Another example of the reproducibility problem in psych studies. I really think every study should be registered ahead of time. Negative and mixed results are just as important.
OK. So there is no executive function advantage. But so far no one has seen a disadvantage either. Right? Since no one would argue that knowing an extra language is not useful, I wonder why this "bitterness" matters.
> But so far no one has seen a disadvantage either. Right?
No, researchers have found disadvantages to bilingualism. Bilinguals tend to know fewer words in their first language than monolinguals [1]. Bilinguals also experience more tip-of-the-tongue moments [2,3] and are slower in picture-naming tasks than monolinguals [2].
Hmmm, I wasn't aware of any bitterness or fight over this either, just a recent increase in articles touting the benefits of it. Seems to me this is one of those "media manufactures fake outrage" articles.
>Since no one would argue that knowing an extra language is not useful,
Why would no one argue that? If I am a person from Kansas I am never going to run into anyone who doesn't speak English. Where is the usefulness in learning any other language?
In Québec, a number of people believe that being bilingual is merely an excuse to not learn French, and thus they feel that bilingualism encroaches upon French. They reason that if you see a sign that is both in English and French, then you'll feel no need to learn French, and thus French would lose ground. Since there is English all around Québec, English is in no similar peril.
There may be some merit to this theory, in view of the fate of Welsh or Gaelic in the British Isles, or of French in Louisiana or the Canadian Maritimes. It may well be that Québec's stubbornness against English is the only thing that is keeping the language alive. Even so, I wish that true bilinguals, of which there are many, especially in the Montréal area, would not become the collateral damage of this fight.
Being bilingual helped me understand English grammar in a way I wouldn't have otherwise. It also helped my writing skills immensely (IMO). Taking college junior/senior level French literature classes was extraordinarily difficult but rewarding. I did more work for my one French class than I did for five junior/senior level business classes (Finance/Accounting/MIS). It's why I eventually stopped, that and I realized I don't like evaluating literature in English, much less French (they didn't have business language classes at my Uni in the 1990s).
Sadly, this article seems like a twisted joke. Nearly every single non-"modern world" human with working legs speaks\spoke multiple languages, since in every direction you can find another potentially highly varied society living there. Primates have immense curiosity, and we generally like to socialize, even beyond our own familiar communities (innately at least). This inherently puts us among diverse environments, speakers, and interesting cultures (barring any violent opposition to free movement).
What would language skills have anything to do with this non-existent "executive system" anyway? (tfa mentions someone's guess about picking which language to use in any given moment.. something I've only ever seen novices and newcomers struggle with briefly, and only in conversation, not at all with internal dialogue.) I only resort to language when I need high level processing; and then having many angles of analysis can help enormously. When I need to focus on something, I do it as I envisioned or practiced and with kinaesthetic feedback (what other way is there?); language and other analytical tools inherently go another direction than working with my material environment. Fundamentally, these psychologists' messy model of language's relationship to localized brain functions in top-down systems falls flat on its face with this "executive function" concept mixing focus and inhibitory control with (yet another overly broad concept) "problem solving", which they then hold up as a sacrificial cost to something great.
I think there is an elephant in the room here. There is no easy way to have a control subject.
Each person they test has a unique set of abilities and intelligence level.
My children are bilingual, and I know many other families that have children who are being brought up in a bilingual environment.
I have an example of a bilingual child that didn't say anything almost at all until they were 2.5 years old. My daughter has language skills that are advanced for her age in comparison to her monolingual peers of the same age. But she is just bright (parental bias I know). My younger son appears to be improving even faster, but then he has a bilingual older sibling, so that isn't a surprise.
The point is that it all depends on the person, as to how well they can adapt to a bilingual upbringing. They are so many factors involved, that it becomes impossible to categorically compare one person against another. Apples to oranges, every single time.
My son is growing up bilingual. It's natural since mother and father have different first languages. I've been amazed since age 4 how easily he switches between the two languages. I'll be talking to him in English and he will turn to his mother and repeat the whole conversation in his other language without missing a beat. He is also picking up Mandarin from watching videos on YouTube.
I have no way of knowing if his "executive function" (ok, I'll go with that term) is better because of it. But learning to speak more than one language appears to be very easy for kids.
