ISSN : 2241-4665
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ISSN : 2241-4665
Ημερομηνία έκδοσης: Αθήνα 20 Ιουνίου
2018
«EARLY BILINGUALISM AND ITS EFFECTS OVER
LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT»
«Η ΠΡΩΙΜΗ ΔΙΓΛΩΣΣΙΑ ΚΑΙ Η
ΕΠΙΡΡΟΗ ΤΗΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΓΛΩΣΣΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΗΝ ΓΝΩΣΤΙΚΗ ΑΝΑΠΤΥΞΗ»
Makrogiannaki Aikaterini
Prescolar Education Teacher
EARLY BILINGUALISM AND ITS EFFECTS OVER LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Περίληψη
Η διγλωσσία φαίνεται να αποτελεί
ευκαιρία αλλά και “ζήτημα” ταυτόχρονα. Η ευκαιρία δεν είναι δύσκολο να
παρατηρηθεί ιδιαίτερα σήμερα, όταν οι κοινωνίες αναπτύσσονται προς τις ιδέες
της παγκοσμιοποίησης, της μη διακρίσεως και του μοντερνισμού: διαπολιτισμική
επικοινωνία, καλύτερες ευκαιρίες για αναζήτηση θέσεων εργασίας, ανοχή της
διαφορετικότητας κλπ. Επιπλέον, μπορούμε να αναφερθούμε στην διγλωσσία ως
«ζήτημα» διότι όταν επιλέγουμε ένα πράγμα ταυτόχρονα, πρέπει να εγκαταλείψουμε
ένα άλλο. Ως εκ τούτου, το να γίνει κανείς δίγλωσσος, απαιτεί χρόνο ,
προσπάθεια και μερικές φορές θυσίες,
ειδικά όταν αναφερόμαστε στην πρώιμη διγλωσσία.
Abstract
Bilingualism
seems to be an opportunity and an issue at the same time. The opportunity is
not hard to observe especially today, when societies grow towards ideas of
globalization, nondiscrimination and modernism: intercultural communication,
better chances to find jobs, openness for tolerance etc. Still, we can also
introduce the issue of bilingualism because when we choose one thing at one
time, we must give up another. Therefore, truly becoming bilingual needs time,
effort and sometimes sacrifices, especially when we think about early
bilingualism.
1. Basic principles and considerations regarding
bilingualism
If
we try to give bilingualism the simplest definition possible, we can say that
bilingualism represents the ability to communicate naturally and fluently in
two languages and about any topic. Bilingual speakers can be both children and
adults. Children who simultaneously learned the two languages in childhood are
often called simultaneous bilinguals
and it’s a common occurrence in bilingual families[1]. Those who learned the second language later,
possibly after moving to a foreign country or through educational pursues with
a less natural setting, are called sequential or consecutive bilinguals.[2]
There are two important
areas of cognitive flexibility. One of those is divergent thinking, which can be verified by offering to subjects a
starting place for their thought processing, after which they are asked to
generate a whole series of possible solutions. For instance, we can imagine we
have a brick or a can and then we ask ourselves how many ways we can use it.
Bilinguals usually score higher on these exercises, because they think of more
instances of use compared to monolinguals. Bilinguals have at least two words
for each of these objects, while the meaning of each word may be slightly
different in their respective languages. Also, bilingual children are more
advanced than unilinguals in solving problems requiring the inhibition of
misleading information[3]. The second area is convergent thinking, which can be measured with a test that
requires subjects to give a number of words for giving a correct answer to a
particular question/task. Convergent thinking follows the opposite process of
thought, from diversity to unity[4]. Bilinguals, both children and adults, have an
increased ability to create new concepts, showing more creativity and a wider
imagination. They can understand the many ways in which an object can be
described, they tend to “play with words” more, therefore enhancing creativity[5]. Regarding performances in mathematics and
logical tasks, there is now definitive conclusion whether bilingualism has a
clear influence with respect to performances in these areas and further
research is required[6]. Even though for awhile it was argued that
bilingualism leads to negative consequences for individuals in terms of
cognitive abilities, today this is generally no longer believed to be the case[7].
Those cognitive
abilities established in the native language can be transferred to new acquired
languages. This means that the level of competence that the child has on the
second language at one point is strongly related to the level of competence for
the first language. Although the two languages may be different on the output,
they share the same knowledge and concepts, derived from experience and
learning, and also, the individuals have a sole cognitive ability. For
educational achievements, it's necessary to reach deeper levels of cognitive
processes such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Bilingual children and
adults show more metalinguistic awareness,
which means they have the ability to reflect on the use of language and to
transfer linguistic knowledge across languages. It can also be described as the
ability to think abstractly about language and appreciate linguistic form
rather than content[8]. Basically, bilingual students show a higher
metalinguistic awareness because they use two languages on a daily basis, so
they need to pay more attention to how each language works and also to
potential differences and common traits between them. For this, the student
must think about the next language he'll be using. Generally speaking,
bilinguals show a better semantic development and greater classification
abilities.
