The ability to actively use two or more languages is called bilingualism. Bilingualism has been around ever since people have been able to migrate and interact with other cultures and ethnicities. It is a controversial topic with many of today’s researchers. Can bilingualism positively affect various brain functions? Or is the connection between a bilingual brain and intelligence loosely related? Despite claims that whether or not the ability to speak multiple languages affects brain functions, multilingualism can have positive long term effects on a person's life; if people engage in the act of learning multiple languages, then the brain’s functions will enhance, resulting in increased intelligence and social relations.
It is often argued
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In fact, some of the world’s researchers have stated that being bilingual causes some what of a cognitive overload in the brain,. This will actually decrease some brain functions. The cognitive behavior of the brain is described as “an intellectual process by which one becomes aware of, perceives, or comprehends ideas. It involves all aspects of perception, thinking,reasoning, and remembering” (Mosby's Medical Dictionary). With being bilingual, the brain has twice as many words and grammar rules to learn than just the average monolingual person. This is speculated to cause a delay in some milestones of advancements, like the age a baby starts talking. The British Council, The United Kingdom's international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities, supports this claim by saying “the verbal skills of bilinguals in each language are generally weaker than those for monolingual speakers of each language.” The British Council also states that, bilingual people deal with “nearly twice as many tip-of-the-tongue moments than their monolingual peers.” A “tip-of-the-tongue” moment is when you are unable to find the exact word you are looking to use. The downfall of not having these cognitive abilities fully developed is speech impediments, like …show more content…
This is because there is a disruption with the fluency of the speech. Some researchers may say it is because the bilingual brain is overcrowded, and other would strongly disagree. In the early research of bilingualism, there has been an immense amount of false conclusions made. A lot of the earlier research was based off of an incorrect perception of how the brain actually works. These studies, according to the New Zealand ministry of education, a government appointed guide on services, concluded that “bilingualism resulted in cognitive deficiencies, and lower IQ scores, and even mental retardation.” Naturally, these studies associated bilingual children as having “mental confusion” and being“language handicapped” (Is bilingualism a Problem?) Based off this inaccurate information, a lot of scientist came up with incorrect data. For example Baker
Learning new languages and cultures enhance the brain, but getting rid of them erases the soul. Bilingualism is an abstracted, virtually undefined word that seems to be stirring up complex discussions amongst various people. One example of the debating participants is Martin Espada with his essay, The New Bathroom Policy at English High School. He believes that the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking societies should coexist in harmony. Another example is Richard Rodriguez with his story, Hunger of Memory. He sees Spanish and English as two divergent worlds that shouldn’t interact. I believe that people should learn multiple views on bilingualism so we, as a whole, can figure out our difference and embrace, not erase, them.
Mental flexibility is superior in bilingual children since learning two language forces their minds to process two language systems at one time. Bilingualism promotes divergent (a divergent thinker is someone who thinks of many possible solutions to a problem) and creative thinking (Baker, 144-145). This increase of creative thinking gives a wider variety of associations (Baker, 145-146). Bilingualism is also associated with increased meta-cognitive flexibility and better performance on certain perpetual tasks, such as recognizing a perpetual object “embedded” in a visual background or classification tasks (Marian, et al.,1). Their divergent thinking helps relevant aspects of a problem may become more salient to bilingual children since their experiences with two language systems and cultures enable them to incorporate different perspectives to the solution (Bialystok, 2001 pg. 204). Bilingualism promotes divergent thinking that is caused by greater cognitive flexibility.
The brain has always had an amazing ability to adapt to its circumstances, an evolutionary edge, coupled with humanities capacity for reason and logic has made for quite a versatile organ. Researching neuroplasticity and non-synaptic plasticity can lead to a better understanding of how the brain adapts as well as how a normal brain functions. Neuroplasticity has the potential to affect brain mechanism related to emotional, motivational and cognitive processes (Crocker, Heller, Warren, O'Hare, Infantolino & Miller, 2012). Another functional and extraordinary ability of the brain is language. Language can define so much about how we think and yet after a brief window of time we find it very difficult to learn new languages. It is certainly not impossible to learn a second or third language but, it seems to be the case that plasticity occurs more with children (Giannakopoulou, Uther & Ylinen, 2013). Perhaps because plasticity can occur during developmental stages when language development is taking place or younger brains are just have more plastic potential. Understanding how plasticity and bilingualism interrelate can give us a better picture of how the brain deals with language, how this stimuli causes neuroplasticity to occur and how that plasticity can effect language functions. Does developing bilingual skills cause brain plasticity?
