Substantial research has examined cognition in aging bilinguals. However, less work has investigated the effects of aging on language itself in bilingualism. In this article I comprehensively review prior research on this topic, and interpret the evidence in light of current theories of aging and theories of bilingualism. First, aging indeed appears to affect bilinguals’ language performance, though there is considerable variability in the trajectory across adulthood (declines, age-invariance, and improvements) and in the extent to which these trajectories resemble those found in monolinguals. I argue that these age effects are likely explained by the key opposing forces of increasing experience and cognitive declines in aging. Second, consistent with some theoretical work on bilingual language processing, the grammatical processing mechanisms do not seem to change between younger and older bilingual adults, even after decades of immersion. I conclude by discussing how future research can further advance the field.

中文翻译：

---

衰老对双语的影响：什么变化，什么没有变化，为什么

大量研究已经检查了老年双语者的认知。然而，研究双语中老化对语言本身的影响的工作较少。在本文中，我全面回顾了有关该主题的先前研究，并根据当前的衰老理论和双语理论解释了证据。首先，衰老似乎确实会影响双语者的语言表现，尽管整个成年期的轨迹存在相当大的可变性（下降、年龄不变和提高），以及这些轨迹与单语者相似的程度。我认为，这些年龄效应可能是由衰老过程中经验增加和认知能力下降这两个关键的对立力量来解释的。其次，与双语语言处理的一些理论工作一致，语法处理机制似乎在年轻和年长的双语成年人之间没有变化，即使经过几十年的沉浸。最后，我讨论了未来的研究如何进一步推动该领域的发展。