Tag Archives: bilingualism

“Bilingualism in the real world: How proficiency, emotion, and personality in a second language impact communication in clinical and legal settings” by Inbal Itzhak, Naomi Vingron, Shari R. Baum & Debra Titone

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Abstract

The field of psycholinguistics has long documented how communicating in a second language (L2) can be more challenging than communicating in a first language (L1) because of factors such as low L2 proficiency, accent, and L1 versus L2 differences in the appreciation of semantic or pragmatic nuance (e.g., the emotional connotations or words). Moreover, given that language performance is a primary medium through which people both express their personality and evaluate the personality characteristics of others, these differences in bilingual language processing have important consequences for real-world social interaction. Accordingly, when bilinguals interact with others in their L2, they stand the chance of being misunderstood or misjudged partly because of L1 versus L2 communicative challenges, which can have high-stakes consequences depending on the particular social setting in question. In this article, we selectively review the psycholinguistic literature pertaining to L2 proficiency, emotion, and personality, and apply this knowledge to how communicative effectiveness may be reduced in real-world medical and legal settings. We conclude that increased awareness of these phenomena, and the reasons behind them, can help professionals in the health and legal systems more effectively interact with nonnative speakers. We hope that such increased awareness will lead to the provision of higher quality services to bilingual people.

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Bilingualism as a Tool in Psychotherapy by Daria Diakonova-Curtis

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Living in an increasingly globalised world where people move between countries and cultures influences the psychotherapeutic process in many ways. In a recent article for “The Society of Advancement of Psychotherapy”, Daria Diakonova-Curtis explores the implications of being a bilingual psychotherapist, encounters with bilingual clients and current research within this field. To read more about bilingualism in psychotherapy, follow the link to the original article…

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New issue of “Language and Psychoanalysis” Volume 6 Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2017

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We are very pleased to inform you that Volume 6 Issue 1 of the open access journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” has gone online.

http://www.language-and-psychoanalysis.com/

This issue includes the following articles:

Robert D. Stolorow, Ph.D. & George E. Atwood, Ph.D.   The Phenomenology of Language and the Metaphysicalizing of the Real

Fernanda Carrá-Salsberg, Ph.D.   A Psychoanalytic Look into The Effects of Childhood and Adolescent Migration in Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation

David Hafner, Ph.D.   An Introduction to the Transference Unconscious 

Rina Stahl Freedman, Ph.D.   Cross-Cultural Treatment Issues in Psychoanalysis      

Giuseppe Iurato, Ph.D.   Book Review. Reading Italian Psychoanalysis

Anonymous Author, M. A.   Book Review. Language Disorders in Children and Adolescents  

 

The journal “Language and Psychoanalysis” is also currently accepting manuscripts for the next issue in Autumn-Winter 2017.

Manuscript submission due date: 30th September 2017

Dr Thomas H Bak

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Thomas Bak

Affiliation: University of Edinburgh

Born and raised in Cracow, Poland, Dr Thomas H Bak studied medicine in Germany and Switzerland, obtaining his medical doctorate with a thesis on acute aphasias (language disorders caused by brain diseases) at the University of Freiburg (Germany). He worked clinically in psychiatry, neurology and neurosurgery in Basel, Bern, Berlin and Cambridge.

During his time in Cambridge (1995-2006), he established the Clinic for Disorders of Movement and Cognition (DMC). His research addressed in particular the relationship between language, cognition and movement in neurodegenerative diseases and embodied cognition, with a focus on specific deficits in processing verbs/actions and nouns/objects. In this context he developed the Kissing & Dancing Test (KDT) to examine action knowledge. He was also part of the team which developed Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (ACE).

In 2006, he moved to Edinburgh where he continues to work, based at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic (ARRNC) at the Royal Infirmary (RIE), on the interaction between motor and cognitive functions in patients with dementia. Together with his colleague Sharon Abrahams he developed the Edinburgh Cognitive Assessment (ECAS) for patients in whom dementia is further complicated by motor problems (e.g. weakness, parkinsonism etc). Currently, he is working on Edinburgh Motor Assessment (EMAS), a brief motor screening tool designed specifically for patients with dementia and/or progressive aphasia.

In addition, over the last years he has been focusing increasingly on different aspects of the interaction between bilingualism, language learning and cognition, across the lifespan, in healthy ageing and in brain diseases such as dementia and stroke. He has been working with different populations, in Scotland (Edinburgh, Inner and Outer Hebrides) and across the world (India, Singapore, Malta). From 1 July 2016 he is the strand-leader on Cognition, Health and Well-being on an interdisciplinary, collaborative AHRC grant “Multilingualism: empowering individuals, transforming societies”.

Since 2010, he is the president of the World Federation of Neurology Research Group on Aphasia, Dementia and Cognitive Disorders (WFN RG ADCD). He has teaching experience in seven languages and organised WFN-sponsored teaching courses in cognitive neurology in Europe, Asia and South America (as part of the programme “Cognitive clinics world-wide”).

Main research interests:

  • The interaction between bilingualism and cognitive functions across the lifespan and in brain diseases such as dementia and stroke.
  • Cognitive effects of language learning, in particular in adult learners
  • Embodied cognition and specific deficits in processing of verbs/actions and nouns/objects.
  • The relationship between language, cognition and motor functions in dementia, progressive aphasia and other neurodegenerative diseases
  • Cognitive and motor screening in dementia and neurodegenerative diseases
  • Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic aspects of cognitive evaluation
  • Design and adaptation of cognitive tests to different languages and cultures

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Prof Panos Athanasopoulos

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Prof Panos Athanasopoulos

 

Affiliation: Lancaster University

I work in the areas of experimental psycholinguistics, experimental cognitive linguistics, bilingual cognition, linguistic and cultural relativity, first, second and additional language learning.

The main questions that guide my research concern language-driven human cognition and can be summarised as follows:
1. To what extent do speakers with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds think and perceive the world differently?
2. To what extent does additional language learning transform the way we perceive the world?
Recent research programmes have looked at the effects of colour terminology on colour categorical perception, the relationship between grammatical aspect and perception of goal-oriented motion events, the lexicalization of path, manner and causation of motion and motion event cognition, the effects of grammatical gender on object perception, the count/mass noun distinction and the construal of individuation, in populations such as monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual adults, child L1 and L2 acquirers, instructed and naturalistic foreign language learners, and involving speakers of languages such as Afrikaans, Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Sotho, Spanish, Swati, Swedish, Tswana, Xhosa, Zulu.

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Prof Jean-Marc Dewaele

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Affiliation : Birkbeck College, University of London

Jean-Marc Dewaele is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London. He has published widely on individual differences in psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, psychological and emotional aspects of Multilingualism. He is the author of a monograph Emotions in Multiple Languages in 2010 (2nd ed in 2013). He is Vice-President of the International Association of Multilingualism and former president of the European Second Language Association. He is General Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. He won the Equality and Diversity Research Award from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (2013) and the Robert C. Gardner Award for Outstanding Research in Bilingualism (2016) from the International Association of Language and Social Psychology.