The aim of the present paper is to provide an overview of the so-called "Spanglish" phenomenon and its linguistic repertoires (code-switching utterances). We propose that it is necessary to link all different forms of analysis in order to verify hypotheses regarding the relationship among social, linguistic, and cognitive processes behind…

The left inferior frontal cortex, the caudate and the anterior cingulate have been proposed as the neural origin of language switching, but most of the studies were conducted in low proficient bilinguals. In the present study, we investigated brain areas involved in language switching in a sample of 19 early, high-proficient Spanish-Catalan…

The principle of operant selection is examined as a prototype of cultural selection, and the role of the social environment is suggested as the critical element in the emergence of cultural phenomena. Operant contingencies are compared to cultural selection contingencies, designated as metacontingencies. Both of these types of contingency…

The present study looks at the levels of activation of different languages a trilingual language user operates in at the moment of text construction in one of these languages. Forty-eight Portuguese advanced users of English (L2) and intermediate in German (L3) were asked to perform a translation task. The subjects were divided into two subgroups:…