Chapter 10. Control and representation in bilingualism

The bilingual advantage in executive functioning is often contrasted with a disadvantage in lexical access, but the two are based on different processes. The former entails fluid operations used for intentional processing (i.e., cognitive control) and the latter involves crystallized knowledge (i.e., representations). On this view, the processes associated with control and representation are interactive systems responsive to different developmental factors rather than mutually exclusive alternatives. Nonetheless, the majority of research in bilingualism has investigated either control or representation in isolation by minimizing participants’ reliance on the other factor. This chapter will review research investigating the interaction between these processes by bilinguals during language processing tasks and discuss how this relationship can provide new insights to pedagogy.