Disadvantages of Bilingualism

One of the major disadvantages of bilingualism is language co-activation. Language activation occurs as soon a person begins to hear the sounds of a word as their brain then takes these sounds and starts to try to guess what the word is by activating any word that begins with the same sounds (Marian &Shook, 2012). The brain language systems of a monolingual person only have to search for words in one language; however, bilingual people have to deal with language co-activation as their brain starts searching through more than one language to attempt to locate the correct word. For example, a monolingual person that hears the sound of “bu” might start activating words like bus, bull, buildable, and so on; however, a bilingual person’s brain would be activating not just English words, but also words that begin with the same sounds in their second language. In bilingual people, language co-activation can cause language competition in a person’s brain, which can lead to language difficulties that can manifest in slower language comprehension and difficulties recalling details about words (Marian &Shook, 2012). Chen, Bobb, Hoshino, and Marian (2017) found that the degree of language co-activation in word comprehension can be affected by daily exposure to the non-target language. This means that if a person does not have as much exposure to their second language they might experience a lesser degree of language competition.

Recommended Approach

One of the ideal approaches for second language acquisition is to learn a second language during childhood. This approach requires that the child receives a balanced exposure to both of the languages (Thordardottir, 2011) as unequal exposure will likely result in the child favoring one language over the other. To this point, it is ideal to have the child exposed to both languages not just from parents and teachers, but also from peers in social settings in order to encourage the child’s interest in the languages and to help the child to pick up on words. Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams (2013) found from examining multiple research studies that there is not one ideal age for a child to begin learning two languages, but that the earlier the child can begin to be exposed to two languages the easier time he or she will have with acquiring the language. This approach of learning during childhood is effective in addition to learning a second language as bilingual children acquire better skills in understanding other people’s perspectives, thoughts, desires, and intentions (Bialystok & Senman, 2004); these children also develop an enhanced sensitivity to certain features of communication like voice tone of voice (Yow & Markman, 2011).

References

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