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Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

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Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#81

Post by 999900000999 »

At least in the US this is often a sign of affluence, you need to have money to attend language school after your normal classwork.

I was very ignorant of this when I was younger, my first girlfriend was Korean , but couldn't really speak it since her parents( presumably) didn't put her in classes. On the other hand, if your parents have money for language classes, they probably can afford general tutoring. So your doing better in school than your classmates.

Before you mention public school language education, your lucky if your able to read attending a public high school. I went to one myself.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#82

Post by hackernewds »

AdrenalinMd wrote: post #50

As someone fluent in four languages*, I agree. I would even argue that the opposite of an advantage is true. Consider this: it adds unnecessary cognitive load. When trying to think of a word, it comes to you in four different languages, which isn't helpful! I speak four languages out of necessity, not by choice. When you can focus on fewer languages, your proficiency in them improves. Although I can speak four langua…

Exactly, I'll find myself doing translations in my head while speaking in English (my second language). And I find interacting socially much smoother in my native tongue.

I'm not sure if that relates directly to being able to connect deeply with the society of my upbringing, or that there is some hidden neural pattern there? For what it's worth, I've now been speaking English primarily longer than my mother tongue.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#83

Post by bugglebeetle »

lisasays wrote: post #56
bugglebeetle wrote: post #23

A result that can only be surprising in places where monolingualism is the norm, like the US, and knowledge of other languages (outside of those acquired from one’s family) is taken as a sign of erudition. If you’ve ever spent time in countries like Switzerland, you’d know their are plenty of people who speak 2 or more languages but are otherwise of average intelligence.

Switzerland is a bad example, because it's socially and multilingual. Whereas if one looks at basically monolingual societies (e.g. most of the countries in Europe) one find that not only is not everyone bilingual (and no, "everyone" does not speak English) -- multilingualism definitely correlates with class and education.

Why would Switzerland be a bad example in this context? The point of the study is that bilingualism does not afford cognitive advantage, so you have to consider countries where bilingualism is not associated with the factors you cite to see if this bears out. Pointing at other countries that function in the same way as the US in regard to a dominant language would just demonstrate more of the same as is found there.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#85

Post by nomilk »

ofalkaed wrote: post #2

It absolutely adds advantage to those interested in literature, it allows you to see your first language outside itself and generally increases your understanding of your first language. I would consider that a cognitive advantage but it is not exactly an advantage for the general public. Interestingly (at least to me) I have found programming languages* even more beneficial in this sense which I also find ironic, st…

> It adds advantage to those interested in literature

That's a specific skill though, as distinct cognition generally

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#86

Post by Cerium »

RajT88 wrote: post #79
AdrenalinMd wrote: post #50

As someone fluent in four languages*, I agree. I would even argue that the opposite of an advantage is true. Consider this: it adds unnecessary cognitive load. When trying to think of a word, it comes to you in four different languages, which isn't helpful! I speak four languages out of necessity, not by choice. When you can focus on fewer languages, your proficiency in them improves. Although I can speak four langua…

> Consider this: it adds unnecessary cognitive load. When trying to think of a word, it comes to you in four different languages, which isn't helpful! This has been my experience as well. My native language is English, and I do just fine in it. But I've also studied a couple other languages, and when I try to put together sentences, whatever word is closest sometimes pops out. I almost never find myself accidentally…

My experience is similar, the third language is indeed a problem. When learning the first foreign language in my mind it was "native vs other". Then when adding the third any gaps in my vocabulary would be filled by the previous language in a sort of layered cache approach. Unfortunately it is hardly ever useful to find the right Spanish word when you want a Japanese one.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#87

Post by unix_fan »

cshimmin wrote: post #72
tnel77 wrote: post #55

My theory: in the United States, speaking multiple languages can be a sign of coming from a more financially sound household. I wouldn’t expect a second language to be any better for the brain than studying math or learning to play an instrument. As always, the most important factor is money.

I would be surprised if the majority of bilingual speakers in the US aren't first/second gen immigrants. Not exactly known to be "a sign of coming from" wealth

Second generation immigrants struggle to speak the language of their parents, however. This happens at least with immigrants from my country to the U.S.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#88

Post by costco »

cshimmin wrote: post #72
tnel77 wrote: post #55

My theory: in the United States, speaking multiple languages can be a sign of coming from a more financially sound household. I wouldn’t expect a second language to be any better for the brain than studying math or learning to play an instrument. As always, the most important factor is money.

I would be surprised if the majority of bilingual speakers in the US aren't first/second gen immigrants. Not exactly known to be "a sign of coming from" wealth

I think this it. In Michigan public schools at least there are mandatory language courses for 2 years but these do not get most people anywhere close to fluency. Apparently I'm qualified enough to get a 4 on AP German but at my peak I could only get about 60% of your typical Der Spiegel headline. Everyone I know that knows another language at at least roughly a C1 level knows it because of family. But I imagine there are some people with tutors or better schools who start early with a language and probably end up pretty good at it.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#89

Post by ofalkaed »

jacquesm wrote: post #71
ofalkaed wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and if you learned linguistics you would have been able to pick up those languages more quickly with a better understanding. But like I already said, most should learn languages for pragmatic reasons, what it offers them, not for some vague reasons. I guess my point was that there would be advantage to having people study linguistics in high school instead of a second (or third or whatever) language, give the s…

You may well have a point. But: I know several people with a degree in linguistics and while it may help them to have a better idea of the structure and deeper understanding of languages in general it doesn't seem to help them at all in day to day communications with people in other languages. They tend to get hung up at the details of grammar and the finer points of sentence structure whereas what matters is to keep…

>it doesn't seem to help them at all in day to day communications with people in other languages.

Humanities sorts are terrible at communicating with those who are not humanities sorts, just as most doctors and lawyers are terrible at communicating their specialties to the laymen. I am not talking about studying linguistics to the ends of getting a degree in it but in a more pragmatic sense, if you want to learn a bunch of languages than it is very useful to learn what all those languages have in common so you do not have to relearn the same thing in new contexts, you just learn the contexts.

>Language and music have a lot in common in that respect, it's perfectly possible to be proficient at either without having a very deep understanding of the theory as long as you are willing to put in the hours

They do but becoming proficient is different than success. Satie and Bukowski were proficient but not at all ignorant but plenty have success while being ignorant. It is that pragmatism thing again, what are your goals, learning music theory will probably not help much if you want to become a success in a popular music genera but it could be very useful if you want to become a success across genres. Where do you want to shift the ignorance and the knowledge? what will be of most use to your goals.

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