I especially like the comment that picks up the information from the article that psychological experiments in general (one might say science studies in general) have to be reviewed for reproducibility. The article cites some good sources on that issue. "But ultimately, this isn’t about whether it’s better to know more languages or not. It’s about how science is done, and what counts as decent evidence. It’s about the role of outsiders, and whether they’re best-placed to see through the biases that permeate a field, or incapable of judging it on technical grounds. And it’s about how researchers negotiate disagreements of opinion."
For bilingualism as such, I'll mention that my list of languages learned as second languages (I'm a native speaker of General American English who grew up in the United States) is on my Hacker News user profile. My wife (from Taiwan) and I were quite consistent about bringing up our oldest son (born in the United States, brought up partly in Taiwan) as a bilingual native speaker of Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin) and English. Some of my younger children are less completely bilingual, but all are comfortable with the project of studying other modern languages. Taiwan's history since World War II is quite interesting, because after the Republic of China Nationalist Party of China (KMT) regime regained control of Taiwan at the end of the war, the school policy was that school lessons all had to be taught in Mandarin. But the local people in Taiwan mostly spoke Taiwanese (my wife's native language) or Hakka, cognate but not mutually intelligible Sinitic languages. So the whole postwar generation went to school, from first grade on, entirely in a foreign language. My wife grew up speaking Taiwanese at home and Mandarin at school (pupils were fined if they spoke the wrong language at school) and she now habitually speaks to her older siblings in Mandarin, even though her whole family in that generation are native speakers of Taiwanese. Some of our nieces in Taiwan, essentially all from Taiwanese or half-Taiwanese families, are more proficient in Mandarin than in Taiwanese. The KMT regime succeeded in switching the majority language in Taiwan (also through control of radio broadcasting and movie production in the days of the former dictatorship) and the school pupils learned a lot even when Taiwan was dirt poor despite going to school in a foreign language. And the level of knowledge of English over there is pretty high too--my wife began study of English as a compulsory school lesson at the beginning of junior high, and I think English is now a primary school subject. So bilingualism is perfectly doable, if a country puts its mind to bilingualism. Even language change is possible in just two generations.
> Being bilingual is just another proxy for a middle class or higher upbringing.
... or you could be raised by immigrants who continue to speak their mother tongue at home while the children learn English (or whatever else is the primary language) via TV/School/Public. There's nothing higher upbringing about retaining your parents' culture. If anything, it's more associated with lower class families.
How do you figure? In the US, at least, there are lots of poor immigrants and lots of well-off people raised in English-speaking households. The only reason I can think of which would correlate with wealth would be language classes in school, but most bilingual people get it from being raised that way, not learning it later on. And I believe this article is only discussing bilingualism achieved by being raised with multiple languages, not learning them in school.
My wife was raised in a country where one language was spoken in the house, but she was taught at school in a completely different language. Absolutely nothing to do with being middle class or having a higher upbringing. It was mandated by the State that she be taught in one language, but they couldn't force a local population to completely change their mother tongue in the home and in private.
There are many other situations I can imagine, and know of first hand, where people of all socio-economic levels speak more than one language.
The only time I can think bilingualism may be such a proxy is in a largely mono-linguistic culture.
[+] [-] dwaltrip|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anu7df|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] __cato|10 years ago|reply
No, researchers have found disadvantages to bilingualism. Bilinguals tend to know fewer words in their first language than monolinguals [1]. Bilinguals also experience more tip-of-the-tongue moments [2,3] and are slower in picture-naming tasks than monolinguals [2].
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201306/d...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_of_the_tongue#Effects_of_b...
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862226/
[+] [-] bsbechtel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stonemetal|10 years ago|reply
Why would no one argue that? If I am a person from Kansas I am never going to run into anyone who doesn't speak English. Where is the usefulness in learning any other language?
[+] [-] jordigh|10 years ago|reply
There may be some merit to this theory, in view of the fate of Welsh or Gaelic in the British Isles, or of French in Louisiana or the Canadian Maritimes. It may well be that Québec's stubbornness against English is the only thing that is keeping the language alive. Even so, I wish that true bilinguals, of which there are many, especially in the Montréal area, would not become the collateral damage of this fight.
