Why Speaking Two Languages Is
Advantageous for the Speaker
Bruno Di Bia and Qi Ruying
Abstract:This article is addresd to parents,teachers and other carers in a migration situation,such as Chine parents in Australia,facing the dilemma of whether it would be best for their children to learn only English so as to optimize their future academic and professional development.Apart from the well-known socio-culuralandeconomicadvan-agesbrough-abou-bybilingualism,muchrecen-rearchin-obilingualism hasuncoveredspecificlifelongcogniiveadvan-agesfor-ho whoregularlyu-wolanguagessincechild-hood.Thisfindingalsoex-ends-o-hobilingualswholearned-heircondlanguagela-erinlife.
Keywords：bilingual children,family,cognition,health
Thisar-iclewasconceiveda--heBilin-gualism Rearch Lab at UWS aiming to inform p&rticul&rly concerned p&rents&nd te&chers&boutcurrentre&rchonthecog-nitive&ndhe<hbenefitsofbilingu&lism.
In the situ&tion of migr&tion m&ny p&rents m&yreducetheuoftheirhome l&ngu&ge withtheirchildren o
rstop<o-getherinf&vourofthel&ngu&ge whichis domin&ntin their&dopted country.They m&yre&chthisst&teof&f&irsunderthe&s-sumptionth&tit m&y helpthechildrento le&rnthe m&instre&m l&ngu&ge be t er&nd hencedobe t erintheirstudy,&chievegood &c&demic qu&lific&tions&nd eventu&l y be successful in their chon profession. Sometimesthisl&ngu&geshiftissimplydue tothef&ctth&tp&rents m&ybe&t&loss&s towh&t m&y bebestforthec盘空间越来越小
m todo with theirchildren'sl&ngu&ges.
Even whentheytryto m&int&intheir homel&ngu&ge,they m&y notsucceed&s childrengrowup&ndtheirEnglishbecomes stronger&tchild c&recentre&ndl&ter&t school,&nd the p&rents simply give up or reducethequ&ntity&ndqu&lityofthehome l&ngu&geud withthechild wherebyonly the mostb&siceveryd&ycommunic&tionis c&rriedin the p&rents'&nd gr&ndp&rents' l&ngu&ge.N&tur&l y enough the child's mothertongue m&y stop developing<o-getherbothintermsofreceptive&ndpro-ductive knowledge&nd ski l s in th&t l&n-gu&ge.Doesthisl&ngu&gesitu&tionresult in gains to the child?Or will it result in disadvantage?The dilemmas concern and sometmesworry many Ch%ne%mm%grant famles%nAustralaand%nothercountr%es.
On the other hand tho parents and chldren may be qu%te unaware of the
中国语言战略
lfelongrewardsthat may accrue to them from the e f orts exerted%n br%ng%ng up the%rchldrenblngua l yandcher%sh%ngthe developmentandthecont%nueduoftwo languages.Th%s%s not only for the%r chldren'ducat%onalandprofess%onalop-portun%t%esandlfechancesbutalsoforthe family!s long term health and wellbeing(De Houwer2009；Xu2013).In this brief at-clewewishtosumm&rifirstsomeofthe be t erknownsoci&l&ndcultur&l&dv&nt&ges &nd then point out some of the newly discovered and less obvious,but certainly not less important,benefits of bilingual-ism"thatis"the ife"ong advantages of regu"ar"yspeakingmorethanone"anguage.
Undoubtedly,being able to speak to yourgrandmo-herinalanguagesheunder-stands allows the child to“inherit"her cul--uralpracicesandknowledgeand"bycom-munica-inginherlanguage benefi-direc-ly from her life experiences and wisdom. Where-woor morelanguagesarepren-in a social environmen-"few would doub--ha--heprofessionalwhoisable-o speak-he language of-heir clien-"-he -eacher who is able-o speak-heir pupil's language"-hes-uden-whoisable-ospeak -helanguageof-heirschool"-heshopkeep-er who can l-heir goods in-he cus-omer'slanguage"-he-ouris-"-hebusi-nessperson"-hepoliicianwhomaybeable -ocommunica-e-opeoplein-heirpar-icular languagecansucces
sfu l yaccesshear-sand mindswi-hgrea-erchance-han-ho who canno-.
Unfortunately for many parents,in-cluding tho who are themlves bilinguals"even such clearsocial"cultural and economic benefits may become ob-scured"orhopelesslyunderestimated"per-hapsbecauofthelackofprestigeoftheir languagein a migration situation ortheir own non-standard Mandarin variety,or d-alect.Chine parentsin situations盆栽榕树
of mi-gration"in Australia an5elwhere"may experience5i f icultieswhentheyaretrying to learn to communicate in the5ominant language"English"we l enoughtopartici-patee f ectivelyinthesociety.The5i f i-cultiesare5uein part to their trying to learnthe con5language rather 一清胶囊
later in life.Theyalsorealizethattheirownhome languageisnotu5norrequire5ine5uca-tionalorotherinstitutionalcontexts.From their own har5ship they often"unfortu-nately"conclu5e that if they themlves find it so difficult to learn English^properly"then it may be best for their own children to learn,and focus ONLY on,Eng-lish.Some parents even come to believe thattheir homelanguageis more a hin-drancethanahelpfortheirchildren,and so stop using it with their children at home,favouringthedominantlanguagefor communication withthem.Thi f ectively turnstheirchildreninto monolinguals.
