Bilingualism

Week 8
You agree?
 Question

Is there any day for languages?

Answer
Protest for Bangla in 1952
 The Main question of the lesson

Is bilingualism something good?

Are there any bene ts of being bilingual?
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Problems to be solved by answering the
main question

Many governments do not encourage the use of two or

more languages (e.g. minority language are repressed)

Many parents refuse to educate their children in two

languages.

Many people feel proud of their own language and think

it is unnecessary to learn other languages

Parents who speak different languages are confused

regarding what language to teach their children
 De ning bilingualism

How much do you need to know of a

second language to be called a bilingual?
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 Answer

“….Native-like control of two languages..”

(Bloom eld, 1935)

“ …. begin at the point where the

speaker of one language can produce
complete meaningful utterances in the
other language” (Haugen, 1953)
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 Question: are little kids prepared for bilingualism?
a little story

A Russian immigrant in England married an English woman (who also

speaks Russian as a second language). Although they use English more,
the couple code-switch a lot at home. After a few years, they had a child.
The father decided not to teach him any Russian. The mother disagreed
and after a erce argument, the father agreed they would teach him both
languages.

When the child was three, he mixed the two languages when he spoke. The
father was so angry that the child mixed the two languages and reminded
the mother about the dangers of teaching a small child two languages.

They decided to make a timetable were English is only used or Russian is

only used so the child is not confused.

The father was so worried and he corrected his son when he mixed the two
languages. Unfortunately, the child’s language abilities stopped growing
after all of this intervention. Something wrong happened!
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 Important questions
about bilingualism

Is it dif cult for a child to learn 2 languages

at the same time? Or is it something normal?

Should parents be worried if a child mixes

two languages?

Should parents try to control language

learning of bilingual children?
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 A typical multilingual situation in
India?!

Mr Patel is a spice merchant who lives in Bombay.

When he gets up he talks to his wife and children in
Kathiawari, their dialect of Gujerati. Every morning
he goes to the local market where he uses Marathi
to buy his vegetables. At the railway station he buys
his ticket into Bombay city using Hindustani the
working person’s lingua franca. He reads his
Gujerati newspaper on the train, and when he gets
to work, he uses Kacchi, the language of the spice
trade, all day. He knows enough English to enjoy an
English cricket commentary on the radio, but he
would nd an English lm dif cult to follow.
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 A typical multilingual situation in
India?!

How many languages does Mr Patel speak/use?

1. Kathiawari / Gujerati

2. Marathi

3. Hindustani

4. Kacchi

5. English
 Question (2)

Should parents be worried if a child mixes two

languages?
 Question (3)

Should parents try to control language

learning of bilingual children?
 Common myths

Myth 1: Multilingual people are equally

uent in the languages they speak.

Myth 2: the brain cannot cope with

multilingualism
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 Question

Is learning another language good for

the brain?
Video
 bene ts mentioned in the video

Bilingualism makes your brain healthy,

complex and actively engaged.
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 Question

If you are given some information about

a case and then asked to make a decision
or a judgement about it, do you think
your judgement will be less biased (more
fair) if you read it in English?
From: Language and the
Mind by Spencer Kelly
The trolley problem
Question
Do bilingual people experience less cognitive
decline? Can bilingualism delay the onset of
Alzheimer's and dementia?
video