One Mind. Two Languages.

How do bilinguals handle having multiple languages in a single mind? Why do adults have difficulty achieving native-like competence in a foreign language? Why do some people learn foreign languages more easily than others? In this course, students will learn about a myriad of topics related to the bilingual mind. These include neural underpinnings of bilingual processing, biological, linguistic and cognitive effects on adults’ difficulty achieving native-like competence in a non-native language, theories on how bilinguals handle multiple languages in a single mind, cognitive individual differences that make foreign language learning easier for some people than for others, prediction of what a speaker is about to say in a non-native language, the cognitive consequences of studying abroad, third language acquisition, processing a heritage language, and general consequences of bilingualism for cognition (e.g., the bilingual advantage) and language (e.g., code-switching).