Cognitive Consequences of Bi-/Multilingualism. Cognitive Benefits of Growing up within a Multilingual Environment PDF Download
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Author: Romana Pfurtscheller
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3346296431
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 24
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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2, University of Innsbruck, language: English, abstract: This paper examines the cognitive benefits deriving from growing up in a multilingual environment. It deals with the questions if bi-/multilinguals can learn a new language faster than others and if they have better task-switching capacities than monolinguals. Eventually, the benefits of bi-/multilingualism for elderly people are described. In order to give an answer to these questions, first, this paper has a look on the cognitive consequences of bi-/multilingualism, including the executive function, the second and third language acquisition connected with the parallel activation of both languages, the benefits in older age and the effects on memory. Following, the development of multilingual individuals will be described. The paper will look on the personal development, the academic potential and the analytical thinking of multilingual individuals. In current times, more than half of the worlds' population is bilingual or multilingual. A survey which was conducted by the European Commission in 2006, shows that 56 percent of the participants are able to speak in one or more language(s) other than their mother tongue. This percentage is even higher in some of the world’s areas: for instance, 99 percent of Luxembourgers and 97 percent of Slovaks master more than one language. This upbringing in a multilingual environment does not only facilitate cross-cultural communication but has positive effects on the cognitive abilities. Research has shown that bi-/multilinguals have outperformed monolinguals in several tasks, such as the Flanker task, the Stroop task, or the Trail Making task, showing that bi-/multilinguals can have better attention and task-switching capacities than monolinguals. However, the most interesting and consistent results have shown that bi-/multilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Children who grew up in a bi-/multilingual environment can better adjust to environmental changes than others and elderly people suffer from less cognitive decline.
Author: Romana Pfurtscheller
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3346296431
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 24
Get Book
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2, University of Innsbruck, language: English, abstract: This paper examines the cognitive benefits deriving from growing up in a multilingual environment. It deals with the questions if bi-/multilinguals can learn a new language faster than others and if they have better task-switching capacities than monolinguals. Eventually, the benefits of bi-/multilingualism for elderly people are described. In order to give an answer to these questions, first, this paper has a look on the cognitive consequences of bi-/multilingualism, including the executive function, the second and third language acquisition connected with the parallel activation of both languages, the benefits in older age and the effects on memory. Following, the development of multilingual individuals will be described. The paper will look on the personal development, the academic potential and the analytical thinking of multilingual individuals. In current times, more than half of the worlds' population is bilingual or multilingual. A survey which was conducted by the European Commission in 2006, shows that 56 percent of the participants are able to speak in one or more language(s) other than their mother tongue. This percentage is even higher in some of the world’s areas: for instance, 99 percent of Luxembourgers and 97 percent of Slovaks master more than one language. This upbringing in a multilingual environment does not only facilitate cross-cultural communication but has positive effects on the cognitive abilities. Research has shown that bi-/multilinguals have outperformed monolinguals in several tasks, such as the Flanker task, the Stroop task, or the Trail Making task, showing that bi-/multilinguals can have better attention and task-switching capacities than monolinguals. However, the most interesting and consistent results have shown that bi-/multilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Children who grew up in a bi-/multilingual environment can better adjust to environmental changes than others and elderly people suffer from less cognitive decline.
Author: Maurits Van den Noort
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3039281046
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
The number of bilingual and multilingual speakers around the world is steadily growing, leading to the questions: How do bilinguals manage two or more language systems in their daily interactions, and how does being bilingual/multilingual affect brain functioning and vice versa? Previous research has shown that cognitive control plays a key role in bilingual language management. This hypothesis is further supported by the fact that foreign languages have been found to affect not only the expected linguistic domains, but surprisingly, other non-linguistic domains such as cognitive control, attention, inhibition, and working memory. Somehow, learning languages seems to affect executive/brain functioning. In the literature, this is referred to as the bilingual advantage, meaning that people who learn two or more languages seem to outperform monolinguals in executive functioning skills. In this Special Issue, we first present studies that investigate the bilingual advantage. We also go one step further, by focusing on factors that modulate the effect of bilingualism on cognitive control. In the second, smaller part of our Special Issue, we focus on the cognitive reserve hypothesis with the aim of addressing the following questions: Does the daily use of two or more languages protect the aging individual against cognitive decline? Does lifelong bilingualism protect against brain diseases, such as dementia, later in life?
Author: Ellen Bialystok
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521379182
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
A collection of papers that explore bilingual children coping with two language systems.