[+] [-] Retric|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nullabillity|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] escherize|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iolothebard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mitchtbaum|10 years ago|reply
What would language skills have anything to do with this non-existent "executive system" anyway? (tfa mentions someone's guess about picking which language to use in any given moment.. something I've only ever seen novices and newcomers struggle with briefly, and only in conversation, not at all with internal dialogue.) I only resort to language when I need high level processing; and then having many angles of analysis can help enormously. When I need to focus on something, I do it as I envisioned or practiced and with kinaesthetic feedback (what other way is there?); language and other analytical tools inherently go another direction than working with my material environment. Fundamentally, these psychologists' messy model of language's relationship to localized brain functions in top-down systems falls flat on its face with this "executive function" concept mixing focus and inhibitory control with (yet another overly broad concept) "problem solving", which they then hold up as a sacrificial cost to something great.
[+] [-] junto|10 years ago|reply
Each person they test has a unique set of abilities and intelligence level.
My children are bilingual, and I know many other families that have children who are being brought up in a bilingual environment.
I have an example of a bilingual child that didn't say anything almost at all until they were 2.5 years old. My daughter has language skills that are advanced for her age in comparison to her monolingual peers of the same age. But she is just bright (parental bias I know). My younger son appears to be improving even faster, but then he has a bilingual older sibling, so that isn't a surprise.
The point is that it all depends on the person, as to how well they can adapt to a bilingual upbringing. They are so many factors involved, that it becomes impossible to categorically compare one person against another. Apples to oranges, every single time.
[+] [-] geomark|10 years ago|reply
I have no way of knowing if his "executive function" (ok, I'll go with that term) is better because of it. But learning to speak more than one language appears to be very easy for kids.
[+] [-] _fizz_buzz_|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tokenadult|10 years ago|reply
For bilingualism as such, I'll mention that my list of languages learned as second languages (I'm a native speaker of General American English who grew up in the United States) is on my Hacker News user profile. My wife (from Taiwan) and I were quite consistent about bringing up our oldest son (born in the United States, brought up partly in Taiwan) as a bilingual native speaker of Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin) and English. Some of my younger children are less completely bilingual, but all are comfortable with the project of studying other modern languages. Taiwan's history since World War II is quite interesting, because after the Republic of China Nationalist Party of China (KMT) regime regained control of Taiwan at the end of the war, the school policy was that school lessons all had to be taught in Mandarin. But the local people in Taiwan mostly spoke Taiwanese (my wife's native language) or Hakka, cognate but not mutually intelligible Sinitic languages. So the whole postwar generation went to school, from first grade on, entirely in a foreign language. My wife grew up speaking Taiwanese at home and Mandarin at school (pupils were fined if they spoke the wrong language at school) and she now habitually speaks to her older siblings in Mandarin, even though her whole family in that generation are native speakers of Taiwanese. Some of our nieces in Taiwan, essentially all from Taiwanese or half-Taiwanese families, are more proficient in Mandarin than in Taiwanese. The KMT regime succeeded in switching the majority language in Taiwan (also through control of radio broadcasting and movie production in the days of the former dictatorship) and the school pupils learned a lot even when Taiwan was dirt poor despite going to school in a foreign language. And the level of knowledge of English over there is pretty high too--my wife began study of English as a compulsory school lesson at the beginning of junior high, and I think English is now a primary school subject. So bilingualism is perfectly doable, if a country puts its mind to bilingualism. Even language change is possible in just two generations.
[+] [-] khaannn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koolba|10 years ago|reply
... or you could be raised by immigrants who continue to speak their mother tongue at home while the children learn English (or whatever else is the primary language) via TV/School/Public. There's nothing higher upbringing about retaining your parents' culture. If anything, it's more associated with lower class families.
[+] [-] mikeash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phillc73|10 years ago|reply
My wife was raised in a country where one language was spoken in the house, but she was taught at school in a completely different language. Absolutely nothing to do with being middle class or having a higher upbringing. It was mandated by the State that she be taught in one language, but they couldn't force a local population to completely change their mother tongue in the home and in private.
There are many other situations I can imagine, and know of first hand, where people of all socio-economic levels speak more than one language.
The only time I can think bilingualism may be such a proxy is in a largely mono-linguistic culture.
[+] [-] geomark|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] escherize|10 years ago|reply