Ìàðö³ÿø
Ì.Ç.
Òåðíîï³ëüñüêèé
íàö³îíàëüíèé ïåäàãîã³÷íèé
óí³âåðñèòåò ³ìåí³ Â. Ãíàòþêà
The Neurolinguistic Substrate of Bilingual Writing
Analyzing the outlook of a bilingual writer, it is very important to
examine deeper the neuropsychological substrate of this problem, which lies in
the basis of the bilingual writing and which the bilingual writing, in its
turn, may influence on.
It is the accumulated evidence that the brain is much more flexible for
language than had previously been assumed, that individual human brains are
more idiosyncratically organized for language than had been thought, and that
patterns of hemispheric participation in the same adult individual may vary at
different stages of life and of new-language acquisition.
But a part of neurolinguists assert that neither bilingual writer has
ever achieved fame as a poet or a
prose writer in two languages and cultures. The psychologist B. Ananjev explains the phenomenon of bilingualism by the law
of psychological asymmetry (sited from [2, p. 45]):
the leading language of a bilingual is the language which appears to be the
greatest correspondence between the process of thinking and language means in.
Other languages are functionally weaker, and perform an additional, secondary
part. It is established that both hemispheres take part in the native language
acquisition, but in the acquisition of any other – mainly the left one.
That is why only the native language can contribute to the literary writing.
However, the creative work of V. Nabokov
evidences the fact that a person can perfectly write in both languages.
In recent years, studies have reported considerable right-hemisphere
involvement in language processing even for right-handed mails, particularly
during the learning of the second language if it is acquired after the first
language has been firmly established. The manner in which the second language
is learned may also be an important factor in the extent to which the right
hemisphere participates, particularly in the earlier stages of acquisition.
In the face of such apparently contradictory results, it is important to
realize that, quite aside from whether the bilingual’s languages are
differently lateralized, they are often differentially represented even within
the dominant left hemisphere. The studies of several bilingual brains have
shown that usually the two languages only partly overlap. The weaker language
tends to be represented more diffusely around and beyond the central language
zone of the left hemisphere. There are sites at which one or the other language
is represented exclusively as well as sites at which both languages are
represented, though not necessarily to the same degree.
Moreover, there is one large
problem of neuro- and psycholinguistics to consider.
At issue is the crucial matter of how bilinguals keep their language
separate – or whether indeed they do. We consider that there is a strong
possibility that bilinguals build a unitary system for perception and maintain
two separate output systems. Certainly, as Paradis
asserts [6, p. 115], to the extent that a bilingual speaks two languages
like a native, he cannot possess a single, basic internal dictionary in which
words in both languages are pooled, for each aspect of a word –
morphological, phonological, graphemic – is bound
to be stored separately from that aspect in the other language. Only to the
extent that the meanings of the words are connected to a sufficient number of
the same nonlinguistic conceptual features can they be considered equivalent.
At any rate, as L. Obler observes (sited
from [3, p. 234]), it is obvious that the lexical
system of the bilingual is complex, combining both independent and
interdependent aspects. Currently, the most plausible hypothesis would seem to
be Paradis’s three-store proposal [6, p. 116]:
one store, corresponding to the bilingual’s experiential and conceptual
information, contains representations of things and events, properties,
qualities and functions of objects; in a word, what is known about the world.
Than the bilingual has a store for each of his two languages, each of which is
differently connected to the conceptual store.
The three-store solution is a bilingual variant of what is called the
“dual coding” approach to language and cognition. It assumes that language
behavior is mediated by two independent, but partly interconnected, cognitive
systems. One, the “image system”, is specialized for dealing with information
about nonverbal objects and events; the “verbal system” is specialized for
dealing with linguistic information. A bilingual, however, would appear to need
two linguistic stores. Bilinguals’ verbal codes would appear to be separate
insofar as they are capable of functioning independently with little
interference. At the semantic and conceptual level, though, the two languages
appear to share an underling system to a substantial degree, and there is
evidence that this commonality applies more to concrete than to abstract
material.
It is nonetheless important to stress that the conceptual store is
differently organized, depending on which language is used to verbalize an
idea, feeling, or experience, because units of meaning in each language group
together conceptual features in different ways. Some units of meaning (in both
languages) share most of their features. Others share only a few. Thus, while
the two languages share a number of basic cognitive and language processing
operations, they also have language-specific operations and strategies.
How bilinguals and polyglots can either keep their languages separate or
code-switch at will is only a slightly less complicated question. Recent
research on code-switching would seem to indicate that a simple “on/off switch”
model cannot account for all aspects of both the independence and
interdependence of languages. Obler and Abler (sited from [4, p. 38])
propose instead of an on/off input switch a flexible, continuously operating
monitor system, sensitive to changes in the linguistic and nonlinguistic
environment, that will never entirely switch one language off but that channels
efforts, scanning for clues in order to allow the bilingual listener to process
language efficiently. This would seem much more satisfactory than a simple
switch and, in fact, more parsimonious.
Although both (three? four?) languages may be stored in identical ways
in a single extended system, Paradis thinks [6, p. 125]
that the elements of each language probably form separate networks of
subsystems within the layer system. If the “subset” hypothesis is correct,
bilinguals have two subsets of neural connections, one for each language (and
each can be activated or inhibited independently because of the strong
associations between elements) while at the same time they possess one larger
set from which they are able to draw elements of either language at any time.
This model is particularly attractive because it recognizes that while it is
perfectly possible for bilinguals to behave as though their second language is
not there, they may choose to mix elements from both languages for a variety of
reasons.
To sum everything up, we would like to say that many of the finding of neurolinguistics are in fact very helpful in analyzing the
practice of bilingual writers. But as the most sophisticated neuro- and psycholinguistic researchers admit
[1, p. 129], there are often methodological problems with scientific
research on bilinguals because of the daunting array of significant variables
which may influence differential cerebral organization for languages and even
the cerebral localization of languages. Besides each bilingual is a specific
case, and the variables are important and almost impossible to measure or
compare statistically. Only the careful analysis of particular cases adds
significantly to our knowledge of the practice of bilingual writers.
References
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Âàéíðàéõ Ó.
ßçûêîâûå êîíòàêòû: Ñîñòîÿíèå è ïðîáëåìû èññëåäîâàíèÿ / Ïåð. ñ àíãë. ÿçûêà è êîììåíò. Æëóêòåíêî Þ.À.;
Âñòóï. ñò. ßðöåâîé Â.Í. – Ê.: Âèùà øêîëà,
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2.
Beaujour E.K. Alien Tongues. Bilingual Russian Writers of the “First” Emigration. – Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
1989. – 263 p.
3.
Hayakawa S.J. Language in
Thought and Action. – New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1989. –
457 p.
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Krapels A.
An Overview of Second Language Writing Process Research // Second Language
Writing – Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press,
1990. – P. 37-56.
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Paradis M.
Language and Thought in Bilinguals. – Columbia, S. C.: Hornbeam Press,
1980. – 324 p.