What is Special about a Bilingual Environment?
Figure from Kandhadai et. al (2014)
A lot of research has shown that infants are able to learn two languages just as well as they can learn one. Growing up with more than one language in the home does not change how well or how quickly a child can learn language. In fact, some studies have shown that growing up in a bilingual environment can have a positive effect on a child’s mental abilities. One example of this is that bilingual children are more sensitive to the different cues of language – such as sounds, tone of voice, and word order – than monolingual children are. After around 6–8 months, monolingual children are only able to pick up on the cues of the language they are learning. Bilingual children however are able to identify these cues, in more than one language, long after this age.
A research review, Culture as a Binder for Bilingual Acquisition, by Kandhadai and colleagues suggests that one reason bilingual children are able to continue to notice these differences is due to the link between, or binding of, culture and language. Kandhadai suggests that these children may not only be sensitive to the parts of the languages that they are learning, but also the differences between the cultures that are linked to the languages. It is the overlap between the differences tracked in both culture and language that Kandhadai believes to help the children continue to separate the two languages and the situations they occur in. Some examples of the differences infants pay attention to in relation to culture include: music, face, dance, and food. The author expands more on how infants may track cues in both face and music. Examples that are provided are that infants, after 9 months, are able to differentiate between faces within their own racial groups better than faces that are not in their groups. Similarly after 12 months infants are better able to note the changes in rhythm of music that belongs to their culture. This evidence suggests that bilingual infants, unlike monolingual infants, are not only able to identify the cues of more than one language but also of more than one culture.
Since culture is the larger category, with language as one of its many parts, it is possible that being able to also identify the differences between cultures makes it easier for children to continue to make differences between the languages they are learning. This suggests that it is not simply the presence of two languages that a child requires to become bilingual. The presence and exposure to the culture that goes along with each language is also a very important factor in an infant’s bilingual environment.
Reference:
Kandhadai, P., Danielson, K., & Werker, J. F. (2014). Culture as a binder for bilingual
acquisition. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 3(1), pp. 24-27.
