WORKS CITED

Schwieter, John W. Cognitive Control and Consequences of Multilingualism. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016.

One source I have found is the article Odoyo Okal’s article,“Benefits of Multilingualism in education.”. The article talks about the advantages of learning /speaking more than one language it has on education. The author says that “Benefits of multilingualism practices in education include the creation and appreciation of cultural awareness, adds academic and educational value, enhances creativity, adjustment in society and appreciation of local languages,” (Okal, 1) and the article explains more in detail about multilingualism and the advantage it has on education. There are even surveys conducted and their results that help prove the point. This article did pique my interest because it helps me see the advantages being multilingual has from a different point of view than my other two sources above. One is from a cognitive perspective, the other is from a more specific perspective (being trilingual), while this one is from an educational perspective, as it talks more about the advantages it has on all things to do with academics. The information provided in this article is good for my final project because, like I previously stated, it is stating the advantages of the topic I chose from a distinct perspective.

Another source I have found is Sabra D Pelham and Lisa Abrams’ article, “Cognitive advantages and disadvantages in early and late bilinguals,” This research journal was published on March 1, 2014. Its purpose is to present the study of the disadvantages and advantages of being multilingual at different ages (from a cognitive perspective, hence the title). The author explains that “The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the age at which a person becomes bilingual influences the degree of lexical retrieval deficits and/or executive function benefits.” (Pelham, Abrams,1) It is indeed like the first article I have chosen for this research project, but this article also talks about the disadvantages of being multilingual. The goal of my project is to talk about the benefits/ advantages, but to also explain some disadvantages would be an effective way to balance everything out (as everything has its pros and cons, or advantages and disadvantages). At the beginning of the article, the two authors conduct experiments and compare distinct groups of bilinguals, monolinguals and multilinguals, all different ages and how well they perform certain tasks. The 13 paged article is divided into different sections, picture naming, executive function, etc. When they discuss the lexical terms, they say, “the cognitive disadvantages in lexical access observed in adult bilinguals may be longitudinal, a function of those developmental changes that began in childhood and affected lexical access, and those deficits persisted into adulthood.” This can be useful for my project because as I previously mentioned, I have a lot of cognitive advantages to being multilingual, this can balance it all out.

One article I have chosen is Sayfullaeva Yulduz, Surmanov Sardor, Azimova Maftuna’s article, “The Psychological and Cognitive Benefits of Multilingualism.” The authors explain that “This article looks into the ways how acquisition of several languages benefits people psychologically and cognitively,” (Yulduz, Sardor, Maftuna, 1). The purpose of this source is to present the study of the advantages of being multilingual at a youthful age. From a cognitive point of view, I do have other resources/ articles that explain the advantages of multilingualism from a cognitive point of view (1^st source and 4^th source). However, what differentiates this resource from the others is that it talks more about my topic of interest is the information that is presented. For instance, when the authors explain the psychological benefits of multilingualism, they explain that people who can speak more than one language can have an easier time communicating with other people and sharing their ideas, beliefs, and overall, their personalities. They say, "multilingual individuals are believed to develop ambiguity tolerance that is they cope with uncertainties rather easily and are open to practices and beliefs of others. It in its turn, contributes to “cross-cultural endeavors and settings” which means a person can build a career in various work environments, cope with tasks more easily as they are more open to new ideas (Herman et al. 2010; Tang, Yin, and Nelson 2010; Lee, Gettman, and Swanson 2013).” (2) Reading this article has piqued my interest because it educates me on the psychological part of being multilingual, which is a topic that I want to know more about. The information provided could be useful for my project because it has more information about the psychological aspect of being multilingual, which is a big part of my project.

Another source that is useful for my project is Adam Nowek’s article “What are the positive effects of multilingualism.” This article talks about the benefits of multilingualism in several aspects (cognitive, childhood, adulthood, etc.). They focus on these three aspects which have all been mentioned in other sources that I have chosen for this project. However, what makes this source different and interesting is that they talk about multilinguals all over the world. The author’s say that “Recruiters want multilingual staff because they improve the chances for success in a globalized marketplace. Multilingualism makes finding work all the more exciting because you aren’t restricted to looking at jobs only in your home country.” They talk about the benefits of being multilingual wherever you are in the world, which could be useful for my project. Reading this article has made me learn more about the advantages of being multicultural, some advantages I have not known about before. I know this article talks about aspects that have already been mentioned, but I can use information that has not been mentioned to further educate myself on the advantages of multilingualism.

WORKS CITED

Nowek, Adam, Expatica International. “What Are the Positive Effects of Multilingualism?” Expatica, 21 July 2021, www.expatica.com/education/language-learning/multilingualism-108148.

