THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE SWITCHING IN THE COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING OF BILINGUALS

Abstract

Language-switching is an assumption of bilingualism; it is the ability to choose and produce one language over the other in response to environmental demands. The focus of the current study was to determine if type of language switching, intentional and unintentional can positively influence cognitive flexibility. We hypothesized that bilinguals who are intentional switchers rather than unintentional switchers would have faster reaction times and lower perseverative error rates in a cognitive flexibility task.It was also hypothesized that levels of acculturation would influence this effect. Sixty-one German-English bilinguals (recruited in both the United States of America and Germany) were assessed on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, the Bilingual Switching Questionnaire, and the Psychological Acculturation Scale. Accidental switchers were faster than intentional switchers, however, intentional switchers had higher error rates than any other group. It was also found that German-only acculturated participants had faster reaction times than participants that were acculturated equally to German and American culture.These findings imply that language-switching and acculturation need to be assessed holistically, rather than independently.