Aswe wi l show,theexclusionofthe homelanguagefrom communication with their children is unnecessary and deprives both parents and children of important benefits accruing from the habit of
communicating dailyintwo or morelan-guages.In fact,depriving children ofthe heritagelanguageinputathomewi l ensure they won't even acquire the so-ca l ed
Why Speaking Two Languages Is Advantageous for the Speaker
“passive"#or rather'receptive()knowledge ofthe home language Such choice wouldbenotonlyunfortunatebutwe l and trulyshortsighted Parentsshouldlono sleep at all over their children^opportunity tolearn Englishin Australiaorother migration contexts The peer group in the childcarecentreandtheschoolwi l make sure that they learn English,as confirmed byin-depthrearchatourownandother ,Clyne2003；Di Bla C Dyson1988；Qi,Di Bla C Campbell2006 among others).For instance Qi's(2011$ study ofan Australian-Chinechild who learned English mainly through his child care centre,found that his中国股市
English development cloly rembles that of monolin-gualEnglish peers while his Chinealso developedin similar waysto monolingual Chine peers in China.Another recent study(Medojevic2014)in a different immi-grant community specifica l y focusing on thee f ectofschoolingonbilingualchil5ren foun5thatthecon5an5thir5generation Serbian-Australian children,within the first year of school,learned English as well a+theirmonolingualpeer+.
Ontheotherhand"thedangerofcom-pletelanguage+hiftorevenlanguagedeath (e.g.,Clyne1995；Evans2010)is well documented wherebyimmigrantorindige-nous ch十面埋伏琵琶曲
ildren within the school and the peergroupcontext mightturninto monolingual English speakers"with only tacit knowledgeofthehomelanguage.Indeedin mostcasinsomecommunitiesthehome language disappears altogether within the thirdgenerationandisunlikelytodevelop anyfurther.
On the other hand"bringing up childrenbilingua l ycancounton manysuccess stories(The Australian article—Higher Education2014；The North Shore Time article—HSC Succe++2015).For instance,it appears that students born in Australia to foreign-born parents score much higher on an internationalreading test than other Australian-born students (Ferrari2011).Foran examplefrom the USA,a large study from Johns Hopkins University that tracked nearly11,000 youngimmigran-sa l-heway-oadul-hood found-ha-children whoimmigra-e-o-he United States with their families are likely -o ou-perform kids wi-h a similar background who were born in the USA.Their own children are also likely-o do be-er -han-heirpeers when-hey grow up.The s-udyalsofound-ha-by-he-hirdgenera--ion"-ha-advan-age wi l begone(DyeLee 2012).
So,depriving the children of their homelanguagewi l rve"h en"nopurpo a a l excep depriving hechildren(and he paren sby he way)of headvan agesre-rved by na urefor ho who have he goo
dfor uneofusing more han onelan-guageineverydaycommunica ion.Mos of heparen s maybe probably"unaware of he scien ific evidence which has been mounting over the last few years from rearch on bilingualism bylinguis-s"psy-cholinguists and neurolinguists(Kharkhurin C Li W ci2015；Bialystok C Barac2013；Li-Hai Tan et al.2011；Li2013；Yip C
中国语言战略
Matthews2007)quite apart from all the other socio-cultural,educational and economic b0n0fits and advantag0s alr0ady m0ntion0dabov0.So"whatar0thos0oth0r advantages?
Curiously0nough"th0b0n0fitsofbi-lingualism app0artor0lat0mor0to ar0as such as human cognitiv0functioning and h0althin old ag0rath0rthan withinlan-guag0comp0t0nc0andus0.Earlyr0s0arch conc0ntrat0donth0la t0randlook0datar-0as such as m0talinguistic awar0n0ss" which is“the explicit knowledge of linguis-ticstructureandtheabiitytoaccessitin-tentionally((Bialystok and Craik2010). Theabiitiesarecrucia"forthedeve"op-mentofthemorecomp"exusof"anguage inchidrenand"critica"y"a"sofortheac-quisitionof iteracy.Accordingtotheau-thors"in their2010review of the evidence thusfar"theimportantdi f erencespicked upbytheearierrearchwasthatbiingua" chi dr
en emed to be simi ar to monoin-gua"chidrenindetectinggrammatica"vio-lations in meaningful ,“Apples growed on trees").However,with mantically anomalous 'Apples grow on nos")bilingual children were moreaccuratethan monoingua"s.In suchcas(promptswithanoma"ousmean-ing)successful performance relies on“the ability toigno$e the misleading meaning and focus only on the grammar".So,the bilingual'sadvan-ageinaccura-elyjudging such ntences does not have that much to dowi-h me-alinguis-icawarenessbu-ra-her wih“ana-enionaladvan-ageinlec-iviy and inhibition".The are key process of thebrain'xecutivefunctioning8
AccordingthentoBialystokandCraik (2010),the development of the executive-funcionsys-emis-he mos-impor-an-cog-ni-iveachievemen-in early childhood be-cau-hroughi“childrengradua l y mas-er -heabili-y-ocon-rola-en-ion"inhibi dis--rac ion"moni-or -s of s imuli"expand working memory"and shif-be-ween -asks".Tho who have had professional experience wi-holderpeoplefind-ha-ex-ac-ly-hesamecogni-iveprocessare-he firs--ogo"so-ospeak"inagingindividu-als.Then"-heau-horsargue"“ifbilin-gualism a f ec-xecu-ivefunc-ioning"-he impac-should befound across-he enire cogni-ivesys-em and-hroughou--heenire lifespan".
