Tanvir Hossain

Christine Scanlon
FIQWS 10103
28 October 2016
Does being Bilingual Makes you Smarter?
It was granted for me, when I started to learn my second language, English since
I immigrated to the United States and I had to learn it. I thought there is no advantage of
being bilingual other than being able to communicate in two different languages. Now, it
turned out that researchers suggest that being bilingual is not only beneficial when it
comes to communicating in two languages, traveling to a country, watching movies
without subtitles or being able to order in a foreign restaurant, there are lot of other
cognitive advantages as well. So as a bilingual, I am curious to explore the bilingual
effect and compare myself with monolinguals to see how effective these researchers
and does being bilingual really make me smarter than monolinguals?
Being able to express oneself fluently in two different languages is consider as
bilingual. The more frequently one speaks two languages, the more bilingual that
person is. Here in the United States, only 15-20% of American considered to be
bilingual, where its 56% of Europeans (Franklin, 2013, p. 1). The inability to speak a
foreign language makes it difficult for Americans to compete globally.
As I continued my research, I found there are three different categories of
bilinguals. Compound bilingual; acquire two languages simultaneously as a child, (tend
to be fluent in speaking both languages). Coordinate bilingual; working in a two sets of

concepts, speaking native language with family and learning the second language in
school at teenage age (tend to feel more comfortable in native language). And
subordinate bilingual, learn the second language through their primary language at old
age, from work, or shopping (only knows the keywords of the second language)
(Nacamulli, 2015, time 1:13-1:46). I found myself in the category of coordinate bilingual,
since I had started to acquire my second language at teenage age from school/college
and speaking Bengali at home.
Research has always been going on, whether its a beneficial or deleterious to
function two languages in a person's brain. Until 1960 it was considered as a
disadvantage to be bilingual because researcher hypothesized that if a person obtains
the second language, then both language systems deteriorate each other, making it
more difficult to muster either and it slows the child language development (Dreifus,
2001, p. 4). Now more advanced research and use of brain imaging technology have
given neurologist a glimpse into how these two different types of brain function. So,
does being bilingual make you smarter?
The brain function of the monolingual and bilingual are slightly different, in neurolinguistic manner bilinguals brain may work and appear differently than those of
monolinguals (Nacamulli, 2015 t. 0:33). Some advantages of the bilingual brain are
even visible, such as higher density of gray matter, which contain most of our brain's
neurons and synapses (Nacamulli, 2015 t. 3:18). So monolinguals and bilinguals might
have a different baseline cognitive ability.

Bilinguals are better attentive. Ellen Bialystok, a Canadian cognitive neurologist

has spent about 40 years learning about how bilingualism sharpens the mind (Dreifus,
2011 p.1). Dr. Bialystok says, The bilinguals, we found, manifested a cognitive system
with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important.
According to neurology, the executive control system helps to focus on relevant, while
ignoring distraction. The executive control system in bilinguals brain is more active
since bilinguals speak two different languages based on the country situation, which
makes the bilinguals executive control system more efficient (Dreifus, 2011, p. 4).
Bilinguals have the better ability of multitasking. In Dr. Bialystok experiment,
monolinguals and bilinguals participant were put into a driving simulator. Through
headphones, they were given extra tasks to do while driving, as if they were driving and
talking on cellphones. Then the result was compared to see, how worse their driving
got. It turned out everybodys driving got worse. But the bilinguals driving werent as
worse as worse as monolinguals. Because switching between tasks is one of the job of
executive control system, since bilinguals have efficient executive control system they
can switch their attention better. So bilinguals are better at focusing on the relevant
thing and multitasking (Dreifus, 2011, p. 3).
Bilinguals brains are healthier and have the better cognitive ability even when
they get older. In Dr. Bialystok study, a record of 400 Alzheimers patients, bilingual
patients showed the Alzheimers symptoms five or six years later than monolingual. Dr.
Bialystok also mentions, in order to enjoy the bilingual benefits, one has to speak both
languages frequently not just occasionally (Dreifus, 2011, p. 3).

Aside from having so many benefits, there are a few costs of being bilingual. For
instance, both languages are active in the brain of a bilingual person when he or she
speaks, and this incurs a processing cost, as the brain needs to do two things at once.
This causes Delayed lexical accesses also known as tip-of-the-tongue moments,
searching for a word, attention needed to switch based on which environment the
bilingual is speaking. Verbal skill of bilinguals in each language are generally weaker
than those for monolingual speakers, however, through practice, they can overcome it.
(Munoz, 2014, p. 2)
So what we found is that its not only beneficial for bilingual when it comes to
traveling to another country or ordering in a foreign restaurant, bilingual people have
improved cognitive skills such as better at focusing, multitasking, have better memory
and executive system in the brain even when he or she gets older, delay aging process
and cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer and dementia and more aware of language.
Some people may or may not consider these as smarter than an average person.
Nonetheless, there are lots of substantial advantages of the being bilingual in terms of
social and cognitive benefits, which I think we should consider as being smarter than
average monolinguals.

Works Cited

Dreifus, C. (30 May 2011). The Bilingual Advantage. The New York Times.
http://tony-

silva.com/eslefl/miscstudent/downloadpagearticles/blingualadv-nyt.pdf
Lauren, F. (October 6, 2013). Americans suffer from inadequate foreign language
education. The daily Texan.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/opinion/2013/10/06/americans-suffer-

from-inadequate-foreign-language-education
Munoz, M. (23 June 2014). Does being bilingual make you smarter? British
Council. https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/does-being-

bilingual-make-you-smarter
Nacamulli, M. (Jun 23, 2015). The benefits of a bilingual brain. (Video File) TEDED. http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-speaking-multiple-languages-benefitsthe-brain-mia-nacamulli#review