While language dominance has been crucial in the study of bilingualism, recent research has called for more detailed measures to systematically account for the observation that bilinguals use different languages in different domains, a phenomenon formalized in the Complementary Principle. Few studies have systematically measured these…

This paper discusses the experience of four refugee and asylum seekers seeking access to Higher Education. The methodological framework intersects applied ethnopoetic analysis and poetic inquiry, underpinned by Freirean, Translanguaging dialogue. The approach foregrounds participants' voices to address a structural refusal to recognise the…

Multilinguals' feelings of difference when switching languages have been discussed extensively. However, this research area has mainly focused on multilinguals dominant in their first language (L1), examining the feelings they experience when using any language other than the L1 (LX). The present study offers a novel perspective on this topic and…

When spoken language (unimodal) bilinguals switch between languages, they must simultaneously inhibit 1 language and activate the other language. Because American Sign Language (ASL)-English (bimodal) bilinguals can switch into and out of code-blends (simultaneous production of a sign and a word), we can tease apart the cost of inhibition (turning…

Informed by Bourdieu's conceptualisation of habitus and its relation with social class, this study explores the construction and negotiation of middle-class identity among a group of urban overseas returnees in China. Using ethnographic interviews and online observational data, the study found that participants built a compliant identity…

Language switch costs have been explored less in receptive tasks than in productive tasks, and previous studies have produced mixed findings with regard to switch cost symmetry and the relationship of switch costs to executive function. To address these unresolved gaps, one hundred Chinese-English bilingual adults completed a bilingual lexical…

This paper explores the language planning strategies employed by Australian transnational families of Arabic-speaking backgrounds to develop their children's bilingualism in English and Arabic. The paper concludes that the families' transnationalism and strong links with their countries of origin played a significant role in their language…

The current study investigated the possibility that language switches could be relatively automatically triggered by context. "Single-word switches," in which bilinguals switched languages on a single word in midsentence and then immediately switched back, were contrasted with more complete "whole-language switches," in which…

Proficient bilinguals use two languages actively, but the contexts in which they do so may differ dramatically. The present study asked what consequences the contexts of language use hold for the way in which cognitive resources modulate language abilities. Three groups of speakers were compared, all of whom were highly proficient Spanish-English…

Is the feeling of difference experienced by many bi- and multilinguals linked to a later age of onset (AoA) and a lower level of proficiency in the foreign language (LX)? This empirical study, based on the qualitative and quantitative data from 1005 bi- and multilinguals, suggests AoA is unrelated to feelings of difference. While several…

Ten adult readers, advanced in their control of two languages, Korean and English, were recruited for a study of academic literacy practices to examine the various linguistic repertoires on which they drew. Analysis of their language use revealed many instances of "translanguaging," that is, a flexible reliance on two languages to serve…

This study examines how language and culture brokering (translating and interpreting language and culture for others) influences the acculturative experiences and self-perceptions of young adults from immigrant Arab, Asian, and Latino American backgrounds. Semi-structured interviews with 10 participants suggest that mediating information for…