Bilingual Brains at Play : Investigating Language and Creative Growth

Bilingualism has often been associated with enhanced creativity, and one possible mechanism underlying this relationship is language play. Drawing on Honing Theory, which conceptualizes creativity as an iterative process of refining and restructuring ideas, the present study examines whether engaging in the playful use of two languages would enhance bilinguals’ creativity and honing processes in the short term. Sixty-four Mandarin–English bilinguals were randomly assigned to either a Language Play condition or a Control condition. Participants completed two creative tasks—a poem translation task and an artwork task—before and after a conversational and a fill-in-the-blank worksheet manipulation. Participants in the Language Play condition engaged in playful bilingual interactions involving creative manipulation of language, whereas participants in the Control condition engaged in a comparable bilingual conversation without language play. Creativity was assessed through ratings provided by naïve judges, and honing was assessed through ratings of the extent to which the participants refined and elaborated their creative work between the first and second attempts. Participants also completed self-report measures assessing their creative processes and perceptions of authenticity. Results indicate that participants produce more creative work on their second attempt than on their first attempt across both the poem translation and artwork task. However, participants in the Language Play condition did not demonstrate greater improvement in creativity or honing than those in the Control condition. Similarly, language play did not lead to higher self-reported creative experiences or perceptions of authenticity. These findings provide support for the iterative nature of creativity proposed by the Honing Theory, suggesting that revisiting and refining ideas can enhance creative outcomes. At the same time, the results suggest that a brief language play intervention may not be sufficient to produce measurable gains in creativity beyond those associated with continued engagement and revision. The study contributes to research on bilingualism, language play, and creativity by examining the role of playful bilingual language use in creative development and highlights the importance of considering both creative products (external evaluations) and creative processes (internal evaluations) when evaluating creativity.