Book contents
- Memory, Language, and Bilingualism
- Memory, Language, and Bilingualism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Bilingual memory:
- 2 Lexical competition in localist and distributed connectionist models of L2 acquisition
- 3 Working memory and (second) language processing
- 4 Working memory in simultaneous interpreters
- 5 Using electrophysiological measures to track the mapping of words to concepts in the bilingual brain:
- 6 Age effects in L2 learning:
- 7 Bilingualism, language, and aging
- 8 Crossovers and codeswitching in the investigation of immigrant autobiographical memory
- 9 Linguistic relativity and bilingualism
- 10 Testing effects for novel word learning in Chinese–English bilinguals
- 11 The lexicon in second language attrition:
- 12 Memory and first language forgetting
- 13 Future research directions:
- Index
3 - Working memory and (second) language processing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Memory, Language, and Bilingualism
- Memory, Language, and Bilingualism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Bilingual memory:
- 2 Lexical competition in localist and distributed connectionist models of L2 acquisition
- 3 Working memory and (second) language processing
- 4 Working memory in simultaneous interpreters
- 5 Using electrophysiological measures to track the mapping of words to concepts in the bilingual brain:
- 6 Age effects in L2 learning:
- 7 Bilingualism, language, and aging
- 8 Crossovers and codeswitching in the investigation of immigrant autobiographical memory
- 9 Linguistic relativity and bilingualism
- 10 Testing effects for novel word learning in Chinese–English bilinguals
- 11 The lexicon in second language attrition:
- 12 Memory and first language forgetting
- 13 Future research directions:
- Index
Summary
This chapter discusses the interactions between two of the most important human cognitive functions: memory and language. First, the concept of working memory is introduced, along with a brief summary of the evolutions that working memory theory has undergone in the last decades. The second part of the chapter focuses on the role of (verbal) working memory in language acquisition and processing. It is argued that working memory, and especially the ability to temporarily represent serial-order information, is crucially involved in both native and foreign word learning, and perhaps also in sentence and text comprehension. The third and final part of the chapter explores the other direction of the interaction, by questioning whether language processing can influence working memory functioning. This question is addressed with recent behavioral and neurological evidence for a general executive control advantage in bilinguals, which makes a strong case for the trainability of some aspects of working memory.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Memory, Language, and BilingualismTheoretical and Applied Approaches, pp. 74 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
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