10-Minute Talks: More than one language – why bilingualism matters

Professor Antonella Sorace FBA outlines how there are still misconceptions about multilingualism and how this contributes to a lack of language skills in countries.

Transcript

Hello. I’m Antonella Sorace, I’m a Professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh and the director of the research and public engagement centre Bilingualism Matters, and I’m a Fellow of the British Academy. My main research areas are bilingualism and language learning, which I study experimentally within an interdisciplinary cognitive framework.

I’m going to give you a research perspective on the importance of speaking more than one language – any languages – for individuals and for societies.

We can start by acknowledging that language skills are often undervalued in the UK and in the so-called "Anglosphere" in general: there is a certain amount of complacency that "English is enough", because of its perceived strength as an international language.

I would like to argue that the “privileged monolingualism” of the UK is a real limitation that can undermine social cohesion and economic growth compared to other countries. Language skills can not only enable people to communicate freely with partners around the globe in their languages and understand local cultures. These points are perhaps obvious to many people. My arguments are based on the less obvious point of view of research, which shows that people who speak more than one language – any languages – can have a series of advantages for the mind and the brain throughout their lifespan, compared to monolinguals. I’m going to briefly focus on four of these positive effects.

Despite the many misconceptions that are still around – that bilingual children are confused, that they may not do well at school – research shows that children who grow up with two languages in a supporting environment can have a better spontaneous understanding of how languages work, from sounds, to words, to sentences. This is reflected in better further language learning, but it also means that a bilingual child schooled in English may have an advantage across the curriculum because they actually have a better understanding of how English works.

Another potential benefit is an earlier and better understanding that other people can have different perspectives. This comes from the simple fact of having two words for the same object, which opens the mind in a fundamental way; and it comes from the experience of having to choose the right language depending on the person one talks to.

Why is this important for global connections and cultural understanding? Let’s take, for example, the desire to attract or create a good impression: to the extent that this crucially depends on understanding the other person’s perspective, multilingualism can enhance this capability. And to the extent that cultural relations are increasingly a matter of mutuality, or mutual understanding, the ability to appreciate how others see things from their point of view can be a very powerful means for exercising influence and mediating conflict.

A third potential benefit of bilingualism is better mental flexibility in dealing with complex situations: this means better selective attention, ability to ignore irrelevant information, switching between tasks, and capacity to focus attention and allocate it in an adaptable way. This benefit comes from the constant experience of having to choose one language and exclude the other languages, and from switching from one language to the other. Both languages in bilinguals are simultaneously active: we can’t switch off one language when we don’t need it, and we can’t produce both of them at the same time, with the exception of bimodal bilingualism (knowledge of a spoken language and a signed language) which uses different modalities. In language comprehension, bilinguals also have to channel messages through one language or the other. This "mental gymnastics" trains the bilingual brain to adapt to change in general, outside the language domain.

Research also points to the fact that bilingualism can be a "cognitive reserve" that allows people to age more graciously and can have a delaying effect on both normal and pathological ageing processes, even though it is not the only kind of experience that can have these effects.

Are these potential benefits found in all bilinguals and in all bilingual contexts? The answer is no, because bilingualism is not an either/or dimension but rather a continuum shaped by many linguistic, cognitive and social factors. However, when there is a difference between bilinguals and monolinguals, the difference is generally in favour of bilinguals.

Are the benefits only found in simultaneous bilinguals who learn two languages together from birth or early childhood? The answer again is no, they have been found in proficient and active late bilinguals too. This raises the question of what the best age is to learn another language.

Many people think it’s more difficult, if not impossible, to learn another language well as an adult. But current research shows a different picture. It shows that adults can reach very high levels of proficiency in a second or third language, similar in many ways to the competence of a native speaker. There is much individual variation among adult second language learners: many adults may not reach these high proficiency levels because they don’t need to, or because they don’t have optimal conditions for hearing and practicing the language. In fact, one of the crucial factors may be availability of time. Children have a less busy daily life and a much longer timescale for future improvement: this may be the main reason why children seem to be better language learners than adults. However, research shows that children are very sensitive to general attitudes about particular languages: they are much more willing to learn and speak a second language that’s seen as a positive asset within a community. So, we can’t just assume that "children are like sponges" and “the younger, the better”: we have to provide them with plenty of input in a positive environment for learning – in families, in schools and more generally in society.

