L2 pronunciation proficiency, language use and age of acquisition as predictors of executive control in bilinguals

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which second language (L2) pronunciation proficiency, language use, and age of L2 acquisition (AoA) are associated with variation in enhanced executive control in bilinguals. The secondary objective was to examine whether bilinguals’ executive control, as reflected in the incongruent response time for the Flanker task, differed from a group of monolinguals. A multiple regression revealed that although neither pronunciation proficiency in the L2 of English nor AoA were significant in predicting enhanced executive control, L2 use was highly significant. However, there was no significant difference between the incongruent response times of the bilinguals versus the monolinguals. The findings suggest that different forms of bilingualism, as a non-categorical experience, impact executive control differently, and that not all forms of bilingualism are equally afforded an advantage in executive control over monolingualism.