Not All Bilinguals Are the Same: A Call for More Detailed Assessments and Descriptions of Bilingual Experiences

de Bruin, Angela · 2019 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3390/bs9030033

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This review paper addresses the inconsistency in research regarding whether bilingualism enhances executive functioning. The author argues that these conflicting findings stem from treating "bilingualism" as a monolithic category, ignoring the significant heterogeneity in individual bilingual experiences. The paper calls for more detailed, objective, and standardized assessments of bilingual participants to better understand how specific language experiences—such as age of acquisition, proficiency, usage patterns, and switching contexts—modulate cognitive processes. The author reviews existing literature on how various aspects of bilingualism relate to executive control. Key variables discussed include age of acquisition (AoA), where early bilinguals are often distinguished from late learners, though definitions vary widely. Proficiency is examined, noting that it is frequently confounded with AoA and often measured via unreliable self-reports. The review also highlights the importance of language use and switching, referencing the Adaptive Control Hypothesis, which posits that cognitive demands differ depending on whether bilinguals use languages in separate contexts (single-language), mixed contexts with different interlocutors (dual-language), or freely switch within conversations (dense code-switching). A significant portion of the paper critiques current measurement practices. The author notes that while most studies report proficiency and AoA, fewer than half provide objective proficiency scores, and many lack detailed descriptions of language use and switching. Self-reported proficiency is shown to be biased by participants' social comparisons and backgrounds, leading to inconsistencies across studies. The review evaluates several assessment tools, including the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q), the Multilingual Naming Test (MINT), and the Bilingual Switching Questionnaire (BSWQ). It advocates for a multi-method approach, combining self-reports with objective tests (e.g., picture-naming tasks, lexical decision tasks) and contextual questionnaires (e.g., LSBQ) to capture the multidimensional nature of bilingual experience. The significance of this work lies in its methodological recommendations for the field. The author concludes that to resolve debates on bilingual advantages, researchers must move beyond broad categorizations. Future studies should employ comprehensive batteries of assessments that objectively measure proficiency and detail the sociolinguistic context of language use and switching. By distinguishing between controlled and free switching contexts and using standardized metrics, researchers can more accurately identify which specific bilingual experiences, if any, are associated with enhanced executive functioning. This approach is crucial for improving the reliability of individual studies and enabling meaningful comparisons in meta-analyses.

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed.

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• individual differences