MOOC: Multilingual Education

2.3. Breaking the myths about bilingualism

Week 2 Part 3 will help you to:

critically evaluate popular beliefs about bilingualism,
learn about the recent research on different issues related to bilingualism and plurilingualism.

To reach these goals you are expected to:

watch the introductory video,
read the text below on the myths and misconceptions related to bilignualism.
watch a video on bilingualism.

Video

Reading

Breaking the myths about bilingualism

– Most people in the world are monolingual

It is often believed that bilingualism or plurilingualism is a much rarer phenomenon than monolingualism. According to Grosjean (2011) most people think that bilingual people are only found in some countries, such as Canada and Switzerland and that in order to be classified as ‘bilingual’ you need to show equal speaking and writing fluency and native-like pronunciation in the languages you speak. The reality seems to be quite different. According to some estimates, bilingual or plurilingual people account for at least half of the world population and the proficiency of bilingual people in the languages they speak is rarely equal. But how many bilingual or plurilingual people are there in the world? In order to answer this question, we would first have to agree on a common understanding of who is actually bilingual. Are you bilingual if you know two languages, use two languages or if you spoke two languages when you were a child? In addition, to be able to count the number of languages spoken by an individual, we would have to agree on what counts as a language in the first place.

However, we do have some useful data available for some parts of the world. According to the Eurobarometer Report Europeans and their Languages (European Commission, 2012), just over half of Europeans (54%) are able to hold a conversation in at least one additional language, while a quarter (25%) reported being able to speak at least two additional languages. And as stated by the Eurostat report in 2016, 24.8 % of working-age adults in the EU, who knew at least one foreign language, reported that they knew their best-known foreign language at a proficient level.

In North America, the estimated bilingual population is 35%, while in the 2000 census in the United States 18% of the people reported using another language. Furthermore, as Grosjean (2011) points out, while the statistics for Asian and African countries are scarce, we can safely assume that the percentages for North America and Europe would undoubtedly be surpassed in these areas.

– Bilinguals control a smaller vocabulary in each language than monolinguals

A systematic account of research related to the claim that bilingual children control a smaller vocabulary than their monolingual peers can be found in the article Bilingualism: the good, the bad and the indifferent by Ellen Bialystok (2009). The results of a number of studies have shown that it is indeed true that bilinguals control a smaller vocabulary in each language than people who are monolingual. These findings are based on research which involved people carrying out a variety of tasks aimed at testing their vocabulary size, access to vocabulary and retrieval of lexical items. In these tasks, bilinguals’ performance was significantly poorer than that of their monolingual peers. For example, they were slower in picture naming, in verbal frequency tasks, they had more ‘tip of the tongue’ experiences, identified words through noise less efficiently and experienced more interference in lexical choices. One possible explanation for the differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in vocabulary control can be found in the conflict created by the competition of the two languages which is present in bilinguals but not their monolingual peers.

On the other hand, the conflict and competition between the two languages also means that bilingual language production needs a special mechanism to manage and control attention to the target language, for example by inhibiting the interfering lexical option. This means that bilingual people may be equipped with a more efficient function of executive control which involves processes, such as inhibition, tasks switching and updating information in working memory. A number of studies based on various cognitive task have shown that bilingualism does indeed have a beneficial effect on the executive control function. One of the findings of these studies is, for instance, that bilingual children develop the ability to solve problems that contain conflicting or misleading information at an earlier stage than their monolingual peers. Although it is still not clear which mechanisms and processes lie behind the different ways in which bilinguals and monolinguals process verbal information, the research shows that tasks based primarily on verbal control are performed better by monolinguals while tasks involving executive control are performed better by bilinguals.

– Bilingualism and plurilingualism delay Alzheimer’s disease

This claim is based on the exciting discovery that some activities can be used to exercise the brain and that an increased ‘brain fitness’ can work as protection against cognitive decline. A number of studies have recently discussed the effect of early bilingualism on memory loss symptoms in elderly adults with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia (Bialystok et al 2007; Chertkow et al 2010; Klein et al 2016). According to a study carried out by Bialystok et al. (2007) focused on multilingual elderly patients, bilinguals showed symptoms of dementia 4 years later than monolinguals which might point to an increased cognitive reserve of bilingual individuals compared to their monolingual peers. Another study, carried out by Chertkow et al (2010), reported no significant advantage in bilinguals overall as regarded the age Alzheimer’s disease was diagnosed. However, the study revealed another interesting result, i.e. that the delaying effect of bilingualism was significant in a group of immigrants and non-immigrants whose first language was French but not in a group of non-immigrants whose first language was English.

In a study in which they compared the mean number of languages spoken by the inhabitants of 93 countries and the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in the country’s population, Klein et al (2016) found a significant decline in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease consistent with an increase in population multilingualism. However, the authors recommend viewing the results obtained with caution since there might be other ‘hidden’ factors, such as the socioeconomic status of the population, which may influence the positive evidence for the findings in question. They also point out that further research with more comprehensive data is necessary to assess the effect of multilingualism on cognitive decline.

