Author, as appears in the article.: Rodriguez-Fornells, Antoni; Kraemer, Ulrike M.; Lorenzo-Seve, Urbano; Festman, Julia; Muente, Thomas F.;

Department: Psicologia

URV's Author/s: Lorenzo Seva, Urbano

Keywords: Activation Bilingualism Bilinguals Brain Cognitive control Cost Executive control Interference Methodologies Model Natural language switching Psychometric Speech Young

Abstract: Language switching is omnipresent in bilingual individuals. In fact, the ability to switch languages (code switching) is a very fast, efficient, and flexible process that seems to be a fundamental aspect of bilingual language processing. In this study, we aimed to characterize psychometrically self-perceived individual differences in language switching and to create a reliable measure of this behavioral pattern by introducing a bilingual switching questionnaire. As a working hypothesis based on the previous literature about code switching, we decomposed language switching into four constructs: (i) L1 switching tendencies (the tendency to switch to L1; L1-switch); (ii) L2 switching tendencies (L2-switch); (iii) contextual switch, which indexes the frequency of switches usually triggered by a particular situation, topic, or environment; and (iv) unintended switch, which measures the lack of intention and awareness of the language switches. A total of 582 Spanish-Catalan bilingual university students were studied. Twelve items were selected (three for each construct). The correlation matrix was factor-analyzed using minimum rank factor analysis followed by oblique direct oblimin rotation. The overall proportion of common variance explained by the four extracted factors was 0.86. Finally, to assess the external validity of the individual differences scored with the new questionnaire, we evaluated the correlations between these measures and several psychometric (language proficiency) and behavioral measures related to cognitive and attentional control. The present study highlights the importance of evaluating individual differences in language switching using self-assessment instruments when studying the interface between cognitive control and bilingualism.

Thematic Areas: Administração pública e de empresas, ciências contábeis e turismo Artes Astronomia / física Biodiversidade Biotecnología Ciência da computação Ciências agrárias i Ciências ambientais Ciências biológicas i Ciências biológicas ii Ciências biológicas iii Ciencias sociales Economia Educação Educação física Enfermagem Engenharias iv Ensino Filosofía General psychology Interdisciplinar Linguística e literatura Medicina i Medicina ii Nutrição Psicología Psychology Psychology (all) Psychology (miscellaneous) Psychology, multidisciplinary Saúde coletiva

licence for use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Author's mail: urbano.lorenzo@urv.cat

Author identifier: 0000-0001-5369-3099

Record's date: 2023-02-19

Papper version: info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Link to the original source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00388/full

Papper original source: Frontiers In Psychology. 3 (JAN):

APA: Rodriguez-Fornells, Antoni; Kraemer, Ulrike M.; Lorenzo-Seve, Urbano; Festman, Julia; Muente, Thomas F.; (2012). Self-assessment of individual differences in language switching. Frontiers In Psychology, 3(JAN), -. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00388

Licence document URL: http://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/

Article's DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00388

Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Journal publication year: 2012

Publication Type: Journal Publications