Does Bilingualism Affect Intelligence?

Introduction

In a pan, corn kernels that do not pop into popcorn are dumped away. Without heat, none will pop. This heat is an allusion to intelligence , that is why a myriad of people work hard in the hope of improving their intelligence. To improve someone’s intelligence there are a sheer amount of things to do. However, bilingualism’s effect on intelligence is an important global debate, and it started since the 1920s (Antoniou, 2018) .

To be able to know more about this debate, we must know the meaning of the word bilingual first. Bilingual is a word that describes the ability of grasping two languages, not only reading and writing but also the fluency of speaking these languages without mixing their pronunciation (Antoniou, 2018). Moreover, to find an accurate answer to this debate, one must know different countries’ perspectives. So, in this research we are going to cover the perspectives of Taiwan, Canada, Sardinia, and Scotland. Lastly, there is an addition to my national point of view of bilingual in Egypt. Nevertheless, it’s really hard to find statistical prove of hoe many bilingual people are is the world ,except a Eurobarometer survey in 2012 estimated that 54% Europeans (Munoz, 2014) and the Book Bilingual by Francois Grosjean (Grosjean, 2010), that one out of two people around the globe are bilingual. Briefly explaining what this research includes, the perspectives of each country whether it is for or against bilingual, some more scientific facts and opinions about bilingual people and, whether bilingual really affects the brain or not (Wiebels, 2017)

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Global Perspectives

Taiwan

In Taiwan, they had a study on bilingualism and this study showed that being bilingual can make children concentrate more in the language not only its content but also its form (Huang, 2016). So, children are given a helping hand to study the semantic and structural contents. The reason for that they gain more conscious awareness, as they outperform monolingual speakers on a specific morphological recognition task (Huang, 2016). Moreover, bilinguals can easily absorb the rules for regulating the formation of new words. Which is the ability to put two words together, for example: the word “unemployed” it consists of ‘un’ (Huang, 2016) which is a prefix which gives a negative meaning and the word ‘employed’ and that give the meaning of a person who is not employed. What is more, is that president of Taiwan wants to make Taiwan a bilingual county by 2030 (Po-Chih, 2018). With all these points, this shows that Taiwan approves of the question “Does bilingualism affects intelligence”.

Canada

Canada however has another opinion on bilingualism as they think that bilingualists are unusual while monolinguals are ordinary. In addition, bilingualism is treated as an issue not asset. And the known fact that in Canada bilingualists are seen as not fully guru in either languages even if they are eloquent in both (Makarova, Terekhova, & Mousavi, 2017). This causes some confusion as people are not certain of their own native language. Adding to that, bilinguals would sometimes confuse both cultures and mix them together (Lyons, 1977). For example: people greet each other in countries in different ways and some greetings could be considered as rude for others. In the view of that fact, bilinguals would obligate monolinguals to try and learn another language to not feel indifferent. What is more, bilinguals would not master their native language as much as the other language (Makarova, Terekhova, & Mousavi, 2017). They would also sometimes confuse words between the two languages which cause people to not understand what they are saying. Also, bilingual people families would be monolingual and that would affect the practice on the other language (Lyons, 1977). And one may lose his own native language is they lived abroad. These are the reasons why Canada does not approve of bilingualism.

Sardinia and Scotland

As for Sardinia and Scotland, they made a sheer amount of tests on bilingualism and its effects. First test in 1962, Peal and Lambert found that bilinguals had better results at the things that needed mental or symbolic flexibility and concept formation (Lauchlan, Parisi, & Fadda, 2012). Which improve their ‘problem solving ability’ and their ‘creative thinking’. Proving that, in a research by Ric Ciardelli, in 1992 bilinguals outperformed monolinguals at more than one test on creativity and more balanced bilinguals preformed even superior (Lauchlan, Parisi, & Fadda, 2012). Furthermore, Jessner in 2008 also made a research on the ‘Metalinguistic awareness’ which is “the ability to use knowledge about language”. In this experiment, bilinguals also outdid monolinguals, and they raised their syntactic and phonological awareness. Finally, Bialystok and colleagues studied ‘Memory Working’ on 120 children ( 60 bilinguals and 60 monolinguals). Again, bilinguals preformed way better than monolinguals in the task of assessing memory working (Lauchlan, Parisi, & Fadda, 2012). Moreover, bilinguals are better at multitasking as they are used to always shift from one language to another without thinking as they are fluent in both, so doing multiple things at the same time is easier to bilinguals. From all those scientific tests , Sardinia and Scotland thinks bilingualism boosts the intelligence and many more things in the brain.