– Children just “pick” up a new language

Another popular conviction is that it is really easy for children to learn a new language, that children just simply “pick” a language “up” effortlessly and naturally. Looking at children learning and acquiring a foreign language may indeed give us the impression that they are like sponges, soaking up new languages like blotting paper. However, learning a foreign language is far from simple, it involves developing different communication skills and competences, such as taking part in an interaction or expressing one’s opinion. And before children can become competent speakers of a foreign language, they have to be exposed to a variety of different contexts, but they also need a lot of life experience in order to grasp the complexity of language (De Houwer 1999). Learning a foreign language is a complex process which involves a range of cognitive practices, such as deduction and memorization, but also active practice and, above all, motivation.

– Bilinguals confuse their languages

Bilingual or plurilingual speakers often alternate or switch between two or more languages or language varieties or codes during the same conversation. We call this kind of mixing which is characteristic of bilingual or plurilingual communication code-mixing or code-switching. However, as Ibrahim (2015) points out, this kind of alternation does not happen haphazardly: “it is rule-governed and embedded in the syntactical and morphological structure of the languages used. The base language — the main language chosen for communication — accommodates the guest language at specific changeover points in a sentence or in a word. This allows multilingual communication to flow.” Code-switching is influenced by several factors, such as the need to stress a certain point or adapt the language to the audience. Sometimes a word or expression from a different language is simply more appropriate or suitable for the given subject. It is especially important to note that code-switching is used by speakers who are fluent in the two or more languages and intentionally alternate between them, unlike language learners who, for example, use a word from their native language to fill a lexical gap in their knowledge of a target language.

– Bilingualism causes delay in children’s language development

According to popular belief, hearing two different languages in early childhood might lead to language acquisition problems. Children who are exposed to two or more languages might be confused and show language delays or even disorders. However, no empirical evidence linking language delays to bilingualism has been found so far. According to De Houwer (2009) there is no difference in the language development between monolingual and bilingual children. On the contrary, bilingual children might actually have an advantage over monolingual peers as they “need to pay extra attention to what speakers intend to say, since the variation in the different words they hear is so much greater in a bilingual setting” De Houwer (2009, 241).

– Native-like fluency in a foreign language can only be achieved if we start early

There is a widely held belief that if we start learning a foreign language young we will end up as better speakers of this language. A standard argument claims that starting early is especially important for acquiring a natural pronunciation and native-like accent. Although several studies have been carried out trying to prove the advantages of an early start, it is impossible to give a conclusively positive answer to the question of appropriate age for language learning (Pinter 2011). Rather than a definite answer, there is a general consensus among researchers that we can speak of benefits for different age groups. One of the most important benefits of starting young is that children are more sensitive to the sound and rhythm of the foreign language, which means that they are more likely to develop good pronunciation. They are generally less inhibited than older learners and have lower anxiety levels. On the other hand, there are several advantages of starting to learn a foreign language later in life, in puberty or adulthood. For one, older learners are able to understand and analyse the rules of the new language, which allows them to use more efficient strategies for learning it. They can rely on a much more developed conceptual knowledge network and superior cognitive abilities compared to younger learners. In addition, they usually have a clear sense of why they are learning the foreign language (Pinter 2006).

Sources:

Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., & Freedman, M. (2007). Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Neuropsychologia, 45(2), 459-464.

Bialystok, E. (2009). Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Bilingualism: Language and cognition, 12(1), 3-11.

Chertkow, H., Whitehead, V., Phillips, N., Wolfson, C., Atherton, J., & Bergman, H. (2010). Multilingualism (but not always bilingualism) delays the onset of Alzheimer disease: evidence from a bilingual community. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, 24(2), 118-125.

De Houwer, A. (2009). Bilingual first language acquisition. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Grosjean, F. (2010). Bilingual life and reality. Cambridge/Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Ibrahim, N. (2015). A few myths about speakers of multiple languages. (Retrieved 20 October 2018 from https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/few-myths-about-speakers-multiple-languages)

Klein, R. M., Christie, J., & Parkvall, M. (2016). Does multilingualism affect the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease?: A worldwide analysis by country. SSM-population health, 2, 463-467.

Pinter, A. (2011). Children learning second languages. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pinter, A. (2006). Teaching young language learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Activity

The benefits of a bilingual brain

Watch the following video on the benefits of a bilingual brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmOLN5zBLY. Then do the activities below.

Activity 1: Match the type of bilingual person with the definition by dragging and dropping the right word.

Activity 2: In Week 2 Part 2 you learnt about a different classification of bilingual people which partly overlaps with the one in the video.
Match the terms referring to the same type of linguistic background.

Activity 3: Decide if the statements below are true or false.