Research also shows that being bilingual is definitely not the same as being the sum of two monolinguals. Learning a second language is influenced by the native language, but it also changes the native language in linguistically selective and predictable ways: this is what emerges from research on the phenomena going under the umbrella term of "attrition". Languages in contact affect each other, both in the same individual brain and in multilingual societies. Unfortunately, however, bilinguals are often tested and evaluated on the basis of "monolingual" parameters, both in educational and in health settings; and language change is often regarded as language contamination or language decline.

The broad generalisation based on research on the benefits of bilingualism is that it is the fact of having more than one language that matters, regardless of which languages. This should be an incentive for speakers of indigenous minority languages to use their language and speak it to their children; for migrant families to continue to speak their language at home, with an awareness that this is beneficial to their children’s linguistic and social integration; more generally, it should be an incentive to regard multilingualism as a framework to preserve the richness of cultural diversity and as an investment for life that can enrich countries and their citizens.

Let’s not forget that languages are disappearing around the globe at a very fast rate: we are losing about one language every two to three weeks.

In this century alone, the number of languages on the planet will be halved. The survival of many of these languages depends on inter-generational transmission, which means parents speaking the language to their children, often in a situation of bilingualism with a majority language.

Let’s also remember that bilingualism can bring challenges as well as benefits, for children, for families, for educators: but the better we understand these challenges, the better we can find solutions; and we can create positive environments for multilingualism to thrive and for the benefits to emerge.

However, there are still many misconceptions about the nature of bilingualism: in addition to the old ones (that bilingual children are confused and may have problems at school, adults can’t really learn another language well enough, some languages are worth learning and others aren’t), we see some new misconceptions arising from misinterpretation of research (e.g. that bilingual children are more intelligent, that older bilinguals don’t get dementia).

The combination of Brexit and the pandemic poses great challenge for languages and language learning. Languages are seen by many as not being priorities in schools, compared to "more important subjects”. In addition, we face increasing isolationism and xenophobic nationalism, which bring back negative attitudes towards other languages and their speakers. Action is needed now, more than ever before, to put languages and language learning at the core of education, to regard proficiency in additional languages as a new kind of global literacy, and to plan more future opportunities for young people to immerse themselves in other languages and cultures.

That’s why it is important to bridge the gap between research and society and provide people with information that allows them to make better decisions about their families, students, patients, policies and businesses. The centre I direct, Bilingualism Matters, is contributing to this change. BM trains students and researchers to communicate research in a clear way outside academia. It has numerous partnerships and outreach projects both in the public and in the private sector. BM has a wide international network of branches in the UK, in Europe, in North America, in the Middle East and in China. This broad international dimension provides a strong basis for joining forces in both research and public engagement, across languages, disciplines, geographical borders and political contexts.

The British Academy, in collaborations with other bodies, is also actively working on enhancing the status of languages and language learning. Let me conclude with a quote from the British Academy’s recent proposal for a national language strategy: “If the UK’s citizens had stronger skills in languages other than English, this would help make the UK more prosperous, productive, influential, innovative, knowledgeable, culturally richer, more socially cohesive and healthier.”

This talk originally took place on 21 April 2021 part of the series The British Academy 10-Minute Talks, where the world’s leading professors explain the latest thinking in the humanities and social sciences in just 10 minutes. 10-Minute Talks are screened each Wednesday, 13:00-13:10, on YouTube and available on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe to the British Academy 10-Minute Talks here.

Further reading

Language Acquisition: Knowledge Representation and Processing, edited by Antonella Sorace, Caroline Heycock, Richard Shilcock.

"Pinning down the concept of “interface” in bilingualism", article by Antonella Sorace.

Bilingualism Matters website.

"Investing in Languages: Why Multilingualism Matters", webinar by Antonella Sorace.

Bilingualism Matters Refugee Week Webinar featuring Antonella Sorace.

10-Minute Talks are a series of pre-recorded talks from Fellows of the British Academy screened each Wednesday on YouTube and also available on Apple Podcasts.

If you have any questions about this talk, please email [email protected].