Note from the editor: If you haven’t already, be sure to read Raising Children — Bilingually? Part 1 before jumping into Part 2. — MS
Bilingual Native-Language Acquisition
Children who are brought up bilingually will acquire two native languages according to the same processes as children who acquire language in a monolingual environment.
All children, whether they are brought up in monolingual or bilingual situations acquire language passing through the one-word and two-word stages as they build up language proficiency. However, bilinguals must learn to distinguish between two different streams of language and then develop their language accordingly.
Whether due to early non-discrimination or to the difficulty of acquiring first words, children in the early one-word sentence stage in a bilingual situation will use either language without differentiation according to whom they are speaking. This is comparable to monolingual language acquisition, where children do not acquire synonyms immediately, sometimes hypothesized as a measure of efficiency in the language acquisition process. At about the same time as when monolinguals start using synonyms, the bilingually-raised child then begins to use equivalents separately. This means that there should be no fear of a child’s ultimately “mixing” languages as long as caretakers specifically take heed not to mix languages themselves. What children hear, they imitate.
Brain Studies and Cognition
Studies of brain functioning in bilinguals have been and are still being carried out extensively. After much research into language competence, it is generally accepted that bilinguals have a single, integrated language system.
Also, “language and cognition may not be processed separately in the brain; instead they interact with and facilitate each other… Bilingualism appears to be associated with more effective cognitive control, particularly with executive control and executive function (EF) abilities.” (Higby et al.)
Experience with two languages tends to lead to greater cognitive efficiency. Bain has carried out a longitudinal study comparing two bilingual children and two monolingual children using cognitive testing as set up by Piaget and Vygotsky, He concludes that the bilingual brain is a better tool for learning.
Children learning two languages from infancy are not impaired cognitively or academically. It may even be possible to conclude that bilinguals have superior language skills as well as other cognitive abilities as compared to those of monolinguals. For example, it seems the tendency for bilinguals to be better in mathematics than monolinguals might be due to their having learned to handle abstraction from an early age. For a monolingual, the object “bed” and the word /bed/ are bound together such that the word is the thing. Piaget once asked five-year-olds to give him a long word, and many of them answered “train.” On the other hand, a bilingual has learned that the object can be called either /bed/ or /li/; words, which are abstractions, are thus separate from the objects they designate.
Code-Switching and Interference
That a bilingual’s two languages co-mingle in a single language system where both languages remain continually activated implies possible alternation between the two languages. One language needs to be inhibited when speaking in a context where the other language is being used. This imperfect separation leads to code-switching when bilinguals speak among themselves or to interference when speaking in a monolingual situation. The former refers to using elements of a different language within the speech stream of the language in which an exchange is taking place. In this case, these elements are not affected by the host language. “Interference” is the transference of elements of one language to another at various levels, namely phonological, grammatical, lexical, and orthographical. In this case, the foreign elements are modified to fit the host language (Amenorvi). Alternation in the case of code-switching is considered to be positive as it often refers to language choice; however, interference is viewed as negative as it is often involuntary.
The abundant code-switching observed in conversation between and among bilinguals has led to the recently developed concept of “translanguaging” whereby bilinguals express themselves across languages to best communicate nuances that may not exist in both languages.
Bilingual communication may lead to what is referred to as “negotiation of language” whereby each participant tends to pull exchanges toward their preferred language. This can often be observed between children preferring to speak in the majority language as they converse with a parent or grandparent whose preference is the minority language. Often when my son came home from French public school, totally immersed in French, he immediately began telling me about his day in French. Pulled in this direction I found myself responding in French until at some point I had difficulty making my ideas clear in this language and wondered why I was even trying to do so. I then switched to English, pulling him in that linguistic direction.
Life-long Bilingualism
As bilinguals grow older their language experiences modify their language use. Language dominance may change over time, as they use one language more than another. They may learn other languages, or they may lose some ability in one of their languages, known as language attrition. Language dominance and attrition are dependent on language exposure and can evolve: more exposure at a given time will improve language ability, reduced exposure can lead to more or less attrition. Losing some vocabulary, for example, in a native language that is not being used, is not unusual and not to be worried about. Increased exposure would bring renewed competence.
More and more research is being carried out on the relationship between bilingualism and dementia. It would seem that “actively using two languages seems to have a protective effect against age-related dementia.” The lifelong usage of two languages contributes to neuroplasticity and has been shown to delay cognitive decline “with a delayed age at onset of dementia” (Kamenetz). Furthermore, older bilingual adults are better able to cope with the pathology of neurodegeneration. One study shows that should bilinguals with dementia present greater neurodegeneration, their cognitive performance remains comparable to monolinguals with dementia. The hypothesis is that “Bilingualism recruits alternative brain networks to compensate for those that become damaged during aging and dementia (Marian and Shook, 2012). There would then exist a greater cognitive reserve to enhance brain functioning during aging.
Some Anecdotes
I was very strict in my use of English until my son became much older and we fell into code-switching modes. When visiting friends, I even read French-language children’s books to him in English, at least until the simultaneous translation became too difficult. Once, friends remarked, “We didn’t know we had English books in the house.”
When bicycling in Finland with my two-year-old, and not keeping very regular meal hours, one day my son called out, “Mommy. Eat, mange.” Clearly, he was using every linguistic tool in his possession to cry out his hunger. It was definitely time for lunch.
Once, when chatting with my neighbors, my three-year-old turned to me and asked, “Can I go to Maryse’s?” I said, “Ask Maryse.” He then turned to her and asked, “Je peux venir chez toi?” After her responding, “Oui,” he turned back to me saying, “She said ‘yes’.”
When coming home from kindergarten with my son one day, we stopped at a Chinese take-out to get lunch. As the server prepared our dishes, she complimented my son on his bilingualism. I immediately asked her what language she spoke with her own little boy I had seen behind the counter. Looking down and hiding her face she responded, “Mandarin,” as if she were ashamed. I immediately launched into compliments on how wonderful she was to speak to him in Mandarin and the fantastic effects on the brain of being brought up in two such different languages. By the time our food was ready, she was standing much straighter and smiling broadly.
If any of a child’s caretakers speak a native language other than French in this country, I implore you to speak with them and play with them in your own native language. It can only serve them well.
Photo of our bilingual bookshelf.
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