‘Bilingual Mind: Understanding how the Brain Speaks Two Languages’

This article, by Jeffrey Kluger, digs into the advantages of being a bilingual, or even a trilingual. It goes into depths about how we subconsciously develop language skills in addition to cognitive skills. Being exposed to more than one language from a young age simultaneously will hone cognitive ability, in terms of logic and reasoning, processing speed, and auditory processing. These are functions that will aid day-to-day tasks. These skills have educational values, as they are skills that ultimately are needed to grasp knowledge and apply it. They are mental skills used to acquire learning, and in this case learning and acquiring language. The effects of bilingualism on cognition were studied among students. “…(Bilingual) students seemed to show a greater facility with skills that relied on interpreting symbolic representations, such as math or music” (Kluger 126). This has a direct relation with the skills inherited when learning two languages. Logic and reasoning skills are essentially problem solving abilities that are needed when solving math equations and such, which is a main factor as to why the study showed such results.

            Moreover, Kluger touches up on the idea of code switching. This is a part of a multi-lingual’s interactional identity. It is the practice of switching between two languages when speaking. Code switching as described in the text is a way to enhance expressionism through different languages. As discussed previously some ideas are better expressed in different languages. This was a concept discoursed in class that was described as a mean to fill a conceptual or linguistic gap. Or could be just a subconscious interactional instinct when confabulating with someone who speaks the languages that one is switching between.