Bilingualism Language and Cognition · 2003 · 384 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesLinguisticsPsychologyChild DevelopmentCognitive PsychologyDevelopmental PsychologyBilingual DevelopmentChild Language AcquisitionCross-linguistic InfluenceLanguage ExposureSocial Cognition DevelopmentTheory Of MindBilingual CognitionBilingual Cognitive DevelopmentBilingualism In Early ChildhoodCognitive Control In BilingualsFalse Belief DetectionInhibitory Control DevelopmentLinguistic VariablesMetalinguistic Transfer
This research examines whether an individual's linguistic knowledge, either as a speaker of a particular language or as a bilingual, influences theory of mind development. Three- and four-year-old English monolinguals, Mandarin Chinese monolinguals, and Mandarin-English bilinguals were given appearance-reality, level 2 perspective-taking, and false-belief tasks. All children were tested twice, a week apart; the bilinguals were tested in each of their languages. The 4-year-olds in each group performed significantly better than the corresponding 3-year-olds. Both monolingual groups performed similarly on the tasks, and the bilinguals performed significantly better than the monolingual groups, although when the two testing times were examined separately, they had only a near-significant tendency to perform better at the second testing time. Possible explanations for this evidence of a bilingual advantage are greater inhibitory control, greater metalinguistic understanding, and a greater sensitivity to sociolinguistic interactions with interlocutors.