Another advantage in
bilingualism is given by communicative
sensitivity, which refers to the level of awareness that people have
towards what happens in a certain linguistics interaction. Bilingual
individuals, especially adults, have more communication awareness because they
get used to thinking which language to use for which persons and in which
situations[9]. This means they are more sensitive to the
needs of their dialogue partners. Besides, they perceive some details that can
indicate when to change the spoken language. As a result, changing the
linguistics code ensures mental flexibility for solving cognitive tasks.
Another research
conducted by Cummins and Gulutean (1974) supports that bilingual children and
adults have increased abilities of communication and verbal originality, which
may lead to a high self-esteem. Also, bilingualism may increase reading skills,
which makes these children better story tellers[10].
All these abilities help
bilingual children and adults to perceive situations in a more analytical
manner. They can concentrate on the key parts of the problem, and then select
the most crucial solving scenarios. These abilities are applied in language,
communication thinking and normal perceptions, giving bilingual students
advantages not only in divergent and creative thinking, but also in analytical
thinking. Bilingualism improves attention and cognitive control, providing
individuals with higher capacity of concentrating on a task while ignoring
potential disturbing factors. Also, bilingual adults show a higher functioning
working memory[11], which represents quite the advantage in a
large area of job places.
Other studies in
bilingualism neuro-psychology have shown that early childhood bilingualism
improves focus capacity and offers more protection against early dementia or
other old age-related conditions. One theory is that the “cognitive backup” of
knowing and using a second language leads to the higher vascularization and
better oxygenation of the brain, thus keeping healthier neural connections and
preventing dementia.[12]
On the opposite side of
the matter, there are studies (mostly older ones) which mention various negative effects of bilingualism
regarding cognitive development. Darcy (1963), after various researches, came
to the conclusion that bilinguals suffer some form of language handicap when
they have to take intelligence tests. It was suggested that bilinguals did not
reach the same language depth as monolinguals did[13].
Children who learn two
languages simultaneously follow a slower process of language acquisition compared
to monolingual children, and their level is comparable to the ones who learned
the second language later on in school[14]
Research also suggests
some form of disparity in developing the language proficiency necessary for
higher linguistic skills. For instance, we consider the difference between
cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) versus more conversational
proficiency necessary for day to day social interactions[15]. Children can usually acquire conversational
proficiency in a non-dominant language within two years; however they tend to
take much longer to acquire higher order language proficiency in that language[16].
Another weaker point in
bilingual development is the dimension of vocabulary. Studies were conducted
regarding the dimension of vocabulary of bilinguals. According to Pearson,
Fernandez and Oller (1993), preschool bilingual children’s vocabulary scores
are often lower than their monolingual peers in any of the two languages. The
vocabulary size in one particular language is in direct connection to the time
the child spends interacting in that language. Therefore, especially in early
development, there may be various limits in bilinguals’ vocabulary size, and
these limits will get less clear as children grow and keep communicating[17].
Regarding
delay in language acquisition in English, one of the areas where this seems
more noticeable is in the acquisition of past tense verbs, for bilingual
children between the ages of 4-6 years. Bilingual children tend to make more
mistakes when they have to use irregular past tense forms. So, they add the
termination „-ed” more frequently to verbs like „runned”, which is a common
mistake for beginner English learners. Monolinguals can also display this type
of error, but in the earlier development[18]. Of the possible explanations for this delay
is the fact that bilingual children hear and use the English language less
frequently than monolingual English speakers.
Nevertheless,
being bilingual remains a cognitive overall advantage and each of the
aforementioned negative aspects can be overcome, sometimes naturally, or giving
proper adult intervention in early development. Some other studies even
suggested that bilingualism can result in a higher overall intelligence
compared to monolinguals, but this is not certain and the authors mention: „It
is impossible to state from the present study whether the more intelligent
child became bilingual or whether bilingualism added his intellectual development”
(Peal and Lambert, 1962)[19].
In any case, bilingual
children and adults have shown advantages compared to monolinguals. When we put
everything in balance, bilingualism shows more advantages than disadvantages,
regardless of the type (simultaneous or consecutive bilingualism). Last but not
least, bilingualism can prove an important asset to us depending of the society
we live in.
