Group items tagged

A 2013 joint study, conducted by the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -- The Neuro at McGill University and Oxford University, concludes that the pattern of brain development is similar if you learn one or two languages from birth. However, learning a second language later on in childhood, after gaining proficiency in the first (native) language, does in fact, modify the brain's structure, specifically the brain's inferior frontal cortex. The left inferior frontal cortex became thicker and the right inferior frontal cortex became thinner. The cortex is a multi-layered mass of neurons that plays a major role in cognitive functions such as thought, language, consciousness and memory. The study suggests that the task of acquiring a second language after infancy stimulates new neural growth and connections among neurons in ways seen in acquiring complex motor skills such as juggling. The study's authors speculate that the difficulty that some people have in learning a second language later in life could be explained at the structural level. "The later in childhood that the second language is acquired, the greater are the changes in the inferior frontal cortex," said Dr. Denise Klein, researcher in The Neuro's Cognitive Neuroscience Unit and a lead author on the paper published in the journal Brain and Language. "Our results provide structural evidence that age of acquisition is crucial in laying down the structure for language learning."

Monday, April 8, marked the launch of Code Switch, our new blog covering race, ethnicity and culture. To commemorate the blog's launch, all week we solicited stories about code-switching - the practice of shifting the languages you use or the way you express yourself in your conversations.

In this TED talk video and transcription Anna Babel a Spanish professor talks about how social categories, stereotypes, and discrimination can change a person's perception of a speaker. Babel also uses scientific evidence to back her claims and poses questions as to what these findings say about discrimination in our society.

Siblings are an important influence on the language acquisition/learning of other siblings, especially in multilingual households.

This article examines the compulsory nature of learning English in Taiwan and the subsequent impacts on Taiwanese society. There is a direct connection made between the teaching of English and the integration of neoliberal ideals like that of choice, competition, and free marketplace. The article acknowledges that countries may adopt compulsory teaching of English for economic and/or political gains, and looks at how neoliberal notions of competition materialize at the local level. For example, in Taiwan, local regions needed to compete with each other in speedy attainment of English to achieve higher national test scores or government funding.

Although the expectation of how the English language develops in other countries may seem positive, the reality isn't the same. For example, students are being taught Krio, a dialect similar to English, but not English. This makes it unfair for those students when they get older because they were never taught the right English. Because of the difference between expectation and reality, specialists have been searching for ways to balance them out.

This was a research study conducted about vaccine rhetoric with participants that spoke different languages. The researchers found that depending on whether the participant viewed a foreign language as more trustworthy, they might be more inclined to follow the advice of that language over their own language. The opposite is also true if they find their first language more trustworthy and persuasive.

This article discusses how bilingualism and multilingualism affect how a person dreams. It discusses the reason why a person might dream in one language and not the other.

Cartoonist LA Johnson employs a graphic novel-style approach to a story about a dual-language school: Bruce-Monroe Elementary School in Washington, D.C. In a dual-language classroom, sometimes you're the student and sometimes you're the teacher. Here's what it's like for 6-year-old Merari, an L1=Spanish ELL (English Language Learner).

The critical period hypothesis is one of the reasons that some adults are hesitant to take on learning their heritage language. The theory essentially argues that there's a biological window where language learning is the most automatic, somewhere between the age of 2 and puberty. This theory has entered our popular consciousness as a rule that you can't learn a second-language fluently when you're older. However, scientists disagree with this notion because although it will take more conscious effort, it is still possible to become fluent in another language past the "critical window." Specifically, second language acquisition becomes more difficult with age because it requires rewiring your brain to break certain habits that relate to language learning. For example, pronunciation and accent requires breaking habits related to the way you move your mouth to speak, making it more difficult to have native-level pronunciation as you grow older. Beyond neuroscience, though, research has shown that other factors, such as exposure and education influence language learning.

This article talks about why children are able to learn languages faster than an adult. It explains why a toddler is able to learn two languages at once while an adult may take years to learn one language. It also talks about how the brain works when a child learns another language.

Learning a second language is usually difficult and often when we speak it, we cannot disguise our origin or accent. However, there are important differences between individuals with regard to the degree to which a second language is mastered, even for people who have lived in a bilingual environment since childhood. Members of the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group (GRNC) linked to the Barcelona Science Park, have studied these differences. By comparing people who are able to perceive a second language as if they were native speakers of that language with people who find it very difficult to do so, they have observed that the former group is also better at distinguishing the sounds of their own native language. The study results show that there is a positive correlation between specific speech discrimination abilities and the ability to learn a second language, which means that the individual ability to distinguish the specific phonemes of the language, both in the case of the mother tongue and in the case of other languages, is, without a doubt, a decisive factor in the learning process, and the ability to speak and master other languages."

By activating internalized values and norms, accents play a role in the formation and categorization of one's cultural identity, resulting in culturally specific patterned cognition. This article looks at the way accents give rise to cultural shifts in perspective and decision-making within bicultural individuals who have accented English, suggesting that bilinguals adopt cultural values and attitudes associated with their target language and demonstrating that accent alone can affect people's cognition. It highlights the idea of cultural frame-switching in which a person's interpretive frames shift because of the situational cues linked with their bicultural identity.

This article explains the "foreign language effect". It says that speaking a second language improves rational decision making and open-mindedness. It also discusses impacts of speaking a second language on our memory and elements of our personality.

This article talks about second language acquisition, and a higher efficacy rate in those who are fully immersed in the language they're learning. The study concluded that those in bilingual immersion programs or study-abroads exhibit higher levels of motivation to learn the language due to a desire to assimilate.