Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of second language on cognition in English users of L2 Japanese
AU - Athanasopoulos, Panos
AU - Kasai, Chise
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - It is now established that certain cognitive processes such as categorisation are tightly linked to the concepts encoded in language. Recent studies have shown that bilinguals with languages that differ in their concepts may show a shift in their cognition towards the L2 pattern primarily as a function of their L2 proficiency. This research has so far focused predominantly on L2 users who started learning the L2 in childhood or early puberty. The current study asks whether similar effects can be found in adult L2 learners. English speakers of L2 Japanese were given an object classification task involving real physical objects, and an online classification task involving artificial novel objects. Results showed a shift towards the L2 pattern, indicating that some degree of cognitive plasticity exists even when a second language is acquired later in life. These results have implications for theories of L2 acquisition and bilingualism, and contribute towards our understanding of the nature of the relationship between language and cognition in the L2 user’s mind
AB - It is now established that certain cognitive processes such as categorisation are tightly linked to the concepts encoded in language. Recent studies have shown that bilinguals with languages that differ in their concepts may show a shift in their cognition towards the L2 pattern primarily as a function of their L2 proficiency. This research has so far focused predominantly on L2 users who started learning the L2 in childhood or early puberty. The current study asks whether similar effects can be found in adult L2 learners. English speakers of L2 Japanese were given an object classification task involving real physical objects, and an online classification task involving artificial novel objects. Results showed a shift towards the L2 pattern, indicating that some degree of cognitive plasticity exists even when a second language is acquired later in life. These results have implications for theories of L2 acquisition and bilingualism, and contribute towards our understanding of the nature of the relationship between language and cognition in the L2 user’s mind
KW - Linguistic relativity
KW - second language acquisition
KW - Triads matching task
KW - Object categorization
KW - L2 Japanese
M3 - Journal article
VL - 8
SP - 13
EP - 27
JO - Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics
JF - Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics
ER -