FRIAS Colloquium - Katarzyna Jankowiak

Switching languages, switching perspectives: Exploring gender stereotype activation in bilingual speakers

Previous research on the Foreign Language Effect (FLE) has been predominantly placed in the field of affective language processing, showing a reduced sensitivity to affective content delivered in a foreign (L2) relative to a native (L1) language (e.g., Costa et al., 2014; Iacozza et al., 2017; Jankowiak & Korpal, 2018). This emotional detachment hypothesis has been suggested to reflect weaker links between L2 lexico-semantic representations and affective networks in the brain (Degner et al., 2012; Opitz & Degner, 2012). However, little is known whether such reduced connectivity might also be observed for other domains of semantic knowledge, including the socially and politically relevant domain of gender stereotypes.

In this talk, I will discuss an ongoing psycholinguistic study conducted as part of the FRIAS fellowship, building upon my preliminary neurophysiological research exploring the automaticity of gender stereotype activation in L1 and L2 (Jankowiak et al., under review; Jankowiak et al., in preparation). Findings from these studies suggest that bilingual individuals may exhibit reduced sensitivity to gender stereotypes when operating in L2 compared to L1. Consequently, this line of research extends the FLE research to the processing of gender stereotypes in L2, and highlights the possibility that bilingual speakers may use their L2 to engage in less stereotypical behavior. This could have significant implications for social, political, and job contexts, where the foreign language may be used to promote gender-fair behaviors and reduce gender stereotyping and discrimination.