The overarching goal of the project program is to build foundations for better understanding of how different types of language experience affect cognitive and linguistic processes. More specifically, we aim at identifying factors which facilitate and hinder language skills in bilinguals. Although bilingualism and second language learning have gained a great scientific interest in the past two decades, still little is known about the precise mechanisms and conditions that help overcome language competition and that lead to an ultimately successful between-language cooperation. We want to enhance scientific understanding of how prior language experiences (e.g. language learning history and context of language use) modify the ways in which bilinguals access and control their languages.

Two types of language experience will be investigated: short-term (related to experimental manipulations) and long-term (related to a life event, i.e. migration) and their impact on language production and comprehension. Our primary focus will be on the impact on native language processing, a topic that up until recently has been largely neglected in past research on bilingualism. Moreover, we will explore how different types of language experience contribute to the hypothesized link between language control and cognitive control. At the core of the project program are the questions of the mechanisms and consequences of the interplay between language and cognition.

Principal Investigator: dr hab. Zofia Wodniecka

Support: Sonata BIS, National Science Centre