One source that I found super interesting and that can be useful for my project is Supriya Harshwal’s article “Importance of multilingualism in society and language learner as a citizen journalist.” This article informs us about how important it is to be multilingual in our society. The journalist explains that “. Likewise, Multilinguists help maintain cooperation and understanding in two different societies. They help in Nation Building. They keep themselves aware with all the knowledge that relate to their learned languages and their societies, culture and living atmosphere,” (Harshwal,1). That stood out to me because as a multilingual student it interests me how important being multilingual is in our society and in the world, we live in. As a languages student I know there are a lot of careers that involve knowing multiple languages that can be beneifitial in our society. According to the article, “A language learner can contribute his knowledge in many different ways, like being a translator, interpreter, voice over artist, etc.” (Harshwal, 1). After reading this article, I learned that being multilingual is more important than I have already know it was. Growing up I have always heard people tell me, “it is important to know more than one language, it can be beneficial for you.” I never fully understood that until studying languages at Dawson and reading this article. It provides information that shows the benefits of being multilingual in a way that isn’t brought up by the other 7 sources mentioned above, and all the information provided in this article could be useful for my project.

Whether it is from an academic/ education perspective, such as learning languages or communicating with people, a psychological/ cognitive perspective, like the working memory and cognitive tasks or the perspective of adapting in the world/ multilingual environment we live in being multilingual has its advantages and benefits.

Judith F Kroll and Paola E Dussia's article, “The Benefits of Multilingualism to the Personal and Professional Development of Residents of the US” is about the cognitive benefits of multilingualism from the perspective of people of old age. It was published on May 18th, 2017. I have not read the complete article yet, but the first few pages gave me an idea of the goal of this informative article. According to the authors, “At the other end of the lifespan, in old age, the active use of two or more languages appears to provide protection against cognitive decline. That protection is seen in healthy aging and most dramatically in compensating for the symptoms of pathology in those who develop dementia or are recovering from stroke. In this article we briefly review the most exciting of these new research developments and consider their implications.” (Kroll and Dussias, 1). The fifth page gets into detail about how learning more than one language can help with cognitive decline for older people. It is a topic that discusses a topic that no other source I am using for my project does. In addition to that, one part that stood out to me According to the research that is mentioned, being bilingual can have an impact on Alzheimer symptoms. It does not have a direct impact, but it can help protect the mechanisms in the brain to help delay the consequences of this disease. The authors explained, “life as a bilingual seems to provide protection to the cognitive mechanisms that enable someone to negotiate the delirious consequences of the disease,” (Kroll and Dussias, 5). Reading this article helped me gain more knowledge on the positive impact learning more than one language has on us. As I previously mentioned, this article explains it from a distinct perspective that can be useful for my project.

Alex Rivard’s article “The Multilingual Advantage in Language Learning” focuses on the topic of the benefits of being multilingual when it comes to learning (specifically learning a new language). This article has been published recently in 2022. This source is 99 pages long, so I did not read it all. However, I did learn from reading this source. One thing I learned is that someone who is multilingual is better at learning linguistic skills such as learning new words in another language. According to the article, “it is often claimed that multilinguals are better than monolinguals at learning new languages (e.g., Cenoz & Valencia, 1994; Cenoz, 2003; 2013; Hirosh & Degani, 2018; Montanari, 2019; Sanz, 2000). For example, studies have found that multilingual learners outperform monolingual learners in acquiring novel words (e.g., Abu-Rabia & Sanitsky, 2010; Escudero et al., 2016; Kaushanskaya, 2012; Kaushanskaya & Marian, 2009ab; Keshavarz & Astaneh, 2004), new phonological contrasts (e.g., Antoniou et al., 2015; Onishi, 2016; Wang & Saffran, 2014), and grammatical knowledge (e.g., Abu-Rabia & Sanitsky, 2010; Nation & McLaughlin, 1986; Nayak et al., 1990; Cox, 2017). Moreover, multilingualism remains a significant predictor of language learning outcomes after controlling for individual differences such as age, motivation, exposure, or general intelligence (e.g., Cenoz & Valencia, 1994; Sanz, 2000), such that this advantage would be linked to multilingualism rather than to an individual predisposition of multilinguals to be better language learners,” (Rivard, 11). The information provided in this article can be extremely useful for my essay because it focuses on an aspect that is not focused on in any of my other sources presented above. I want to cover as many aspects as possible for my essay and this aspect is interesting.

The research topic I investigated is what are the benefits of being multilingual. I wanted to learn about this topic and answer my question because being a multilingual person myself, I have always been told that “learning and speaking more than one language is very beneficial.” However, I did not really know why, so I wanted to do some research and find out the answer to that question. As I have done my research on this topic, I have learned that being multilingual is beneficial to us in various aspects. Although I did find some disadvantages to being multilingual, I have found many advantages that cover various aspects/ perspectives. I have found that the cognitive aspect is remarkably interesting. Being multilingual is beneficial when it comes to the brain and all the “tasks” it does when it comes to languages, for example: switching languages, which is something that most of us who can speak more than one language do (which is defined as code switching). I have also learned that being multilingual can help us adapt in the world we live in (the generic aspect). It can help us improve our networking skills and make us see the world from a different point of view, as well as increase job opportunities and improve our abilities to be aware of your surroundings. Another aspect that I found interesting is the educational aspect. With the resources that I found, being multilingual can help us improve our learning skills when it comes to learning new languages and help us enhance our creativity. Each aspect is different, and they each explain in a different point of view of the different advantages of multilingualism.