The relation of bilingualism to intelligence.

Abstract

The present research was designed to examine more extensively the effects of bilingualism on the intellectual functioning of children and to explore the relations between bilingualism, school achievement, and students' attitudes to the second language community. The subjects were 10-year-old school children from six French schools under the jurisdiction of the Catholic School Commission of Montreal. The testing took place in the classroom and was divided into five sessions of 1 hour each, spaced about a week apart. All instructions to the children were given in French by native speakers of French, except for the test of English vocabulary which was administered by a native speaker of English. Verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests and measures of attitudes to the English and French communities were successfully administered. Contrary to previous findings this study found that bilinguals performed significantly better than monolinguals on both verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests. Several explanations are suggested as to why bilinguals have this general intellectual advantage. It is argued that they have a language asset, are more facile at concept formation, and have a greater mental flexibility. The results of factor analyses applied to the data supported the hypothesis that the structures of intellect for the two groups differ. The bilinguals appear to have a more diversified set of mental abilities than the monolinguals. The correlations of the attitude measures with other variables are also discussed.

Socio-emotional skills, behavior problems, and Spanish competence predict the acquisition of English among English language learners in poverty.

“…Balanced bilingualism has been associated with multiple cognitive, metacognitive, and inhibitory control benefits (see Barac et al, 2014, for a review). However, as pointed out early on by Peal and Lambert (1962), it is difficult to know whether cognitive differences observed are the causes of, or the effects of, being bilingual. The present study offers new findings with a novel, at-risk, young Spanish-speaking population, indicating that ELL children who are cognitively more advanced (measured in Spanish) at age 4 reach higher levels of English proficiency and are more likely to become an emerging bilingual in kindergarten than those with lower cognitive skills at age 4.…”

“…That is, bilingualism leads to positive social and cognitive outcomes for children, but social and cognitive skills can also contribute to the development of bilingualism. Indeed, Peal and Lambert (1962), pioneers in the field of L2 acquisition and bilingualism, articulated how difficult it would be to tease apart such bidirectional relationships by saying that it was difficult to ascertain whether the benefits associated with L2 acquisition occurred because "the more intelligent child became bilingual or whether bilingualism aided his intellectual development" (p. 20). The present study sheds some important light on these issues.…”

Le bilinguisme additif chez les francophones minoritaires du Canada

“…Avant I960, de nombreux chercheurs attribuaient au bilinguisme des effets surtout négatifs sur le développement intellectuel, linguistique, social et affectif (Jensen, 1962;Arsenian, 1945;Darcy, 1953;Peal et Lambert, 1962 ;Cummins, 1976;McLaughlin, 1978). Après I960, les recherches ont plutôt démontré des effets positifs du bilinguisme sur les plans cognitif, affectif et linguistique (Cummins, 1976(Cummins, , et 1978Lambert, 1977Lambert, , 1978Landry, 1978).…”

“…(Peal et Lambert, 1962;Cummins, 1976). Mais la tendance actuelle est d'expliquer les résultats différenciés selon le type de bilinguisme vécu par les sujets étudiés.…”

“…L'expérience bilingue pourrait amener l'individu à traiter l'information qui préexiste dans sa structure cognitive, de sorte que certains processus utilisés soient parfois à son avantage, parfois à son désavantage (Landry, 1981b). Ceci n'exclut pas la possibilité que les processus cognitifs influencés par l'expérience bilingue puissent, dans certaines conditions, repré-senter un avantage cognitif assez généralisé (par exemple, une plus grande flexibilité mentale ; Peal et Lambert, 1962 ;Balkan, 1970). Mais il ne faudrait pas supposer que le fait d'atteindre un haut niveau de fonctionnement dans sa langue maternelle et dans sa langue seconde soit suffisant pour bénéficier d'avantages nets sur le plan cognitif, nonobstant l'avantage évident de pouvoir bien communiquer dans deux langues différentes.…”