2. Competition of alternatives in verbal emission of
bilinguals
When
performing even the most basic verbal tasks, such as naming a familiar object,
different researches show that both languages are active and both influence the
individual’s overall performance[20]. Studies have shown that the two languages of
the bilingual have parallel activity when it comes to understanding a certain
thing[21]. Still, it’s surprising that the language the
subject does not intend to use during talking is also available. The act of
recognizing someone’s speech is different from talking on your own. Regarding
the latter, there is a process on a conceptual level which takes a certain
thought and directs it to the available lexical information. In theory, the
conceptual nature of spoken language should allow an early selection of the
language for emission planning.
Although
some early language selection can be made in certain moments (for instance,
when bilingual know a language better than the other, in consecutive
bilingualism), most recent studies about verbal production of bilinguals have
shown that a person’s intention to speak a sole language in a given situation
cannot limit the activation of alternatives (synonyms etc.) only on that
particular language.[22]
One
special realization about bilinguals is also the fact that they do not commit
random language errors. At the same time, they are capable to easily switch
from one language to another during the same conversation, if the person they
are talking to is also a similar bilingual[23]. Of course, someone may argue that sentence
fluency is supported by a variety of mechanisms which can be unavailable in an
out of context conversation, but this does not necessarily mean that the
bilingual’s verbal production would be worse in this case compared to a
conversation in which the two languages compete for being selected by the
individual. This has led some specialists to consider that bilingual people
have a special mechanism of cognitive control that develops while these people
gain more abilities in their second language, which will have consequences over
the general process of controlling executions[24].
In order to understand
how speech production is made when bilinguals have two or three alternatives,
we need to know a certain selection mechanism. Available date from past studies
give us enough support for identifying those brain areas of language
intersection that activate when the subject wishes to pronounce a single word[25]. The general assumption in the lexical
production models is that at least three components must activate before
articulation. A concept and its closest lexical representation must be
selected, but there is also necessary to specify the phonology that corresponds
to that particular lexical representation. For bilinguals, because there are a
number of alternatives for each language, there may be an activation of several
“candidates” on the level of competing for verbal emission.
Factors which influence
the representation of the intention of speaking are as follows: the relative
dominance of one of the two languages of the bilingual, the context in which
verbalization is produced, the languages’ own particular traits.
Kroll and his
collaborators consider these alternatives to mixed language may be active in
different neural areas. The level of activity for the language that was not
chosen by the subject is not standard, but influenced by factors such as: the
particular traits of the chosen language, the level of competence in the second
language, the dialogue partner and also the way in which the individual can
prioritize the available lexical alternatives[26].
When verbalization is
produced in the subject’s main language, we may think there are fewer reasons
to find a strong activity of the second language influence, given the fact that
the main language is better developed and speech planning in this language is
faster and more reliable. Therefore, the second language should not have many
opportunities to participate in this scenario. In reverse, when bilinguals
speak in their second language, there may be multiple influences of their main
language over their second one[27].
Even though we have no
consensus between scientists regarding to what extent the studies showed some
language intersection activities produced in the bilinguals’ speech planning,
one certain satisfying result can derive from analyzing the general conclusions
as a whole. How does the right word get selected if alternatives in both
languages are active? One model of specific language selection shows that
information about word from the non-intended language is active, but those
words do not represent candidates for selection[28]. It’s noteworthy that the presence of active
multiple languages excludes an extreme model in which one of the two languages
is completely deactivated, so that the bilinguals can become, for some time,
truly “monolinguals”.
A study conducted by
Gollan and Ferreira (2007) showcased some conclusions regarding the difficulty
of switching between alternatives that bilinguals face. In their research, they
asked the subjects to switch between the two languages when given the task to
simply name the objects in various images. In this case, subjects had absolute
freedom to use whatever language they preferred to name the objects. It has
been found that even those bilingual individuals that have a strong dominant
language had some difficulties for switching between the two languages for
alternatives, even if they had full control over the way they did the
switching. So, there is some sort of inhibitory effect over the main and
dominant language in a mixed language scenario, and bilinguals do not need less
time to switch from their second language to their first language than they
usually require for the opposite scenario. In any case, all these studies about
bilingualism acknowledge that, in order to surpass the activity of alternative
concepts for the unused language, there is some level of inhibition required[29].
There are also studies
that follow the specific properties of languages to determine if the unused
language is still active and available for selection. Some researches
approached this issue by examining words with common etymology in several
languages and their effects over emission. These words have common lexical
traits such as orthography and phonology. Given image naming tests, bilingual
subjects name faster those images that correspond to this kind of words, as
compared to the quickness of their responses when having to name images that
have corresponding words without the same degree of resemblance. These results
suggest that the phonology of lexical candidates in the not-intentioned
language is active during speech planning so that objects named with words that
share common roots allow and receive activation from both sources: main and
secondary language. Costa and collaborators have found that this effect for
words with common root is greater when subjects were required to use the second
language, which means that the dominant language is more likely to influence
the second language than vice versa[30].
