Town and Country Hotel San Diego March 29, 2016 Town and Country Hotel San Diego

Lilly Cheng San Diego State University

Monolingualism Societal monolingualism is a reality in many parts of the world. human beings have the innate capacity to learn and use as many languages as they can as long as the environment allows them to.

Polyglots Human beings have the innate capacity to learn and use as many languages as they can as long as the environment allows them to.

Bilingual/Multilingual The vast majority of people in the world are bilingual and multilingual. Bilinguals may process language information differently from monolinguals, but that's a 'mind' issue, not brain structures.

The world of Chineses There is a hierarchical change amongst the varieties of Chinese. Putonghua is fast gaining ground, and Cantonese and Hokkien are losing their community lingua franca status. It does impact on identity and 'heritage'. It needs careful thinking and planning, and management.

Identity and Heritage It does impact on identity and 'heritage'. It needs careful thinking and planning, and management.

Different types There are different types of bilinguals/multilinguals. Some have learned languages from school but never use them. Some were born into multilingual families and communities but have kept their languages apart and use them in different contexts. There are some who mix their languages all the time in everyday social interaction.

Code Switching The main argument we are trying to make is this: Simply having two or more languages is not enough to give anyone any cognitive or social advantage; they need to use them in everyday interaction, and crucially, they need to know how to mix them up in code-switching.

What do you think? Bilinguals must constantly shift between two languages, selecting the correct words from one while ignoring competing information from the other, that they have more practice in simultaneously using multiple components of executive functioning. Because bilinguals go through this process on a daily basis throughout their lifespan, they therefore gain an advantage over monolingual individuals who do not recruit this same simultaneous function as often.

Multicompetence Proposing a theoretical model that proposes multicompetence may enhance creativity, social cognition (empathy, tolerance of ambiguity), and multitasking.

Creativity Creativity is very much on the education agenda. Research evidence suggests that bilingualism is a source of creativity and habitual code-switching enhances creativity. Teachers and parents should encourage more code-switching in children and not preventing them from doing so.

Script switching Children who are switching between different scripts/writing systems show enhanced creativity. The implication encourages the teaching of languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Urdu.

Reconceptualization Reconceptualization of what code-switching is in the new communication environment. Switching between letters, emoticons and other symbols is a common form of code-switching in everyday communication amongst young people, and it is also a highly creative process.

Cognitive advantages Beyond general advantage to cognitive development seen in bilinguals, there is remarkable evidence for an advantage regarding executive control in particular – specifically in cases where multiple components of this executive control is required for perform a task. This has implications for real-world situations, as multitasking is a common everyday function that bilinguals could possibly perform better at than monolinguals.

Brain Rewiring 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. source: ellen bialystok

Heritage/Identity/culture Connects children to their heritage/ancestors. Hyphenated identity Multiple identities Cultural identity (Chopsticks Fork Principle) Multicultural identity

References Ellen Bialystok Wei Li David Green Francois Grosjean Walt Schneider Allison Gopnik Kathy Bao Bean