Event Details

HL2C Seminar: Eleonora Rossi (University of Florida): Understanding the nature of neurocognitive plasticity: Multimodal approaches reveal dynamic effects of bilingualism for language and cognition

Presenter(s): Eleonora Rossi (University of Florida)

Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 1pm to 2pm

How to join: To attend (via Teams), please join our mailing list.

About: This is an event organized by the Heritage Language 2 Consortium (HL2C).

Abstract:

Understanding the nature of neurocognitive plasticity: Multimodal approaches reveal dynamic effects of bilingualism for language and cognition

Societies are progressively multilingual and mobile, with most of the world’s population learning and using more than one language across the life-span, either as a result of living in a highly bilingual environment or by acquiring the second language (L2) as classroom learners. In addition, increasing global migration calls for migrants to quickly acquire the new host country language, making bilingual language experience increasingly multifaceted, as exemplified by Heritage Speakers. The relatively recent recognition that bilingualism is more dynamic than previously thought has also started to be confirmed by nuanced effects on neural measures of language and cognitive processing. This body of work has started to reveal a fine-tuned system for language processing and cognition that is afforded by the variable experience that is bilingualism. In line with recent holistic models of bilingual language experience (e.g., Systems Framework of Bilingualism, Titone & Tiv, 2022) I will propose that second language (L2) and bilingualism research need to integrate the complex sources of variation at the individual level (e.g., linguistic, neurocognitive), with indices of language use and its variability measurable beyond the individual self, including sociolinguistic variation that finally influences people’s language use, development, and neurocognition. In support of this idea, I will present data from multimodal approaches to illustrate how variability in individual measures of bilingual language use (such as Age of Acquisition, proficiency, bilingual language engagement, and code-switching) shape the signatures of bilingual language processing in young and older adults. Towards this goal, I will present recent neuroimaging data including EEG data (ERPs, Resting-State EEG), and structural/functional MRI data in young adults demonstrating that tracking individual variability in bilingual language use is key to understanding linguistic and neural outcomes. In addition, to investigate how variability in social interactions at the macro-level (beyond the individual self) can inform linguistic and cognitive outcomes in the bilingual speaker, I will present data from a new line of research that uses personal social network and psychometric network modeling. The main goal of this new line of research is to start describing how the compositional and structural features of a speaker’s social network can shape the individual’s language and cognitive experience across different stages of life, and conversely, how a multifaceted bilingual experience can modulate one’s social network. Altogether, I hope to illustrate the benefits of integrating cross-disciplinary, multi-level data towards a better understanding of bilingualism.