Jason Rothman (Lancaster): Experience-Based Individual Differences Modulate Language, Mind, and Brain Outcomes in Bi-/Multilinguals

Research on bi-/multilingualism increasingly highlights that its effects on language acquisition, linguistic processing, cognition and brain structure/function cannot be understood through a uniform lens. Drawing on work from my lab, this talk explores how experience-based individual differences—including language proficiency, age of acquisition, usage (intensity) patterns, and contextual factors—shape the relationships between multilingual experience and linguistic and neurocognitive outcomes. Rather than treating bilinguals and multilinguals as homogeneous groups or relying on ill-conceived comparisons with so-called baseline monolinguals, converging evidence reviewed will demonstrate that variability in linguistic experience fundamentally modulates development as well as competencies and performances captured in experiments . Understanding how experiential diversity among multilinguals influences the mind and brain not only refines theoretical models of language (acquisition, processing and related neurocognition) but also informs applied domains and pays homage to, as opposed to inadvertently mischaracterizes, our object of study and the people who comprise our participant groups.