Dr. Hasbi Sjamsir Bilingualism and Cognition

7/28/2019 Dr. Hasbi Sjamsir Bilingualism and Cognition

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BILINGUALISM AND COGNITION

Presented by:

Yoseph PayongSafitry WahyuniRinda FitrianaSumirah


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Points of Discussion

BILINGUALISM& COGNITION

BilingualsVarieties

Beneficial ordetrimental?

Transfer effect ofL1 on L2 learning

Learningsituation


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Varieties of bilinguals

A bilingual person is if he/she knows:

more than one realization of language in the same modality,

for instance two sound-based languages, such as spoken

English and spoken German, or two sign-based languages

such as American Sign Language and Japanese Sign Language,

or

more two languages based on different modalities, for

example spoken German and American Sign Language


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Is bilingualism beneficial or

detrimental?

Bilingualism is considered as something good.

Means,

1. By knowing another language enables us to communicate

with people or member of other culture using theirlanguage.

2. It is useful in terms of making cooperation and understanding

among people and nations.

This applies not only between countries but also withincountries, where there is more than prevalent or official

language like in Switzerland or Canada.


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Some cases about bilingualism.

1. There are some countries do not want to learn or acquire the

bilingualism. Like North Korea might wish tom curb contactwith other people by limiting the teaching any other language

at school.

2. Also occur in Soviet. In former Soviet Union regarded that

bilingual can destroy the culture. Thats why, Soviet bannedthe use of many languages.

These such situations are regarded as deplorable.


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In fact, Its really fun

and cultural benefits of

bilingualism.

One can go around theworld and make

everything easy by

being able to convey

something using the

language of the country

they visit.


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In this case, there is a question. How can one

reasonably be against bilingualism?Some of the arguments are not against bilingualism

itself, but the early acquisition of the second

language. There are two respects of acquiring.

Linguistically (retarding the acquisition of the first

and the second language). And Intellectually (

retarding to the development of thinking and

cognitive abilities as mathematics and reading).


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Effects on the development of language

Negative Reports

Smith (1930s)

The acquiring bilingualismcan caused retardation in

language development. Gathered the comparative

data in Iowa (Englishmonolinguals) and Hawaichildren( ethnically diverse).

Recorded the sentencesuttered by the children fromtwo groups and evaluated interms of standard usage inthe languages.

Positive Reports

Lambert (Canada)

Investigated English native

children in languageimmersion program

French was spoken and

exposed to academic

instruction and socialinteraction as L2


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Effects on the development of language (Cont.)

Negative Reports

The result is, bilingual

children from Hawai had

many more errors comparewith children from Iowa.

Positive Reports

Bruck et al. (1976)

Conducted one long-termstudy with native English-

speaking children in Frenchimmersion program.

By the fourth or fifth grade,the children were as good asthe French speaking children(including in writing and

reading skills) The immersion group children

got better scores on creativitytest than monolingual children


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Effects on the development of intelligence

Negative Reports

Goddard (1917)

Administered English languageversion of Binet intelligence test

to 30 Jewish adults immigrantswho recently arrived at Ellisisland.

The result showed that less thanhalf of the immigrant couldprovide 60 words, below with a11 years old American children

who could provide 200 words. The Jews adults were called

feeble-minded.

Positive Effects

Bain & Yu (1980)

Compared bilingual andmonolingual (English and French

or English and Chinese) youngchildren (6-8 months of age)

The bilinguals were raisedbilingually either monolinguallyby their parents as well as thevolunteers involved in the study.

When the children were 4, theywere given some cognitiveperformance tests (withlinguistically complex) and theresult showed that bilinguals tobe superior to the monolinguals.


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Effects on the development of intelligence

(Cont.)

Negative Reports

Brigham & Florence

Goodenough

Drew a conclusion thatforeigners (especially non-

Nordic Europeans were

inferior in intelligence,

proved by their poor

performance on intelligence

test administered in English.

Positive Effects

Hakuta (1986)

Claimed that the difference

of advantageous beliefs andattitudes between

monolingual and bilingual

parents could have biased

the findings.


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Another supported research

Diaz and Padilla (1985)

Investigated Mexican-American bilingual pre-school students.

They were videotaped while performing three different tasks: blockdesign, classification, and story-sequencing task.

There was significant portions of performance in both classificationand story-sequencing tasks.

Yoshida & Smith (2007)

Investigated 2-3 years old bilingual children in a novel word-learning

task.

The children demonstrated greater cognitive flexibility comparedwith monolingual children.


