The Bitter Fight Over the Benefits of Bilingualism
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
> The debate has clearly become acrimonious. Paap says that he has been ignored; Bialystok feels she is being personally attacked. Perhaps, wrote Eric-Jan Wagenmakers from the University of Amsterdam, the two sides could form an “adversarial collaboration.” That is, they would work together to test the bilingual advantage once and for all, through a large study, perhaps involving many labs. The teams would pre-register all their experimental plans and agree to publish the results no matter what, so there could be no accusation of questionable research practices or publication bias. Then let the chips fall where they may. This approach has already been used to some success in other areas of psychology.
> Paap is up for it; Bialystok is not. “That’s not how science works: You don’t sign a contract to not change anything in your protocol as the research evolves,” she says. “And they’ve set up so many toxins in this area that no good collaboration can result.” Bak feels similarly. “How much would I win by working with someone who doesn’t understand the area and is already biased?”
[1] http://simplystatistics.org/2016/02/01/a-menagerie-of-messed...
She's unfortunately right -- all too often protocol, hypotheses and analytical technique are changed to fit each other, reach a p-value of 0.05 and achieve publication.
For this reason among many there may indeed be value in sticking to original protocols and having to publish results. Negative and unclear results can be as useful as positive results, and what's ultimately published may end up less biased as well, which would be another plus.
In Quebec the law forces children to go through school in French. A great deal of tech companies have fled and a great deal of innovation in general has fled. No one would move to SV if their children were forced to suffer through school in a complete foreign language.
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?
Learning a language is, I think, as learning to play an instrument is more a cultural and leisure activity that might be useful sometime and helps to connect with other people and cultures.
Just a funny anecdote. That is all.
It's been a few years since I last visited the US, but I remember being surprised at the number of Spanish billboards I saw and stores with signs saying "Se habla Español" across the states I visited.
I don't have a problem with it, except I took French and Japanese in school, not Spanish, so I only recognize a few dozen of the most common Spanish words and phrases.
And I can't keep up the language learning habit as an adult, as my Duolingo profile will attest.
Plus, people do leave Kansas.
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.
That's a completely different meaning of bilingualism. The article is about people's bilingualism (so canadian speaking both english and french) not about bilingual signage.
They really do mean all meanings of bilingualism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_demographics_of_Quebe...
I'll soon be moving to Québec to start graduate studies at McGill. I've spent the past year living in Germany and have gotten the language down quite well because people are very friendly and willing to help. I haven't taken any German lessons, just going out for a Stammtisch and having some liquid courage really washes away the trepidation of making a blunder and you learn from your mistakes.
I would like to learn French while in Québec. Are the Québec people just as inviting as the Germans when it comes to a foreigner trying to learn their language?
As an 'Anglo' (actually of German origin), I've only had issues when Quebecers thought I was an actual Anglo and didn't make an effort to speak French. Once you speak a bit a bit of French and it's obvious you're trying they're generally happy to help. Occasionally I get unsolicited French lessons, which feels odd (once at the baker I had a case of 'you pronounced seigle wrong, repeat after me'..).
Although people may be switching to English once they notice the accent and the difficulty in communicating (although that probably happened a lot in Germany as well).
just speak english
You won't find people to be quite as accommodating (in fact, people can be quite rude) in the smaller towns or areas outside of the major centers.
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...
Monolinguals have less data to process. Slower processing is a natural result of having more code to run. Multilinguals could simply practice quick retrieval if they need to optimize for such a specific environment. I will gladly trade needing to add that practice, if I would ever find myself with an evolutionary pressure to act quickly and monolingually in such an odd environment as that test, in favor of having multiple analytical frameworks and communication means, which I find extremely well suited for this complex world I find myself in today.
