Question: What is the reason behind you wanting to focus your work on bilingualism?

Wilhelmiina Toivo answered on 8 Mar 2017:

It was a personal interest. When I first came to Scotland for university I noticed it was really easy for me to swear in English (I never swear in my native language!) and talk about awkward topics. All my international friends had the same experience, and I really wanted to find out why this happens so I focused on psychology of language and did my dissertation on the topic and wanted to know more.

In general I think bilingualism is really fascinating – being able to speak two languages has an impact on us, and I want to know what exactly it does to our brain and how it can help us. In the world today more and more people live abroad and move around, so I think it’s important to know how we can make the most of our language situations, and how speaking in a different language affects us! 🙂