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Conclusion of effects of bilingualism to the

development of language and intelligence

From time to time, dozens of studies were conducted on the

relationship between learning a second language early in life

and cognitive ability.

Robinson summarized many of them in one of his articles by

concluding: the picture that emerges is ...... a youngster

whose experience with two language systems seems to have

left him or her with a mental flexibility, a superiority in

concept formation, and a more diversified set of mental

abilities. The studies also demonstrated that children who have studied

a foreign language perform better on standardized tests and

tests of basic skills in English, math and social studies.


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Conclusion (Cont.)

Researchers have discovered that the cognitive systems of

bilingual children differ from those of monolingual children in

some remarkable ways.

Learning, speaking, and using two languages may affect

fundamental aspects of cognitive and neural development,

potentially influencing the way those systems learn and

represent information (Bialystok, 1999; Bialystok, Craik, Klein,

& Viswanathan, 2004; Bialystok & Martin, 2004; Mechelli et

al., 2004).


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Learning Situation

two languages can be acquiredat the same time

only occurs in childhoodSimultaneous

Acquisition

L2 can be learned in childhood

L2 can be learned after theperson has become an adult

It can occurs both child oradult

SequentialAcquisition


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Simultaneous Acquisition

1)1P-1LIt is when speakers of different languages use only

one language each when talking to a child. For

example, a mother speaks only English while the

father speaks only French.

2). 1P-2L

It is when the same person uses two different

languages while speaking to the child.For example the mother and father use both French

and English when talking to a child.


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Sequential Acquisition

The sequential kind of bilingual situation occurs for achild when parents speak one language and the

community speak another.

For example

When an Indonesian couple move to America, The

parents speaks Indonesian to their children at home

but when the children play outside, go to school,

library or movie they use English. Thus, the childrenlearn two languages sequently.


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The children learn two languages sequentially. It is

where a second language is introduced after the first

language has started being learned. Some of theacquisition of the languages will occur

simultaneously.

What is sequential is the different starting times for the

introduction of each language.

In acquiring the second language, speed, proficiency

and fluency will be determined by certain

psychological and social variable.


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SUGGESTION

If parents want to raise their children bilingual

so it is better to use 1P 1L pattern.

The reason is

If the wait one or two years after then the

children will experience great psychological

difficulty in changing to another


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Transfer effect of L1 on L2 learning

SIMILARITY OF SYTAX, VOCABULARY, AND

SOUND SYTEM

No language is more complex overall than any

other language (linguist)

No language is easier to learn than any other

language (psycholinguist)

Not every pair of language can be acquired at

the same rate


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For example:

After learning English, learning French will beeasier rather than learning Japanese. ThoughEnglish syntax and French syntax is different,there is big differences between syntax of English

and Japanese. However, there is similarity onvocabulary between English and French

Japanese syntax is similar to Korean syntax

English syntax is similar to Chinese syntax, but

they are different in sound system. Meanwhile,English speaker will find the Japanese soundsystem is easier to handle


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So, the acquisition of second language will be

more rapid when L1 and L2 have similarity of

syntax, vocabulary, and sound system

Regarding to importance scale, syntax is the

greatest. However, for language success, it is

better to have syntax and vocabulary similarity


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Facilitation

L1 knowledge may facilitate L2 learning Facilitation is not as noticeable as errors

When L1 and L2 have a lot of similarities, such as thearticle (in English and French), Gender (Masculine and

feminine nouns as in French and Italian), a positivetransfer from L1 is occurred.

Moreover, learners will have no difficulty with thecomplexity of structure, morphology, and phonology,

since they have had them in L1 learning The best facilitation is to give natural situation for L2

learning. Since, L2 will be acquired more quickly


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Errors

Errors are as indicators of Learners L2

knowledge

L1 interference attributes to minority of errors

Most errors are the result of application of L2

strategy and L1 strategy. These strategies

apply when L2 knowledge is not yet known or

incompletely learned


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For examples:

L1 interference:

I go yesterday(Indonesian interference)

L2 strategy:(overgeneralized L2 rules)

Afterwards they ate the dinner

I am like Bakpao

L1 strategy: use L1 knowledge because learner

does not know how to say it in L2I am chased by dog

My finger is hurted by a knife


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The Double Trouble Phenomenon

The previous knowledge of particular language will

interfere us when learn another language

For example:

When we try to speak English, our knowledge ofIndonesian comes into our mind to construct the

sentences.


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THANK YOU

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Dr. Hasbi Sjamsir Bilingualism and Cognition