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Taxing the bilingual mind: Effects of simultaneous interpreting experience on verbal and executive mechanisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2019

Adolfo M. García Open the ORCID record for Adolfo M. García [Opens in a new window] ,
Edinson Muñoz  and
Boris Kogan Open the ORCID record for Boris Kogan [Opens in a new window]
Adolfo M. García*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina Faculty of Education, National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo), Mendoza, Argentina
Edinson Muñoz
Affiliation:
Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Boris Kogan
Affiliation:
Institute of Basic and Applied Psychology and Technology (IPSIBAT), National University of Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina National Agency of Scientific and Technological Promotion (ANPCyT), Buenos Aires, Argentina
*
Author for correspondence: Adolfo M. García, Ph. D., E-mail: adolfomartingarcia@gmail.com
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Abstract

This paper reviews the neurocognitive particularities of subjects with sustained experience in simultaneous interpreting, a highly demanding form of bilingual processing. The literature converges into three broad empirical patterns. First, significant neurocognitive differences, including behavioral enhancements in verbal and executive domains, are observable after only one or two years of training. Second, such effects, both in interpreting students and/or professional interpreters, seem robust for crucial linguistic (e.g., translation) and executive (e.g., working memory) aspects of the activity, but not for more marginally relevant ones (e.g., conflict resolution) – suggesting that they are non-generalizable beyond directly taxed functions. Third, though more tentatively, some of the observed verbal and executive effects seem to be mutually independent and uninfluenced by other bilingual-experience-related factors (e.g., L2 competence), which could highlight their distinctive relation with interpreting practice. In sum, this particular model of expertise sheds novel light on the adaptive capacity of cognitive systems in bilinguals.

Keywords

bilingualismsimultaneous interpretingneuroplasticityverbal processingexecutive functions
Type
Review Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 23 , Special Issue 4: Interpreting: A window into bilingual processing , August 2020 , pp. 729 - 739
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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