Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

journals.sagepub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 435 posts

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#261

Post by mejutoco »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #129
lisper wrote: post #94

This study seems to focus on acquired languages and ignores mulitple languages learned in childhood. As someone who grew up speaking three languages (German, Hebrew and English) I feel as if this has expanded my ability to conceptualize and form abstractions because I know "what it is like" to think natively in languages with different vocabularies and syntactic structures. That comes naturally with no effort when yo…

I agree with you. I once had an argument with a monolingual English-speaking person who was convinced that language is necessary for thinking, or that thinking somehow comes from language, which couldn't be further from my experience where I will have an abstract thought and then try to put it into words. However it took years for me to be conscious of the abstract thinking. I started out by thinking in my native ton…

About thinking, I always think (hah) of this quote:

"Lo que solemos elevar a la categoría de meditaciones no es más que el ruido de un motor encendido." Ray Loriga

My idiomatic translation: "What we usually elevate to thinking/thoughts is only the noise of a running engine."

I also believe language is necessary for thinking. I would define thinking as following the scientific method, though. That is, thinking is not necessary to tie my shoelaces or go shopping or dance (that I consider more autopilot, maybe like system 1 and 2?). But to make a rigorous argument, IMO one needs language. Under this definition of thinking it seems logic is pretty important, and logic seems to me language-based.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#262

Post by stevenhuang »

aporetics wrote: post #197
dbtc wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read your comment (fascinating!) and the parent, and I'm thinking a language is a tool, and like all tools, what matters most is how you use it.

When language is a tool, it is a tool like a person is a tool.

Language is a tool for communication.

Having your sensibilities hurt from thinking this somehow detracts from the human condition is quaint but doesn't make the statement any less appropriate.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#263

Post by thevagrant »

paganel wrote: post #239
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This topic misses the forest for the trees. Even if there is a cognitive difference in people who speak multiple languages, the magnitude of the advantage/disadvantage pales in comparison to the far more impactful difference in the understanding of the world that proficiency in another language gives you. But that's not what the paper studied. It's long been stated in popular culture that learning a language increa…

> It's the moving to China for a year that would increase your understanding of Chinese culture and people far more than learning Chinese by itself. I've never set foot in the US and yet I know lots of things about the country and its people because I can speak and write in English, certainly I do know more about the US compared to my fellow countrymen who cannot speak and write English. The same goes for French, eve…

I see your point, although do you think that being bilingual gave you significant cognitive advantage?

Or could you be quite intelligent with above average memory and your existing cognitive advantage has helped you to become bilingual?

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#264

Post by cpursley »

fnord77 wrote: post #108
eru wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it like it's a bad thing. This is an awesome way to provide both an extra language when kids don't have much else to do and fit it easy to pick them up, _and_ it saves on costs? What could be better?

> an extra language I learned spanish at a young age and I find it pretty useless. The last time I used it in the past 20 years was watching Casa De Papiel Really wished I learned something like German or Chinese instead

Show me any German native speaker under 50 who’s not fluent in English. Language groups with small numbers of English competency is going to get you much further.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#265

Post by mejutoco »

thejackgoode wrote: post #256
pazimzadeh wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I once had an argument with a monolingual English-speaking person who was convinced that language is necessary for thinking, or that thinking somehow comes from language, which couldn't be further from my experience where I will have an abstract thought and then try to put it into words. However it took years for me to be conscious of the abstract thinking. I started out by thinking in my native ton…

This. I know it has very little scientific merit, but Roger Penrose's argument that "consciousness is quantum" always rang that bell to me, the thought (or a solution to a problem) comes to me always entirely at once, not one word at a time.

The scientific method seems to me language-based. How to come up with hypotheses, however, seems to me exactly as you mention. They just pop out of nowhere, like a sudden inspiration that has been processing in the background and now just clicks.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#266

Post by vintermann »

Highlights more the absurdity of "general cognitive advantages" than anything else. In situations where you need a language, whether you're able to speak it or not trumps everything else. I can't perform even the simplest of tasks if the instructions are given in Chinese and I can't access a translation.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#267

Post by sgt »

DuckFeathers wrote: post #241

Being able to think in multiple languages frees the mind from thinking in language altogether. This is easy to deduce with reasoning and I can confirm it (to myself) from experience. What psychological "science" has to say about it makes me question their study than anything. It is important to remember however that not all bilinguals are equal. The languages have to be different enough. English, German and Swedish (…

Aside from that, don't underestimate the amount of thinking we do without language. What do we call that - raw braincode? So in that sense, we're all bilingual, even those only speaking English. I.e. you can think "I'm going down to the post office to post a letter with a stamp on it" without language.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#268

Post by sgt »

Probably a rubbish study. You can probably do the same with programming languages and show that knowing Lisp, Java and C won't give you any cognitive advantages. Just stick to Java and you'll have plenty of "cognition". We'll all know this is (as decaffjoe pointed out) completely missing the forest for the trees.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#269

Post by cpursley »

courgette wrote: post #52
tstrimple wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to imagine there are parallel benefits as well. Just as a Java developer will become a better Java developer by learning programming languages with other paradigms, I have to believe knowing multiple spoken languages has tangible benefits outside of understanding the language itself.

French being my first language, I can says the same things with fancier words in english. But sometime I will use English turn of sentences in French and it sounds weird ( just did it a l’envers here, pretty sure “turn of sentence” does not exists in English ) I’m ok at Spanish too. My main motivation is to be able to talk to random peoples when traveling. English came de facto because of the internet and US soft pow…

Fwiw, we can also say fancier things in English by using some French words ;)

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#270

Post by AdamN »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #257
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This topic misses the forest for the trees. Even if there is a cognitive difference in people who speak multiple languages, the magnitude of the advantage/disadvantage pales in comparison to the far more impactful difference in the understanding of the world that proficiency in another language gives you. But that's not what the paper studied. It's long been stated in popular culture that learning a language increa…

>It's the moving to China for a year that would increase your understanding of Chinese culture and people far more than learning Chinese by itself. sure, go to China for a year, only speak English, surround yourself with English speaking friends and going to English friendly restaurants and in the end come back with an increased understanding of Chinese culture and people and probably get jobs based on that understan…

That's not totally true - in Berlin there are lots of English speakers (many/most English as a second language) and so people including myself live here with pretty basic German (A2 probably). Those people are certainly learning alot about a different culture from wherever they came from even if they aren't speaking the dominant language.

Obviously if I had B2 German it would be awesome and I would chat up more people ... but that's not an easy thing to do, even over a number of years. I hope to get there some day but in Berlin it's particularly difficult because so many people speak English (and sometimes better English than German).

Post reply on HN