TY - JOUR
T1 - Does bilingualism come with linguistic costs?
T2 - A meta-analytic review of the bilingual lexical deficit
AU - Bylund, Emanuel
AU - Antfolk, Jan
AU - Abrahamsson, Niclas
AU - Olstad, Anne Marte Haug
AU - Norrman, Gunnar
AU - Lehtonen, Minna
N1 - © 2022. The Author(s).
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - A series of recent studies have shown that the once-assumed cognitive advantage of bilingualism finds little support in the evidence available to date. Surprisingly, however, the view that bilingualism incurs linguistic costs (the so-called lexical deficit) has not yet been subjected to the same degree of scrutiny, despite its centrality for our understanding of the human capacity for language. The current study implemented a comprehensive meta-analysis to address this gap. By analyzing 478 effect sizes from 130 studies on expressive vocabulary, we found that observed lexical deficits could not be attributed to bilingualism: Simultaneous bilinguals (who acquired both languages from birth) did not exhibit any lexical deficit, nor did sequential bilinguals (who acquired one language from birth and a second language after that) when tested in their mother tongue. Instead, systematic evidence for a lexical deficit was found among sequential bilinguals when tested in their second language, and more so for late than for early second language learners. This result suggests that a lexical deficit may be a phenomenon of second language acquisition rather than bilingualism per se.
AB - A series of recent studies have shown that the once-assumed cognitive advantage of bilingualism finds little support in the evidence available to date. Surprisingly, however, the view that bilingualism incurs linguistic costs (the so-called lexical deficit) has not yet been subjected to the same degree of scrutiny, despite its centrality for our understanding of the human capacity for language. The current study implemented a comprehensive meta-analysis to address this gap. By analyzing 478 effect sizes from 130 studies on expressive vocabulary, we found that observed lexical deficits could not be attributed to bilingualism: Simultaneous bilinguals (who acquired both languages from birth) did not exhibit any lexical deficit, nor did sequential bilinguals (who acquired one language from birth and a second language after that) when tested in their mother tongue. Instead, systematic evidence for a lexical deficit was found among sequential bilinguals when tested in their second language, and more so for late than for early second language learners. This result suggests that a lexical deficit may be a phenomenon of second language acquisition rather than bilingualism per se.
KW - Humans
KW - Multilingualism
KW - Language
KW - Language Development
KW - Vocabulary
UR - https://research.abo.fi/en/publications/5495fbb5-e765-409e-912f-894841382a6e
U2 - 10.3758/s13423-022-02136-7
DO - 10.3758/s13423-022-02136-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 36327027
SN - 1069-9384
VL - 30
SP - 897
EP - 913
JO - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
JF - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
IS - 3
ER -