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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

1.            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, 1979. – 264 ñ.

2.            Beaujour E.K. Alien Tongues. Bilingual Russian Writers of theFirstEmigration. 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.

4.            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.

5.            Paradis M. Language and Thought in Bilinguals. – Columbia, S. C.: Hornbeam Press, 1980. – 324 p.