National Perspective

In Egypt, there are not enough bilinguals. However, parents have a huge role in their children’s academic development (Aboulfetouh, 2014) (Tahan, Cline, & Messaoud-Galusi, 2011). Parents make their children enter privet schools rather than public ones to give a hand to their children to improve their language development (Aboulfetouh, 2014). This is caused by the extreme concentration on the second language the students are taking in Egypt. Moreover, it was proven that being in an international school whether national or international system can make students gain and upgrade their learning skills, brain development ,and be more bilingual (Aboulfetouh, 2014). This is due the increase in the practice of the second language the students are taking and the more complex the exams are in the international schools (Tahan, Cline, & Messaoud-Galusi, 2011). Moreover, schools give opportunity for parents to choose their children’s second language ,as these languages are English, French ,and German. This shows that parents in Egypt prefer to have their children as bilinguals to lift their intelligence.

Local Perspective

During my research on the national perspectives, I have asked some people that I personally know about bilingualism. I chose five simple questions to ask beginning with whether they know the meaning of the word 'bilingualism'. Then asked them if bilingualism is beneficial and, in their opinion, why. Furthermore, if they think bilingualism affects intelligence and why. Firstly, I asked Miss Maggie Magdy an English teacher in NRC for 21 years now. Secondly, I asked two students in my class also in NRC Mariam Reda and Maria Atef as they are bilingual and an A star student. Lastly, I asked a college student named Pierre Nabil ,for he is also bilingual. The responses I have got were almost similar as they all thought that being bilingual is beneficial for communication ,and that it affects intelligence as it helps in multitasking. Pierre also added that it also affects the brain as it makes them have more critical thinking. Moreover, Miss Maggie Magdy said 'researchers showed that the brain itself is affected as bilinguals have more coils in their brain which means they are smarter' (Which was a fact given by a biology teacher) and also said that her bilingual students are more intellectual than her monolingual students in her class.

Contrasting Perspectives

In Taiwan, people believe that being bilingual affects the intelligence due to the myriad of researchers on it like gaining conscious awareness. Besides, Sardinia and Scotland also approve of bilingualism because during a test they did, they found that it improves people's creative thinking as they are open for more information and new ways of thinking due to the constant shifting in the two languages and their cultures. Proving that, people who always lived in one country and only know one culture has a difficulty in understanding another cultures point of view and are never open for more creative ways to improve. Moreover, Egypt as well has parents that make their children enter private schools to improve their intelligence by mastering a second language. Nevertheless, Canada showed that bilingualism may affect people/children's culture by forgetting their native tongue just like the poem 'Search for my tongue' as there is no practice on their first language.

Problems And Courses Of Action

However, everything has its own problems even bilingualism. People in countries like Canada for example do not believe that bilingualism is beneficial but in fact harmful. And in countries like Egypt, there is not a lot of bilinguals around. Thus, it must be solved like any other problem that people face. Solving these problems would need a helping hand by raising awareness in schools. For example, teachers that teach a second language encourage students and widen their horizons and tell them the benefits of being bilingual and how it affects intelligence. In addition, principles of schools could educate parents and show them that being bilingual would improve their children's academic and social life and does not affect their culture and also show them some researchers to make them believe. Furthermore, parents should encourage their children by learning a new language with them which shows the children that being bilingual is important. Finally, the government could make public schools focus more on the second language the students are taking by upgrading the syllabus of the second languages and maybe add a speaking lesson in public schools. By that, the problems of bilingualism would definitely decrease.

Personal Perspective

As for myself, I have always thought that being bilingual has nothing to do with intelligence ,for to me it was just an asset that helps in communicating with foreigner. Moreover, I am a linguistic person and know how to speak and communicate in more than two languages. However, after doing this research I wholeheartedly believe that being bilingual raises people's intelligence. And what made me believe even more were the resources that I have found as the first resource was the one talking about Sardinia and Scotland (Lauchlan, Parisi, & Fadda, 2012) as it is really reliable as it is an international journal and the writers Roberta Fadda is a Professor (assistant) in the University of Cagliari and her friend Marinella Parisi is also with her in the same university With Fraser Lauchlan in the University of Strathclyde who wrote more researches about bilingualism. Secondly, the resource in the introduction (Antoniou, 2018) as the writer Ramin Skibba is an astrophysicist turned science writer and freelance journalist and also the website is up to date as it was published in 2018.Lastly, the resource in the national perspective part (Aboulfetouh, 2014) as Mona Aboulfetouh made this research as her fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master Of Arts in The American University in Cairo ,and it was under supervision by Dr. Reem Bassiouney.

Bibliography

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