MC-BLP: A multicomponent assessment of bilingual language profiles.
Bilingual and multilingual speakers differ considerably in their language profiles. A comprehensive assessment must therefore consider multiple dimensions, including language dominance, proficiency, immersion, age of acquisition, and patterns and contexts of language use and switching. Together, these dimensions characterize an individual’s dispositional language balance. The inherent complexity of these profiles is further compounded by methodological inconsistency across studies: differences in how the relevant dimensions are operationalized and assessed limit cross-study comparability and the cumulative integration of findings. Study 0 provides the shared methodological foundation of Research Unit 5905 (“Bilingual Flexibility: The Psychology of Language Control”) by combining established measures of language history and use (LHQ3), language switching (BSWQ), and vocabulary knowledge (LexTALE) with background information in a standardized online assessment. The resulting multidimensional language profiles are scored and processed using common procedures and linked to data from individual empirical projects that use behavioural, longitudinal, and neuroscientific methodologies. This standardized approach enables individual research projects to investigate how dispositional language balance relates to situational language balance and bilingual performance, while providing an integrated infrastructure for subsequent cross-project mega-analyses. Participants are reassessed after 12 months to capture longer-term adaptations in dispositional language balance shaped by language exposure, learning experiences, and development.