ABSTRACT
In summary, a variety of aspects of the language learner may influence the way that a bilingual’s two languages are represented and processed. In this chapter, we reviewed three such factors. First, the relative timing of the learning of the two languages may affect the extent to which translation equivalents in the two languages are differentiated. Second, some evidence suggests that bilinguals shift from an early focus on form representations to a later focus on meaning representations during second language processing, whereas other evidence is incompatible with this conclusion. Further research is needed to uncover the conditions under which meaningful processing is possible for beginning second language learners. Third, differences in general cognitive processing abilities seem to affect second language learning, representation, and processing, although the findings of these studies are by their very nature correlational, and therefore, strong conclusions regarding causality cannot be drawn.
