Does bilingualism come with linguistic costs? A meta-analytic review of the bilingual lexical deficit



: Bylund Emanuel, Antfolk Jan, Abrahamsson Niclas, Olstad Anne Marte Haug, Norrman Gunnar, Lehtonen Minna

Publisher: SPRINGER

: 2022

: Psychonomic Bulletin and Review

: PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW

: PSYCHON B REV

: 17

: 1069-9384

: 1531-5320

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-022-02136-7

: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-022-02136-7

: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/177157777


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.

Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 20:10