European Day of Languages (26 September): bilingual and multilingual language processing

Every day, more than half the world’s population moves between two or more languages: switching, blending, and selecting linguistic systems often within a single sentence. The European Day of Languages, marked each 26 September, celebrates this diversity and the cognitive richness it reflects. Yet behind this everyday fluency lies a highly dynamic set of neural and cognitive operations that unfold in real time: how does the bilingual or multilingual mind select the right word, the right grammar, or the right orthographic representation in milliseconds?While substantial research has examined how bilingualism shapes brain structure and cognitive outcomes across the lifespan, comparatively less is known about the moment-to-moment mechanics of language and literacy processing itself — the online computations that allow bilingual and multilingual individuals to comprehend, produce, read, and switch between languages fluently and efficiently. Understanding these real-time dynamics is essential to building accurate models of the multilingual mind, and to informing clinical and educational practice—including reading interventions and literacy instruction—for the growing number of bilingual and multilingual individuals worldwide, including those in neurodiverse or clinical populations.This Research Topic focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying online bilingual and multilingual language and literacy processing — how multiple language systems are accessed, selected, and controlled during comprehension, speech production, and reading. We welcome empirical and theoretical contributions utilizing electrophysiological (EEG/ERP), neuroimaging, eye-tracking, and behavioral paradigms that capture processing as it happens, across spoken, written, and signed language modalities, typical and clinical populations, and across simultaneous, sequential, and emergent bilingual and multilingual speakers.We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:-Cognitive control and code-switching mechanisms during real-time comprehension, production, and reading-Lexical access and cross-linguistic activation in bilingual and multilingual speakers-Bilingual and multilingual literacy development, reading mechanics, and written language processing across the lifespan-Cross-linguistic transfer, orthographic and phonological processing, and reading comprehension in dual-language learners and bilingual readers-Processing costs and benefits in online tasks (e.g., syntactic ambiguity resolution, lexical and orthographic competition)-Electrophysiological (EEG/ERP) and eye-tracking evidence of moment-to-moment language selection, control, and reading dynamics-Bilingual and multilingual processing in signed language modalities-Real-time language and literacy processing in clinical and neurodiverse bilingual populations (e.g., developmental language disorder [DLD], developmental dyslexia, aphasia)-Naturalistic and ecologically valid paradigms for studying multilingual processing and literacy in educational, clinical, and everyday contexts Topic editors: Beatriz Barragan, Ashley Sanabria Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86322/european-day-of-languages-26-september-bilingual-and-multilingual-language-processing