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Two Measures of Bilingualism in the Memories of Immigrants and Indigenous Minorities: Crossover Memories and Codeswitching

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Abstract

Two indices of bilingualism, crossover memories and codeswitching (CS), were explored in five groups of immigrant (English–Hebrew, Georgian–Hebrew Russian–Hebrew) and indigenous bilinguals (Arabic–Hebrew, Hebrew–English). Participants recalled memories in response to cue words and then were asked to report the language of retrieval and provide a more elaborate narrative. More memories were ‘same language’ memories, recalled in the language of the experimental session/cue word, but as many as 48 % of the memories were crossovers, i.e. memories reported in a language other than the language of the session/cue word. In an effort to examine the ecological validity of the self-reported language of the memories, the frequency of CS in the elaborated narratives was investigated. For the entire sample, more CS was found for self-reported crossover memories in L2 sessions. In a further analysis of CS in crossover memories, collapsed across L1 and L2 sessions, significant differences emerged between immigrants and indigenous bilinguals. Differences between immigrant and non-immigrant bilinguals are discussed in terms of the role of activation in crossover memories.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Bar Ilan University, 52900 , Ramat Gan, Israel

    Carmit Altman

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  1. Carmit Altman
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Correspondence to Carmit Altman.

Additional information

I thank the 55 participants and Mira Goral, Loraine K. Obler, Gloria Olness, Robert W. Schrauf, and Joel Walters. This paper was supported in part by a grant from the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute of Gerontology and Human Development and Eshel-The Association for the Planning and Development of Services for the Aged in Israel.

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Altman, C. Two Measures of Bilingualism in the Memories of Immigrants and Indigenous Minorities: Crossover Memories and Codeswitching. J Psycholinguist Res 44, 187–200 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-014-9288-4

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