The interplay between attentional control and language task schemas: Progressive adaptation of attentional control in interpreting

Drawing on interpreting research and intervention studies, this article proposes that the interplay between attentional control (AC) and language task schemas (TSs) effectively explains how language experience may enhance AC, and highlights the progressive adaptation of AC via control functions demanded in TSs. Specifically, being heavily taxed in interpreting, AC helps build and adjust interpreting TSs via control functions, and then becomes strengthened in these functions, transitioning from more reactive to more proactive control. The scope of AC adaptation depends on control demands embedded in language TSs, as evidenced by comparing significant and null results in interpreter advantage research (of both professional training and intervention programs). This interplay and the adaptive scope also apply to general bilingual processing, consistent with the Adaptive Control Hypothesis and supported by null results of intervention studies involving in older adults' L2 learning. Future research should adopt a developmental perspective alongside more granular task analyses.