Modeling
Few models of bilingual language processing and language acquisition have taken into account language mode as of yet. For example, De Bot's 1992 classic model of bilingual language production does not give a clear account of how language choice takes place (i.e., how the base language is chosen), how the language mode is set, and the impact it has on processing. Similarly, in the bilingual interactive activation (BIA) model (Dijkstra & van Heuven, 1998) one language is normally deactivated during the word‐recognition process by means of top‐down inhibition from the other language node and lateral inter‐language word‐level inhibition. This will produce satisfactory results for word recognition in the monolingual mode but it will be less than optimal when mixed language is being perceived. In the latter case, it would be better if both languages were active with one more active than the other. To our knowledge, the only computational model of word recognition that simulates language mode is the Léwy and Grosjean BIMOLA model (see Grosjean, 2008). Both the base‐language setting (a discrete value) and the language‐mode setting (a continuous value) can be set prior to simulation in this model.
Conclusion
Language mode helps us understand how bilinguals use their languages, separately or together, in everyday life, and it accounts for many findings in the research literature. It is invariably present as an independent, control, or confounding variable and hence needs to be heeded at all times.
Many aspects of language mode have to be studied further. For example, it will be important to isolate the factors that influence a particular mode, determine their importance, and ascertain how they interact with one another to activate or deactivate the bilingual's languages, and hence change the bilingual's position on the language‐mode continuum. The maximum movement possible on the continuum will also have to be examined for various types of bilinguals. Another issue concerns the resting mode individuals find themselves in when there is no language activity taking place. Finally, language mode in multilingual situations will have to be studied further.
SEE ALSO: Bilingualism and Cognition; Lexical Borrowing
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Suggested Readings
1 Grosjean, F. (1998). Studying bilinguals: Methodological and conceptual issues. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1(2), 131–49.
2 Grosjean, F. (2010). Bilingual: Life and reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Note
1 Reproduced from François Grosjean (2013). Bilingual and monolingual language modes. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics.