Alaina J.

Granger

Professor Ortiz

English 1301

18 October 2022

Becoming Bilingual and the Benefits it Brings

My inquiry follows the line of learning languages, furthermore becoming bilingual and

how that can benefit not only children but also adults. I wanted to find out about the science

behind the common theory that it is easiest to learn your second, third, etc language at a young

age as opposed to when you’re older. I chose this line of inquiry as I find it interesting and have a

personal connection in the sense that I grew up understanding but not being fluent in Samoan.

The two main questions that I will be researching are; what is the science behind it being easier

for children to learn a second language? Are there major benefits to being bilingual?

In recent years my Mother began to learn the Samoan language but found it hard to

become fluent, even though she has a good understanding of the language already. My Mother’s

older siblings are able to speak Samoan fluently due to how much my Grandparents used it, but

my Mother is not fluent as when she was growing up English became more prominent in the

household. In my own family household which consists of my Mother, Father, and older Brother,

there is little to no Samoan spoken which likely led to the decrease in my Mother’s

understanding of the language. This personal connection made me question many things

regarding languages that I aim to answer throughout this inquiry, the main topics being; the

science behind learning languages, learning languages as a child versus an adult, and the benefits

of being bilingual.
 When people think of language fluency, it can mean one thing to one person, and another

thing to another. For example, some people would argue that if you were fluent in a language,

you would be able to speak the language as if you were a native speaker, whereas fluency is

moreso a spectrum. Whilst there is no definitive definition of second language fluency, I will be

following the ICLS’s (International Center for Language Studies) definition which follows that; a

speaker achieves language fluency once they can confidently, competently, and easily express

themselves in a language other than their own. (Bernoussi 1) Bilingualism can also be defined in

different ways, depending on what someone defines as language proficiency, but in simple terms,

bilingualism is the ability to use two languages to communicate. One of my main sources that I

will refer to throughout my inquiry defines language proficiency as “the ability to use language

as a tool to get things done.”(Hardison, 5)

It is common to think that learning a second language as a child is significantly easier

than if you were to learn it in your adult years, but is it true, and if so why? Every baby's

linguistic journey starts whilst in the uterus and further continues immediately after birth. The

first six months of life is the most important in someone's linguistic journey because throughout

these six months in their article, The Brain Science of Bilingualism, Ramierz and Kuhl explain

that, “infants are capable of hearing the differences between the sounds that make up words

across all languages.” (Ramirez, Kuhl 39) It is because of this that generally it is easier to

become bilingual as an infant compared to when you are an adult, as “the native learning process

and the commitment to native language patterns are still incomplete.”(Ramirez, Kuhl 39) When

researching to answer my question of, what is the science behind children learning languages? I

found that whilst there are advantages to learning a language as a child, there are also different
advantages to learning a language as an adult as Gabriel Wyner explains in his Ted Talk, ‘Why

We Struggle Learning Languages.’ He talks about the advantage that infants are able to hear

multiple sounds in different languages that adults are not able to do, which is what Ramirez and

Kuhl explained in their article. He also mentions that infants have an abundance of time in which

they can use to learn a language, compared to an adult who has significantly less time. Although

he says that “We are better at learning languages than children.” (Wyner, 1:39) His reasoning is

that we are smarter and better at learning than them. (Wyner, 1:45) Another source of mine is an

excerpt from the book, ‘Second-Language Skills for All?: Analyzing a Proposed Language

Requirement for U.S. Air Force Officers”, from the chapter ‘Background on Adult Language

Learning’. In the excerpt, the author, Chaitra M. Hardison says, “While children’s success at

learning a second language depends more on memory, adults’ success depends more on

analytical skill (DeKeyser, 2000: Harley and Hart, 1997; and DeKeyser and Larson-Hall, 2005).”

(Hardison 5) When asking the question, what is the science behind it being easier for children to

learn a second language? Through my sources I have discovered that there is science behind how

the brain of infant works which gives infants/children an advantage to learning a second

language, although that is not to say that adults are bad at learning languages, adults develop

other skills, such as the skill of learning which help us to learn a second language.

Bilingualism can bring many benefits which can be seen in infancy as well as adulthood.

The main benefits are seen in cognitive processes. The article written by Raluca Barac and Ellen

Bialystok, ‘Bilingual Effects on Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Role of Language,

Cultural Background, and Education’, helps me to answer my question of; are there major

benefits to being bilingual? When people think of the benefits of bilingualism, the main things
that generally come to mind are the improvements of cognitive and executive functions. During

their research through tests on 104 six year old children, some bilingual and some monolingual,

the results showed that, “Linguistic tasks are often performed more poorly by bilingual children

than monolinguals, although tests of metalinguistic awareness are generally performed better by

bilingual children.” (Barac and Bialystok, 413) Metalinguistics refer to one’s ability to actively

think about, talk about, and manipulate language, therefore; reading, writing and spelling are

affected by one's metalinguistics. If bilingual’s have improved cognitive and executive functions

due to their increased activation in the brain region associated with them, as well as

metalinguistic awareness, this shows the many benefits that being bilingual brings; improved

memory, attention skill, learning ability, as well as reading and writing skills. (Barac and

Bialystok, 414) From this I can say that there are major benefits to being bilingual in many ways

for things in everyday life as well as in an academic environment. There are also the obvious

benefits being that bilinguals are more sought after in the workplace compared to monolinguals

in this day and age.

In summation, there is science behind the advantages of learning your second language as

a child, although that is not to say that there are no advantages to learning your second language

later in life as an adult. But it would be fair to say that the advantages as a child are more

significant and outweigh the advantages as an adult, therefore I concluded that it is easier to learn

your second language as a child, and a lot of that has to do with infants ability to hear multiple

different sounds in different languages. For my second inquiry question I concluded that there

are in fact many major benefits of bilingualism, especially to do with the brain and learning such

as cognitive and executive functions. These are both significant as it shows that becoming

bilingual is easiest at a young age, if more parents were aware of this it may influence them to
teach their children their second language as an infant, especially if they were aware of all the

benefits. I think that more could be done so that people were aware of the benefits or having

more language classes enforced in pre-school and primary school. I come from New Zealand,

where it is not very common to be bilingual, but after moving to Edinburg where the majority of

people are bilingual, it made me wish that I was taught a second language at a young age.
 Annotated Bibliography

Ramirez, Naja Ferjan, and Patricia Kuhl. The Brain Science of Bilingualism, vol. 72, May

2017, pp. 38–44.

The article examines the brain science of bilingualism through comparison of monolingual

development with bilingual development, describing common concerns that come along with

bilingualism, as well as describing the advantages of bilingualism. Lastly the article also explains

how a child becomes bilingual. The article concludes that most babies will be capable of

becoming bilingual, and that there should be no concern as it is often seen as an asset for

someone to be bilingual.

The information that the source provides is credible as the both authors are highly educated. Naja

Ferjan Ramirez has a PhD, and is a research scientist at the Institute For Learning and Brain

Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. This helps to validify her explanations in the

article relating to the brain science behind children and their ability to learn languages. The other

author, Patricia Kuhl also has a PhD, and is the co-director of the National Science Foundation

Science of Learning Center. Between both the authors, they specialize in the field of brain

science, and specifically the brain science behind children which makes the source credible and

reliable. The article was also published in 2017, making it somewhat recent, helping towards its

reliability. This source helps my research for my inquiry as it specifically talks about the brain

science behind bilingualism in children, it covers different aspects which help to further answer

my questions.
 Hardison, Chaitra M, et al. Background on Adult Language Learning, 201AD, pp. 5–16.

This article describes the background behind adult language learning, it defines in detail what

language proficiency is as well as language aptitude. It also touches on the importance of

maintenance of a language as an adult once it has been learned. Another topic that this article

covers is the difference between learning your second language compared to your third or fourth

etc.

Barac, Raluca, and Ellen Bialystok. “Bilingual Effects on Cognitive and Linguistic

Development: Role of Language, Cultural Background, and Education.” Child Development, vol.

83, no. 2, 2012, pp. 413–422., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01707.x.

Wyner, Gabriel, director. Why We Struggle Learning Languages, Dec. 2017,

https://youtu.be/iBMfg4WkKL8. Accessed 2022.

Bernoussi, Driss. “What Do We Mean by Language Fluency?” ICLS, 26 Feb. 2022,

https://www.icls.edu/language-fluency-means/.