For vocabulary size, I would greatly appreciate any interesting correlations. By itself, it seems like a measure without any use, because number of words and depth of understanding seem unrelated, imho.. Number of concepts and number of connections between concepts... now that seems interesting.. something which multiple languages would actually help :)
As our minds grow to handle more centrally important use cases, like cross-cultural communication and more in-depth, language-aided analysis, let alone clear communication, we need to also intelligently engineer appropriate optimizations to handle inherent slow downs. This seems like good places to pick up some useful approaches:
* http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RulesOfOptimization
and Bilingual data is highly repetitive. And not every concept is useful - what use are german gendered pronouns? Add in that fact that as a tool for communication, you won't be able to use you full vocabulary everywhere.
In addition, seems like there is an obvious difficulty wrt incompatible grammars.
There's nothing preventing you expanding you current vocabulary in your native language (jargon) - why do you need to learn a new language?
That depends on which pairs someone has and which concepts they (re/dis/_cross_)connect to understand something. For instance, Spanish and Portuguese (a common combo, both stemming from Latin) and Hebrew and Arabic (another common combo, both stemming from Semitic languages) provide less cultural variation and thus conceptual synergies than when someone cross-pollinates them.
> (2) And not every concept is useful - (1) what use [is] [grammatical gender]?
(1) It gives a window into how each culture understands a given field and Universe overall, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_classes#Common_criteria_f... . (2) It may get too cold or too hot one day, so changing your houses' windows' degree of openness may help you with your current homeostatic needs... welding them into that place, even if that change makes a huge difference, probably wouldn't work out long term.. A simple stick of a suitable height, or none at all, or perhaps a counter balancing weight, will work much better.
> Add in that fact that as a tool for communication, you won't be able to use you full vocabulary everywhere.
Perhaps it would make sense to prune our English vocabulary. After all, less is more, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If you regularly add new tools to perform previously unforeseen functions in software you use\write, then perhaps your optimizations for these specific features comes at a cost of generally misunderstanding software and information structures\informatic processes. It doesn't necessarily take more to do more.
> In addition, seems like there is an obvious difficulty wrt incompatible grammars.
Luckily we have two hands, so we can easily hold on to two branches (as long as we have them within reach). Even if one bears one kind of fruit and another a different one, simply remember how to swing back and forth and you can get fat and happy with your varied sets of friends and fruits. :D
> There's nothing preventing you expanding you current vocabulary in your native language (jargon) - why do you need to learn a new language?
C'est si bon
Lovers say that in France
... http://artists.letssingit.com/louis-armstrong-lyrics-cest-si...
Portuguese and Spanish have more in common than many other latin-derived languages. Again, two similar languages, slightly different words for the same things... Most languages will have a basic set of concepts in common, and will have different words for each.
> (1) It gives a window into how each culture understands a given field and Universe overall
And be more interested in examples of this than analogies. If one culture say "get in the bath/shower" and another "get on the bath/shower" (ala. "get on a train") what understanding does it give us? Could we not get the same understanding by reading linguistics books instead?..
> Perhaps it would make sense to prune our English vocabulary. After all, less is more, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
less is more is an fashionable ideology in certain design circles, not a universal law. English is pretty idiomatic - that's where the missing words go. I don't think software analogies are useful here, natural languages are very less explicit than software tooling.
> Luckily we have two hands
o-k. Care to unpack that? this is an outright substitution of a sensible argument for a vague anology... How is confusion between incompatible grammer likely to make you fat and happy?
I used "cross-connect" and "cross-pollinate" in that point. How could it seem like I advised pairing two similar languages(' "data")? Perhaps you could lightly shake your chair or do an Irish step dance or a Sufi whirl as your reread that point to see what I meant..
