Do bilinguals have different concepts? The case of shape and material in Japanese L2 users of English

An experiment investigated whether Japanese speakers’ categorisation of objects and substances as shape or material is influenced by acquiring English, based on Imai and Gentner (1997). Subjects were presented with an item such as a cork pyramid and asked to choose between two other items that matched it for shape (plastic pyramid) or for material (piece of cork). The hypotheses were that for simple objects the number of shape-based categorisations would increase according to experience of English and that the preference for shape and material-based categorisations of Japanese speakers of English would differ from mono¬lingual speakers of both languages. Subjects were 18 adult Japanese users of English who had lived in English-speaking countries between 6 months and 3 years (short-stay group), and 18 who had lived in English-speaking countries for 3 years or more (long-stay group). Both groups achieved above criterion on an English vocabulary test. Results were: both groups preferred material responses for simple objects and substances but not for complex objects, in line with Japanese mono¬linguals, but the long-stay group showed more shape preference than the short-stay group and also were less different from Americans. These effects of acquiring a second language on categorisation have implications for conceptual representation and methodology

Effects of second language on cognition in English users of L2 Japanese

It is now established that certain cognitive processes such as categorisation are tightly linked to the concepts encoded in language. Recent studies have shown that bilinguals with languages that differ in their concepts may show a shift in their cognition towards the L2 pattern primarily as a function of their L2 proficiency. This research has so far focused predominantly on L2 users who started learning the L2 in childhood or early puberty. The current study asks whether similar effects can be found in adult L2 learners. English speakers of L2 Japanese were given an object classification task involving real physical objects, and an online classification task involving artificial novel objects. Results showed a shift towards the L2 pattern, indicating that some degree of cognitive plasticity exists even when a second language is acquired later in life. These results have implications for theories of L2 acquisition and bilingualism, and contribute towards our understanding of the nature of the relationship between language and cognition in the L2 user’s mind