Rethinking Multilingual Experience through a Systems Framework of Bilingualism: Response to Commentaries

Abstract

AbstractIn Rethinking Multilingual Experience through a Systems Framework of Bilingualism (Titone & Tiv, 2022), we encouraged psycholinguists and cognitive neuroscientists to consider integrating social and ecological aspects of multilingualism into a collective understanding of its cognitive and neurocognitive bases (i.e., to rethink experience). We then offered a framework – the Systems Framework of Bilingualism– and described empirical challenges and potential solutions with applying this framework to new research. Since the paper's publication, several eminent colleagues read and commented on our Keynote, noting both its strengths and areas for improvement. We read each commentary with enthusiasm and gratitude. Here, we briefly respond to several salient points raised, which led us to clarify and improve our theoretical approach. We first address what the commentaries agreed were strengths of the framework. We follow this with a discussion of what the commentaries stated could be improved or extended. We conclude with ways that we modified our model to collectively address concerns raised in the commentaries.