2026 – 2030
Exposure to two languages from birth is becoming increasingly common, but it remains unclear how the brain develops them in parallel. Our aim is to study lexico-semantic organisation in bilingual infants, in order to explore the internal structure of the bilingual lexicon. More specifically, we seek to understand how lexico-semantic organisation – both thematic and taxonomic – in the bilingual brain is influenced by linguistic distance and the status of cognates. The project will use electroencephalography (EEG) and evoked potentials (EP) in a cross-sectional study to examine 18-month-old monolingual infants and two groups of 18-month-old bilingual infants learning closely related languages (French and Spanish) and distantly related languages (French and Maghrebi Arabic). We will test the ‘connectivity’ hypothesis (mature lexico-semantic structure) and the ‘uncertainty’ hypothesis (less connected structure) regarding the connectivity of monolingual and bilingual lexicons. Our project will provide the scientific community with new insights into lexical development in bilingual infants, which can be used to refine current computational models of bilingual learning, as well as to develop interventions and provide recommendations for parents and teachers in multilingual early childhood education settings.