Andyes"-hiskindof“rerve"power for bilingualsis wha-la-er rearch elo-quen-lysuppor-s.Forins-anc
e"lookinga-cogni-ive performance of110older bilinguals and monolingual peers,Gold,Kim, Johnson,Kryscio C Smith(2013)in a spec%aldneurosc%entf%cjournalma%nta%n" already from the t tle of the%r art%cle"that “L%felong Blngualsm Ma%nta%ns Neural E f c%encyforCogn%t%ve Control".There-sults obta%ned bytherearchers“sug-gestthatlfelong blngualsm o f tsage-relateddeclnes%ntheneurale f c%encyfor cognt%ve control process".But why should that be What arcane powers might confer such advantages?In fact the reasons em to be$elatively st$aightfo$wa$d.Re-membe$that when the bilingualspeaks"
WhySpeakingTwoLanguagesIsAdvantageousfo$theSpeake$
he/she activates two different linguistic systems,each with its own t of sounds, words,and rules for their combination.But quiteclearlyonlyoneofthesystemscan be ud at the one time,the other language sys-em has-obekep-undercon-rol.When -his is no-possible,as may happen wih aphasics,-he linguis-ic resul-is unin-er-pretable.As the neuroscientists explain:“It巨型哲罗鲑
appears that the lifelong bilingua大班春季育儿知识
l experience of con-inuously swiching be-ween -wolanguagess-reng-hensgeneral-purpo execuive con-rol sys-ems,main-aining -heirneurale f iciencyinaging.Lifelongbi-lingualism-husconfersno-onlysocialand economic advan-ages,bu-benefi-s-he functioning of the aging brain.(This is ex-ce l en-newsforbilinguals.
Thenex-issuewas-osor-ou-whe-her -headvan-agesbelongonly-o-ho who have acquired-heir-wo languages from bir-hei-hersimul-aneouslyorquen-ia l y (one after the other)but still in early childhood.That is,could such n0uro-psychological advantag0s b0found alsoin thos0bilinguals whol0arn0dth0irs0cond language(L长颈鹿的英语怎么说
2)not in early childhood but mayb0atschool,atworkandsoon,lat0r in life Well,the good news is that yes, -hisalso-urnsou--obe-hecaasi-ap-pearsfrom acurren-ar-iclein-hepresi-gious American journal PNAS(Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences) whichisfreely accessible online.There-sultsfromtherearchprentedinthelat-ter article,by Pliatsikas,Moschopoulou C Saddy(2015)confirm earlier results on the e f ects of bilingualism on cognitive func-
tionssuggestingthattheexperienceofbi-
lingualism results in a cognitive“rerve" inolderageandthatthisrerve"accord-ingtotherearchers"hasaneurological basis(changes in the structure of certain areasofthebrain)andthatsimilarchanges areevidentnotonlyinearlybilingualsbut alsoin older bilinguals who learned their condlanguagelaterinlife.
Wecanonlyconcludethatitisimpor-tant to encourage"and for governments andeducationalinstitutionst
osupport"the continuouslearning and u oflanguages bothin children and adults"athome"at schoolandinothersocialcontexts.Ifthisis ane f ort"anditmayalsocomeatacostin termsofresources"thinkofitasanimpor-tantinvestmentforthefuturehealthofin-dividuals to keep them functioning as long aspossibleoutofdegenerativediasof thebrain.Thecostofoldagecareneedsal-so be factored in!
Inthisarticle"wehaveshownvarious
advantages uncovered by recent rearch relatingtoraisingchildrenbilingua l y"par-ticularlyinthecaofparentsinimmigrant t ingwherethedominantlanguageisdif-ferentfrom the homelanguage.Parents' home language policy adopted in their children'arlyagehasalife-timeimpact on the children but also has beneficial e f ects on the parents themlves in delaying degenerative e f ects of ageing on brainfunctions.
References
Bialystok"E."C Barac"R.2013.Cognitive E f ects.In:
