In J. W. Schwieter (Ed.), The handbook
of the neuroscience of multilingualism (pp. xxxiii – xxxvii). West Sussex:
Wiley Blackwell.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Teresa Wai See Ong receives her doctorate in sociolinguistics from Griffith
University in Australia. Her research interests include heritage language
maintenance, language planning and policy, language and identity, and
bilingualism and multilingualism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*************************** LINGUIST List Support ***************************
The 2019 Fund Drive is under way! Please visit https://funddrive.linguistlist.org
to find out how to donate and check how your university, country or discipline
ranks in the fund drive challenges. Or go directly to the donation site:
https://iufoundation.fundly.com/the-linguist-list-2019
Let's make this a short fund drive!
Please feel free to share the link to our campaign:
https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-31-2472
----------------------------------------------------------
More information about the LINGUIST
mailing list