Impacts of being Bilingual

    ¡Hola! Hello! Like many children of immigrants, I grew up learning two languages. I lived in a primarily Spanish-speaking household while speaking very little English. Many people within the world speak more than one language. And many, I included, are interested in the impacts of being bilingual not only biological but as other impacts.

    In “Early bilingualism, language attainment, and brain development”, Jonathan Berken et al discuss how brain plasticity is affected by bilingualism. Primarily focusing on simultaneous bilinguals, those who learned a second language simultaneously to their first language; sequential bilinguals, those who learned their second language at a later stage of their life; and finally, monolinguals. Berken et. al examine these three groups using PET, fMRI, and structural MRI scans, in which they found that sequential bilinguals used the compensatory mechanism, due to learning a language past the optimal period and therefore having a more limited neuroplastic change. Whereas simultaneously bilinguals had brain functions and structures that appeared more organized compared to sequential bilinguals.

    In “When Speaking English is not Enough: The Consequence of Language-Based Stigma for Nonnative Speaker” Megan Birney et. al conducted a study to investigate the effects of language-based stigma between native and non-native speakers. In one of their experiments, non-native speakers were asked to converse with an English native speaker after receiving either positive or negative feedback on their accent. The results found stigmas had a powerful impact, participants that receive more negative feedback would have lower scores on the English comprehension test and experience more anxiety compared to those who had received the positive feedback.

    I enjoyed reading both articles and listening to Dr. Berken regarding his work on language and the effects of language on brain plasticity. As a person who is bilingual in English and Spanish, then later learned French, I always tend to research language to be interesting. I believe the results of Berken et al. to be impactful because it demonstrates that learning a language will result in neuroplasticity, but that it is not negative. This is meaningful because there tends to be a stigma on being a bilingual and negative attitude toward people who may have accents. Hopefully, in the future with the research that is being conducted, we could continue to fight the stigma and have more people learn languages, so we can better communicate with others from different cultures and parts of the world.

Works Cited

  Berken, Jonathan A., et al. “Early Bilingualism, Language Attainment, and Brain Development.” Neuropsychologia, vol. 98, Elsevier Ltd, 2017, pp. 220–27, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.031.

 

 Birney, Megan E., et al. “When Speaking English Is Not Enough: The Consequences of Language-Based Stigma for Nonnative Speakers.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, vol. 39, no. 1, SAGE Publications, 2020, pp. 67–86, https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X19883906.