Author: Peter Bright
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 288963017X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
The claim that multilanguage acquisition drives advantages in ‘executive function’ is currently an issue of vigorous debate in academic literature. Critics argue that evidence for this advantage has been confounded by unsound or questionable methodological practices, with some investigators abandoning research in this area altogether, indicating either that there is no bilingual advantage or that it is impossible to capture and therefore rule out alternative explanations for group differences. Over the past decade, and against this backdrop, theory has developed from a relatively narrow focus on inhibitory control to incorporate theory of mind, rule-based learning, reactive and proactive control, visuo-spatial memory, and control of verbal interference in speech comprehension. Most recently, authors have claimed that the process of becoming bilingual may also impact on metacognitive abilities. The fundamental issue is whether the limited capacity and goal-directed selectivity of our executive system can somehow be enhanced or otherwise profit from the continuous, intense competition associated with communicating in multilingual environments. However, although this issue has received much attention in academic literature, the question of which cognitive mechanisms are most influenced by the enhanced competition associated with multilingual contexts remains unresolved. Therefore, rather than dismissing this important topic, we advocate a more systematic approach in which the effects of multilinguistic experience are assessed and interpreted across well-defined stages of cognitive development. We encourage a broad, developmentally informed approach to plotting the trajectory of interactions between multi-language learning and cognitive development, using a convergence of neuroimaging and behavioral methods, across the whole lifespan. Moreover, we suggest that the current theoretical framing of the bilingual advantage is simplistic, and this issue may limit attempts to identify specific mechanisms most likely to be modulated by multilingual experience. For example, there is a tendency in academic literature to treat ‘executive function’ as an essentially unitary fronto-parietal system recruited in response to all manner of cognitive demand, yet performance across so called ‘executive function’ tasks is highly variable and intercorrelations are sometimes low. It may be the case that some ‘higher level’ mechanisms of 'executive function' remain relatively unaffected, while others are more sensitive to multilingual experience – and that there may be disadvantages as well as advantages, which themselves may be sensitive to factors such as age. In our view, there is an urgent need to take a more fine-grained approach to this issue, so that the strength and direction of changes in diverse cognitive abilities associated with multilanguage acquisition can be better understood. This book compiles work from psychologists and neuroscientists who actively research whether, how, and the extent to which multilanguage acquisition promotes enhanced cognition or protects against age-related cognitive or neurological deterioration. We hope this collection encourages future efforts to drive theoretical progress well beyond the highly simplistic issue of whether the bilingual cognitive advantage is real or spurious.
Author: Ellen Bialystok
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027265399
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
This collection brings together two areas of research that are currently receiving great attention in both scientific and public spheres: cognitive aging and bilingualism. With ongoing media focus on the aging population and the need for activities to forestall cognitive decline, experiences that appear effective in maintaining functioning are of great interest. One such experience is lifelong bilingualism. Moreover, research into the cognitive effects of bilingualism has increased dramatically in the past decade, making it an exciting area of study. This volume combines these issues and presents the most recent research and thinking into the effects of bilingualism on cognitive decline in aging. The contributors are all leading scholars in their field. The result is a state-of-the art collection on the effect of bilingualism on cognition in older populations for both healthy aging and aging with dementia. The papers will be of interest to researchers, students, and health professionals.
Author: Jürgen M. Meisel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107181364
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
This practical and reassuring guide will enable readers to make informed decisions about how to raise their child bilingually.
Author: Maurits Van den Noort
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783039281053
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
The number of bilingual and multilingual speakers around the world is steadily growing, leading to the questions: How do bilinguals manage two or more language systems in their daily interactions, and how does being bilingual/multilingual affect brain functioning and vice versa? Previous research has shown that cognitive control plays a key role in bilingual language management. This hypothesis is further supported by the fact that foreign languages have been found to affect not only the expected linguistic domains, but surprisingly, other non-linguistic domains such as cognitive control, attention, inhibition, and working memory. Somehow, learning languages seems to affect executive/brain functioning. In the literature, this is referred to as the bilingual advantage, meaning that people who learn two or more languages seem to outperform monolinguals in executive functioning skills. In this Special Issue, we first present studies that investigate the bilingual advantage. We also go one step further, by focusing on factors that modulate the effect of bilingualism on cognitive control. In the second, smaller part of our Special Issue, we focus on the cognitive reserve hypothesis with the aim of addressing the following questions: Does the daily use of two or more languages protect the aging individual against cognitive decline? Does lifelong bilingualism protect against brain diseases, such as dementia, later in life?
Author: Irina A. Sekerina
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027262748
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 387
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Book Description
The study of bilingualism has charted a dramatically new, important, and exciting course in the 21st century, benefiting from the integration in cognitive science of theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology (especially work on the higher-level cognitive processes often called executive function or executive control). Current research, as exemplified in this book, advances the study of the effects of bilingualism on executive function by identifying many different ways of being bilingual, exploring the multiple facets of executive function, and developing and analyzing tasks that measure executive function. The papers in this volume (21 chapters), by leading researchers in bilingualism and cognition, investigate the mechanisms underlying the effects (or lack thereof) of bilingualism on cognition in children, adults, and the elderly. They take us beyond the standard, classical, black-and-white approach to the interplay between bilingualism and cognition by presenting new methods, new findings, and new interpretations.
Author: Vivian Cook
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1136866396
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 608
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Book Description
This innovative volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of the relationship between language and cognition with a focus on bilinguals. It brings together contributions from international leading figures in various disciplines and showcases contemporary research on the emerging area of bilingual cognition. The first part of the volume discusses the relationship between language and cognition as studied in various disciplines, from psychology to philosophy to anthropology to linguistics, with chapters written by some of the major thinkers in each discipline. The second part concerns language and cognition in bilinguals. Following an introductory overview and contributions from established figures in the field, bilingual cognition researchers provide examples of their latest research on topics including time, space, motion, colors, and emotion. The third part discusses practical applications of the idea of bilingual cognition, such as marketing and translation. The volume is essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students with an interest in language and cognition, or in bilingualism and second languages.
Author: Sammy Beban Chumbow
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 1789232260
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 186
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Book Description
Research in the area of bilingualism and multilingualism invariably produces fascinating insights. In the Europe of yesteryears, the paradigm of one nation one language was dominant and fashionable as a nation-building ideology that multilingualism was considered a curse, a demon that had to be exorcised. Today, the avalanche of empirical evidence of research findings has established multilingualism and pluralism as an ideal for national development. The nine chapters of this book provide further elucidations of the issue of benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism and also provide original research findings on developments in the areas of psychological dimensions of bilingualism and bilingualism in information retrieval systems. The book by its illuminating description and insightful analysis of issues of bilingualism will be of significant interest to scholars, researchers, and all concerned with bilingualism and multilingualism from whatever perspective.
