The media coverage in the Guardian and the Daily Mail inspired me today. How bizarre.
I’ve had a number of Ellen Bialystok‘s articles sitting in Mendeley waiting for me to get to the letter B (I keep starting from the top and the bottom… and then getting side-tracked). So her mention in both papers this weekend with some data of the cognitive benefits of bilingualism has led me to going cognitive today myself. Hence the rather slower progress than usual. These experimental reports certainly take longer to read than your average ethnography, especially when it includes diagrams of the brain etc.
However, even though I’m only half way through this mammoth article, it’s proving very interesting. I was already aware of many of the tests she’s reviewing but a couple were new to me. That includes one interesting result that it takes longer to name something in your stronger language than your weaker language because of the effort it takes to inhibit your stronger language (Meuter and Allport, 1999 and Bialystok herself have shown this).
I’m heading off to the other campus to teach now but will resume where I left off (somewhere in the frontal lobe) tomorrow.
Contemplations on identity 