By trying to localize the
selection effects in bilinguals’ verbal production, more methods were searched
in order to provide answers regarding the localization of the cognitive
processes involved in word selection and emission in both languages. There are
some differences in the proposed models. When saying that verbal indicators
guide the selection process, it is suggested we should observe early effects of
language selection during processing. In contrast, those conclusions supporting
the idea of an inhibitory process as a reply to competing alternatives from the
two languages are more consistent with the idea of a late selection. Regardless
of this lack of consensus, we can say there is some sort of competition between
the two known languages for verbal production, and the simple act of
consciously inhibit one language does not mean there are zero chances to
involuntarily introduce words from the language that wasn’t selected.
3. General aspects of bilingual education
It may seem normal for
bilingual children who are born into bilingual communities to have the opportunity
to be educated in two languages: the mother language and another language
strongly used in the community. However, in most of these bilingual communities
the two languages do not have completely equal status. There are still
languages of the majority which are sometimes associated with more prestige and
better social and economic connotations, and also, languages of the minority,
possibly associated with lower economic and social conditions in their
respective communities – therefore, these languages are less likely to be
thought and promoted in schools. So, all around the world we find children who
must attend classes that use a language they don't know as well as the natives.
We can provide examples
such as children from Mozambique who speak Shona at home, but they attend
schools in which Portuguese is used or children from Surinam who speak Hindi at
home and have to attend classes where they use Danish[31].
When this type of
fracture between home and school happens, several negative effects can follow,
including unsatisfying educational results. Especially if the minority language
is considered the cause for these negative results, it gets more difficult to
create a better environment for children to grow and be educated. Many authors
agree this situation can be changed only if the minority language is introduced
in schools and gets enough recognition and expertise. The social and economic
level of the society shall dictate the way minority languages can be introduced
in schools and any governmental decision regarding such change will have a
great impact over the language itself in that community.
In one class, there may
be one of several children who don’t have the same native language as the rest.
However, Baker (2001) tackled this issue and said that speaking two languages
means more than simply looking through two lenses, while being bilingual is not
so easy to establish and confirm. Some people may speak two languages but with
different degrees of success while other may be proficient in both languages
but hardly get to use one of them[32].
Linguistic abilities do
not develop separately from the social development of that particular society.
They are influenced by the current situations in which we use the language. In
order to communicate, the student must not only learn the structure of the
language (grammar, vocabulary) but also be able to use it in different
situations or social contexts. He must learn how to talk depending of the
dialogue partners and the circumstances. The way in which we use our knowledge
and language abilities may change depending of several factors, such as the
people that communicate with us, their language skills, the subject of the
conversation, the purpose and so on.
Bilingual students have
a larger spectrum of choices at their desire, given their experience with
multiple cultural and linguistic environments. Despite some impediments that
are sometimes encountered when society is strongly shaped by a single language,
bilinguals enjoy many advantages,
such as[33]:
- Using two or more word
for the same concept or idea: therefore, easier establishment of relationships
between words and concepts and more flexible and more creative thinking;
- More efficient and
expressive communication and the ability to develop and maintain stronger and
more profound relationships with families, but also with the local and general
community;
- Benefiting from two
types of literature, traditions, ideas, ways of thinking and behavioral norms;
- They can play the role
of the “bridge” for people with different cultures, races or beliefs;
- More openness towards
diversity, multiple cultures;
- Better and more
diverse opportunities for employment, achieving careers and earning a higher
financial and social status.
Still, we must also note
that all these ideas about cognitive bilingualism (cognitive advantage) and
bilingual education are better observed in practice once the individual gets
more skilled with the second language. As for cognitive benefits, we can structure
them on three levels:
First level (low level for both languages):
- Children have low competence in
both languages;
- They can face difficulties when
processing information in any of the two languages;
Second level (low level for one of the two languages):
- Children have a level of
competence that matches their ages for only one of the two languages (most
likely the mother tongue);
- Cognitive development will overall
resemble the monolingual child of the same age;
Third level (high level for both languages):
- Children have a level of
competence that matches their ages for both languages;
- They may show intellectual
advantages compared to their monolingual peers.
Just as we’ve discussed
regarding the benefits of bilingual education, so we must tackle this sensitive
topic of cognitive development. It takes time and careful planning in order to
obtain the desired effects. If school aged children have limited opportunities
to use the second language, in authentic out-of-school contexts, it may take several
years of bilingual education before they get to a high level of competence for
their second language. Still, there are examples from bilingual schools that
show bilingual education can bring students over time to a higher grade of
competence and, hopefully, some superior levels of cognitive development. At
least, available research shows no disadvantages related to bilingual
education, which must be one more reason to encourage a bilingual approach to
education in societies where there is no monolingual heritage anymore.
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