Bilingualism in Children

Bilingualism can be viewed in two different ways. One way of viewing multilingualism is that it is a commendable property for a person to have, that is alongside the thinking that it is a mark of high intellect. Another way of viewing bilingualistism is that it is a negative resultant role of Globalism, that it is a degradation of culture. It is undeniable that bilingualism is a prevalent topic in todays society. Some even consider it as an essential trait for survival in the context of the modern world.This notion of bilingualism is especially prevalent in the US, where immigrants should adopt a second oral communication to be competitive in terms of employment. That is why children from immigrant families argon advised by their p bents to learn a second language early as early as possible. The problem bilingualism arises when parents wear out to consider that children are still in the stage of mastering their first language. Acquiring two language simultaneously is would be d ifficult for anyone regardless of age. It is a common notion that the children would eventually learn the second language.That is alongside the thinking that, as the children are exposed much to the society speaking the second language, the children would naturally the language. Although, it is observable that children from immigrant families gradually become more and more comfortable with second language done time. besides it is withal observable that the process that the children have to go through is not an easy one. The difficulty of childrens acquisition of a second language is expressed by Eva Hoffman in her book Lost in Translation. She had thrown in a very helpful query for this discussion how does an individual bend toward another culture without stumbling over? (Hoffman 209) Hoffmans semi-autobiographical book is round her struggle to simulate a second language when family had migrated from Poland to Vancouver. The bulk of the book is about her lost of her sense of place and belonging in her new society. But the fact that the acquisition of the second language would come as natural would not necessarily mean that the children would not be subjected to the consequences of being bilingual.Another book that would be helpful to the discussion at hand is Natasha Lvovichs The trilingual Self An inquiry to language learning. In contrast to Hoffmans work, Lvovichs book had interpreted a more attention-grabbing approach. Lvovichs work is about the struggles that her daughter had to face when they had moved to America. Although there are some minor differences between the two books, they are both talking the same topic of language acquisition. Both of the books had depicted how a child is subjected to consequences of being bilingual.A common consequence of bilingualism as Lvovich had depicted through the story of her daughter she is going through a very difficult period of adjustment as a teenager growing into adulthood (Lvovich 101) thither was even a point in the book that Lvovichs daughter became reluctant to speak their first language. Hoffman argued that a reluctance to speak the first language would result to the atrophy of the mother language of the child (Hoffman 98) ConclusionFor children of immigrant families to succeed in being multilingual, their parents should first do careful planning and learning about the temperament of language acquisition. The parents should always keep in mind that childhood is already full of challenges as is. They should be aware of the consequence of being bilingual and they should likewise have at least an idea of how to counter them. Works Cited Hoffman, Eva. (1990). Lost in Translation A Life in a New Language. NY Penguin Lvovich, N. (1997). The Multilingual Self An inquiry into language learning. Mahwah, NJ Lawrence Erlbaum AssociatesBilingualism in ChildrenBilingualism is the production and/or comprehension of two languages by the same individual (Cummins, 1981). Many children of va rying nationality, acquire this ability of learning two languages through cultural maintenance and educational enrichment. Furthermore, the media continuously bombards children of stimulation of the other language (Cummins, 1981). Cummins (1981) stated that there is a unvoiced tendency among children of replacing the first language with the other. A series of tests were do by Feldman and Shen (1969) about some language-related cognitive advantages of bilingual five year olds.Three tasks for children were made accordingly to gather information. These tasks of increasing difficulty were (1) object constancy, (2) naming and (3) using labels in sentences, respectively . In object constancy, children were primarily shown with objects such as cups, plates, sponge, advert and suction cup soap holder. These objects were later physically transformed in front of them. Crushing the cups, burning the match and painting the plates were some examples of transformation. Transformed objects are placed beside an identical pre-transformed objects.Afterwards, the children were asked to identify which among the two was primarily shown. Naming, on the other hand, purposely tests the childs ability to affair verbal labels to name familiar objects. The experimenter tried to discompose the children by switching the names of the familiar object and designating nonsensical names to objects. For example, calling an airplane as car and relabeling the cup as wug. The children were asked which among the objects was really an airplane. They were also asked which one was called a wug and then they were asked what it really was.In the third experiment, the child was requested to show his ability of using three sorts of labels in simple relational sentences such as The cup is on the plate. These labels, as discussed in naming, were common names, switched common names and nonsense names. The principle for using simple relational sentences was that referential banter meaning is the simp lest sort of meaning. Words like cup, plate and even the part of the predicate on can all be thought of as referring to things. Results showed that bilinguals perform significantly better in the said three tasks than monolinguals do (Feldman & Shen, 1969).Moreover, bilinguals advantage over monolinguals was more apparent in comprehension than production measures. These gist they execute better where nonverbal pointing responses were required. In addition, functions related to labeling would be more advanced by having two languages. Research by Bialystok (2004), on the other hand, has shown that bilingual children develop control processes more readily than monolinguals do. They respond more rapidly to conditions that placed greater demands on working memory and carry out controlled processes more effectively (Bialystok, 2004).On the other hand, Macnamara (1966) argued some studies have reported negative effects of bilingualism (as cited in Bialystok, 2004). In Feldman & Shens (1969 ) experiment, it was found out that monolinguals do better in the use of either common names alone or nonsense names alone. Furthermore, Fishman (1967) added that disadvantages commonly associated with bilingualism would not appear in bilinguals whose languages were situation specific (as cited in Feldman & Shen, 1969). It was an real notion that bilinguals had deficits compared with monolingual peers.Nonetheless, studies show significant cognitive advantages of children with bilingual capacities. These advantages were dominant in comprehending rather than performing verbal actions. Other research pointed out bilingual advantages in the areas of creativity, problem solving and perceptual disembedding (Bialystok, 2004). These advantages of bilinguals can be uniquely attributed to an early development in association and labeling skills (Feldman & Shen, 1969). Bibliography Bialystok, E. , Craik, F. I. M. , Klein, R. & Viswanathan, M. (2004) Bilingualism, Aging, and Cognitive Control E vidence From the Simon Task.Psychology and Aging, 19 (2), 290-303. Feldman, C. & Shen, M. Some Language-Related Cognitive Advantages of Bilingual Five Year Olds. Retrieved from http//eric. ed. gov/ERICWebPortal/custom /portlets/recordDetails/detailmini. jsp_nfpb=true&_&ERICExt Search_SearchValue_0=ED031307&ERICExtSearch _SearchType_0=no&accno=ED031307 Cummins, J. Bilingualism and Minority-Language Children. Retrieved from http//eric. ed. gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini. jsp_ nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED215 557&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED215557