> [interested in examples of how each culture understands a given field and Universe overall, instead of analogies]
Hold on while I "pick my jaw up off the floor".. Shared analogical perspective makes 80% (off hand estimate) of anything above a bare level of expression possible, using conceptual metaphors. When we say "falling in love", "taking a shot in the dark", "flying by the seat of your pants", "shooting from the hip", "feathering your nest", "both sides of the same coin", "where your bread is buttered", on and on and on... we use bridges, which our conceptual ancestors and contemporaries built between what they already experienced and what life threw their way, by seeing some relationship across seemingly unrelated constructs and reusing much older words in innovative combos to make phrases so that they can convey rich meaning, layer cakes, each with foundations, interesting confections, and occasional icings, if you will.. Look at each of them again and plumb the depths of your mind for memories with each word's meaning and also its historical origin and significance. Each of those things happened where they did for whom they did. In other cultures some of these things happened similarly, some very differently, some not at all, etc. If you jump to a belief that these can translate directly or potentially even poetically then you completely miss the boat. You need to experience life in a matching way, among matching "conceptual relatives", and more, to make the words mean what they mean to fellow speakers and listeners as what they mean to you.
I hope with English expressions alone and this level of verbosity I hit the nail on the head for you, because mapping this into a cross-cultural scenery with useful demos makes a combinatoric explosion in my mind :-) . Perhaps you'll see what I mean through your own travels.. And if I made it more concrete with my own found constructs, then that might tangle your own yarn while you spin your delicate fibers into strong spools that you can weave into your own tapestry of rich colors and design.
> Could we not get the same understanding by reading linguistics books instead?
Just like you asked for a second ago, examples are what do it. You can study patterns and principles; without experiencing it, you miss what it is. This reminds me of what Feynman said in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, about what things are called versus what they are, and the ___Chinese___ proverb, "Tell me, I’ll forget // Show me, I’ll remember // Involve me, I’ll understand". Reading isn't __________________. It never was. It never will be. Only you can fill in that blank.
> [I don't think analogies are useful]
I exaggerated your quote, since if you would hesitate to pool your concepts somewhere then you might do so everywhere... I definitely go overboard with my analogies, then again, I like swimming. (~* does he really mean he likes swimming?.. weren't we also talking about analogies?.. what does it mean to swim?.. *~)
> How is confusion between incompatible [grammars] likely to make you fat and happy?
Can you hold a pear and a pineapple at the same time? Can you eat them at the same time, or do you need to put one down and pick up another tool first? One simply needs rinsing before eating, one needs peeling and slicing. Two hands, two tools, two tastes. (mmm... fruit salad)
Context switches require a mental jump. ..This dance we have here makes me smile and cry together. Beauty, like in this case with metaphors, needs eyes to see it. Words tend to make it vanish. Subtlety might seem vague, I guess, when you want something to behave differently from its own nature.
If your eyes can hold onto an image of that pear tree and that pineapple plant after you've picked from them and walked away, then thorny fruits might make more sense to you when you see them growing on other grounds. And plump bottomed, thin skinned delights might show you even sweeter tastes long after you've finished the last bite.
To build mental bridges over the depths of your mind, between two fertile fields that _will_ connect beyond their original bounds, you need to align your well-oriented sight on each of their respective sources through what makes one thing similar to another, the bridge that makes understanding commute, then you can connect them using the same type of duct (one inlet connection type, one channel path's flow, and one outflow connection type). Set up the scene, and you can fit each piece into its jagged or smooth placement. Turn, twist, flip, shake, etc, as needed.
Grammars areLike fruits inThat they can both give sweet supplies of nourishment (one materially, one non-materially), especiallyWhile in an environment where capably switching back and forth to use them both isLike how a primate can swing between canopies to get those fruits and whatever else he wants there (ie enjoyment of eating each with friends who hang out there). It goes deeper...
(^A passing cloud comes in on a foresightly breeze with warm whispers, "take good aim, friend".)
> Most languages will have a basic set of concepts in common, and will have different words for each.
Echos of this misunderstanding ripple down below layers we stand on while many an eye see a vanilla sky where there is mostly soil and dirt.
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.
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.
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.
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.
... 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.
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.
I didn't see a reference in the article about acquiring a second language via upbringing and through other means.
I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly how they selected people in the various studies referenced in the article, but the lack of any reference to native versus non-native languages indicates to me that they're looking at people who speak multiple languages natively. Many of the referenced studies are about young children, who simply wouldn't have had time to learn a language to fluency in school.