The linguistic and cultural clashes that children encounter, and how they negotiate between their ethnic and American “mainstream” cultures, and how these clashes and problems influence their relationship with their parents and their ethnic identities as a whole and how they were dealt with differently as we look at two stories dealing with two girls who are both coming of age in different society from where they originally came from. Jairy’s Jargon a story written by Carmen-Gloria Ballista, is a story that encounters the life of a young girl coming of age in Puerto Rico, except she’s originally from New York. Milly Cepeda’s story, Mari y Lissy, is a story about twin sisters who differ in personality and are often at odds with each other, but are both learning to live in a city that is very different from where they came from.
There are more than 6,500 languages around the world. We can't control where we are born nor what will be our native language. Although, we can choose which we are going to speak as a second language. Speaking more than one language has obvious benefits in today's internationally growing world, and it has become common to know more than one. Being bilingual is a benefit, that one is never too old nor too ahead to experience and learn from
A true bilingual would be someone who can, in everyday life, effectively speak two languages, an ability which not only assumes the person in question is both perfectly fluent in their two languages and lives in an environment where they would have to (Byers-Heinlein). However, monolingual children usually know more words in one language than a bilingual might in two languages, meaning a bilingual cannot effectively communicate in either of their languages as well as a monolingual would (Byers-Heinlein). Also, one language is often favored over the other by bilinguals, meaning that even if you know two languages, you’ll probably use one much more often and a large amount more capably than the other one (Meisel). Although learning English when
Understanding more than one language has positive effects on the brain’s ability to think. In comparison to multilingual individuals, monolingual English speakers are at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to learning, cultural awareness, and effectiveness in global affairs.
Learning multiple languages opens doors for people not only in their local communities, but on a global scale. It has also been proven to advance cognition by improving conflict management, executive controls, and sound recognition. Students who are bilingual have two active languages in their minds and create flexible minds by constantly processing and translating in both languages. These mental activities are displayed to be beneficial through impressive academics. For these reasons, bilingual education in the United States is critical. Language is the single most important asset in human civilization. Prior to it, cave men communicated through grunts and images. Not only does language tie people together, but it also has an impact on one’s mentality and personal
Learning a foreign language or languages can help people of all ages in many situations. Only 20 percent of the people in the United States are bilingual. There are about twenty four official languages recognized. It definitely is not the easiest thing to learn, but it is definitely worth it. Many people simply think learning two or three languages is a waste of time when in reality it can benefit the whole country.
Hypothesis: Bilingual brains are better at temporarily storing and manipulating information in working memory in their first language, but varying in the second.
In the last few decades, the notion of language and brain has been highlighted in different scientific fields such as: neurology, cognitive science, linguistics biology, technology and finally education.
BILINGUALISM have both Positive and Negative effects on the Child’s linguistic, Cognitive and Educational Development.
The development of the brain of a bilingual individual is better than a monolingual individual. Few years ago, researchers from the University of Washington (as cited in Klass, 2011, para 4.) found that the brains of bilingual infants (from families where two languages were spoken) are able to discriminate the different of the phonetic sound of the languages they usually heard when they grew up than monolingual infants in where their brains were adapted to only identify their mother tongue only. Dr. Patricia Kuhl, one of the members of this research team thus believe that bilingual education can shape infants’ brains and keep them ready for future challenges. Concurrently, a renowned psychologist, Dr. Ellen...
Scientists have proven that bilinguals improves cognitive skills and show lower signs of dementia. In a New York Times article written by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee 2004 study toddlers were told to sort blue circles and red squares, first by color and then by shapes, overall the bilingual toddlers did better. Knowing multiple languages affects the development and efficiency of the brain's control system. Although being bilingual does not make you more intelligent, it does give an academic advantage over a monolingual in the big picture. For instance the National Center for Biotechnology Information has stated that being bilingual at older ages is associated with
Bilingualism allows people to have a better skill of socializing. One of the strongest factors of bilingualism is the migration of people from one place to another. The people who have migrated will bring along not only their culture and heritage, but also their native languages (Deussen, 2014). In order to adapt to the new environment, they must learn the native language of that particular country since most of immigrants are monolingual. Thus, they will eventually turn into bilinguals.