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The Bilingual Advantage NYT | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5262 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 1 of 6 31 May 2011 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I saw this article in the NYT today: The Bilingual Advantage
It's a short article and worth a read. excerpt: "Q. Has the development of new neuroimaging technologies changed your work? A. Tremendously. It used to be that we could only see what parts of the brain lit up when our subjects performed different tasks. Now, with the new technologies, we can see how all the brain structures work in accord with each other. In terms of monolinguals and bilinguals, the big thing that we have found is that the connections are different. So we have monolinguals solving a problem, and they use X systems, but when bilinguals solve the same problem, they use others. One of the things we’ve seen is that on certain kinds of even nonverbal tests, bilingual people are faster. Why? Well, when we look in their brains through neuroimaging, it appears like they’re using a different kind of a network that might include language centers to solve a completely nonverbal problem. Their whole brain appears to rewire because of bilingualism." 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5828 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 2 of 6 31 May 2011 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, this is good news for me, my executive control system is dysfunctional so maybe studying languages will be
an effective therapy! ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 3 of 6 31 May 2011 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Except for the baffling answer to the last question and the odd reference to language centers being used for completely nonverbal tasks (which would imply there's no such thing as a brain area used solely for language), it's nice to see the journalist didn't take too many licenses to get an easy headline or make it "more accessible" (dumb it down), so it's still interesting even if not particularly deep / surprising / ground-breaking -- I found reassuring that the bit "now, everybody's driving got worse" was left in its place :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 6 01 June 2011 at 12:26am | IP Logged | ||
I still have hope for the same, even though I often enough understand or say weird gibberish that might have made sense in another language to hint at it not exactly being a help. But it's fun when you try to use Korean sandhi in German. I really would like to hear what they say about non-native bilingual speakers. Edited by Bao on 01 June 2011 at 12:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Quinn Senior Member United States Joined 6323 days ago 134 posts - 186 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian, Spanish | Message 5 of 6 01 June 2011 at 3:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I wonder if those who regularly use more than two languages derive even more cognitive benefit? It would seem that the executive control system of a polyglot could be even more developed than those of the bilingual subjects in the study. Edited by Quinn on 01 June 2011 at 3:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 6 01 June 2011 at 4:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I doubt it makes that much of a difference if you have to choose between two, three or four options - it's the circumstance that you have to make a choice that trains making choices. Edited by Bao on 01 June 2011 at 4:26am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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