This study investigates how a foreign language impacts social norms. We tested this by comparing the magnitude of response differences between norm-violating and norm-adhering behaviors in native language versus foreign language. In experiment 1, participants indicated the acceptability of third-person black and white lies in either their native or foreign language on a Likert scale. In experiment 2, participants indicated their first-person intentions to tell black and white lies on a Likert scale. Experiment 3 conceptually replicated experiment 1 on a slider scale, testing white lies and blunt truths. In experiment 4, participants provided dichotomous yes–no decisions to tell black and white lies. Results revealed a significant reduction of acceptability ratings in experiments 1 and 3 while only showing such a trend in experiments 2 and 4, suggesting language impacts particularly descriptive social norms. Collectively, these findings provide insight into how a foreign language diminishes the influence of social norms.

It has been suggested that the parents of heritage speakers (2nd generation immigrants), who are the main source of input to them, may exhibit first-language (L1) attrition in their language, thereby directly transmitting different structural properties or “errors” to the heritage speakers. Given the state of current knowledge of inconsistent input in L1 acquisition, age of acquisition effects in bilingualism, and how long it takes children to master different properties of their native language, it is highly unlikely that immigrant parents are directly transmitting patterns of language attrition to their heritage language children. The argument advanced in this article is that if the patterns evident in heritage speakers and first-generation immigrants are related, reverse transmission may be at play instead, when the heritage speakers might be influencing the language of the parents rather than the other way around. Theoretical and empirical evidence for this proposal may explain the emergence of the variety of Spanish spoken in the United States.

Researchers have argued that grouping heterogeneous linguistic profiles under a dichotomous condition might mask the cognitive effects of bilingualism. The current study used two different analysis approaches (i.e., continuous versus dichotomous) to examine inhibitory control in a sample of 239 young adult bilinguals. Dividing the sample into dichotomous groups based on L2 proficiency (i.e., high-proficient versus low-proficient) and L2 AoA (i.e., early versus late) did not lead to reliable group differences in any of the measurements used. However, the use of a continuous measure revealed that higher L2 proficiency predicted better visual inhibition and earlier L2 AoA was associated with better auditory inhibition. Furthermore, the observed differences were limited to tasks involving stimulus–stimulus competition, but not stimulus–response competition. These findings shed new light on the importance of conceptualising bilingualism as a continuous measure rather than a dichotomous measure and previous research on bilingual performance in different cognitive tasks.

Schizophrenia impacts several cognitive systems including language. Linguistic symptoms of schizophrenia are important to understand due to the crucial role that language plays in the diagnostic and treatment process. However, the literature is heavily based on monolingual-centric research. Multilinguals demonstrate differences from monolinguals in language cognition. When someone with schizophrenia is multilingual, how do these differences interact with their symptoms? To address this question, we conducted a pre-registered PRISMA-SR scoping review to determine themes in the literature and identify gaps for future research. Four hundred and twenty records were identified from three databases in 2023. Thirty articles were included in the synthesis. We found three emergent themes: (1) the need for multilingual treatment options, (2) differences in symptomology between the L1 and L2, and (3) the impact of cultural factors on linguistic functioning. Thus, several avenues of research regarding multilingualism may be fruitful for improving linguistic and social outcomes in schizophrenia.

The proactive gain control hypothesis suggests that the global language context regulates lexical access to the bilinguals’ languages during reading. Specifically, with increasing exposure to non-target language cues, bilinguals adjust the lexical activation to allow non-target language access from the earliest word recognition stages. Using the invisible boundary paradigm, we examined the flow of lexical activation in 50 proficient Russian-English bilinguals reading in their native Russian while the language context shifted from a monolingual to a bilingual environment. We gradually introduced non-target language cues (the language of experimenter and fillers) while also manipulating the type of word previews (identical, code-switches, unrelated code-switches, pseudowords). The results revealed the facilitatory reading effects of code-switches but only in the later lexical processing stages and these effects were independent of the global language context manipulation. The results are discussed from the perspective of limitations imposed by script differences on bilingual language control flexibility.

This study examined the influence of letter transpositions on morphological facilitation in L1 English and L1 Chinese-L2 English speakers. Morphological priming effects were investigated by comparing morphologically complex primes that either contained transposed-letters (TL) within the stem or across the morpheme boundary, relative to a substituted-letter (SL) control. Within two masked primed lexical decision experiments, the same stem targets were preceded by morphologically related, TL-within, SL-within, TL-across, SL-across, or unrelated primes. Reaction time analyses with morphologically intact primes revealed facilitation in both L1 and L2 English. In L1, TL-within priming was significant, while the magnitude of TL-across priming varied as a function of positional specific bigram frequency and spelling proficiency. In L2, TL-priming was entirely absent. These findings support models of complex word recognition that accommodate relative flexibility in letter position encoding.

Bilinguals frequently switch between languages. The present study examined cued language switching (CLS) longitudinally in bilingual Turkish–Dutch children with (n = 11) and without (n = 30) developmental language disorder (DLD) in a three-wave design with one-year intervals. We studied effects of dominance, indexed by language proficiency and exposure, on overall switching performance and the costs associated with switching between languages. Results show limited evidence for overall costs associated with language switching (i.e., only mixing costs in reaction times [RTs]). Further, accuracy on CLS increased with increasing dominance in the trial language. Moreover, better performance, and larger switching costs, were found in the majority (Dutch) compared to the minority (Turkish) language. These results are discussed in light of the sociolinguistic context. As hypothesized, more errors, longer RTs and slightly larger mixing costs were observed in children with DLD, suggesting overall word retrieval difficulties and difficulties with cognitive control.