Benefits of the Bilingual Brain

Posted on July 31, 2015

Benefits of the bilingual brain

How does bilingualism benefit the brain?
There appear to be 2 main schools of thought, both agreeing that bilingualism allows us to have enhanced mastery over our cognitive influence and it delays dementia.

What do we mean by enhanced mastery over our cognitive influence?
There have been studies that show that bilinguals or polyglots are better able to focus on demanding mental tasks despite distractions. This is greatly due to the ability to master many non verbal components of both our mother tongue and 1 or more languages simultaneously even when conversing in more languages at any one given time. This could take place with 2 or more languages being spoken within the same conversation. Being bilingual and engaging in bilingual or multilingual communication stimulates the brain to fire off and engage diverse verbal and non verbal indicators of language and meaning simultaneously. Whilst the monolingual speaker only has one set of verbal and non verbal references relevant to their only language, the bilingual speaker or polyglot (multi-lingual speaker – speaker or more than 2 languages) engages more than one set of verbal and non verbal communication cues.

How is dementia delayed?
Studies have estimated bilinguals experiencing the onset of dementia, on average, about five years later than monolinguals. It has been suggested that the extra brain activity and stimulation is a pivotal factor in delaying the onset of dementia. Speaking more than one language is like a mental gym, firing neutrons that stimulate parts of the brain that would otherwise not be stimulated. This is especially so when mastery of bilingualism is evident – that is – when a speaker is fluent in every way and has successfully mastered the art of communicating effectively and understanding communication in 2 languages like a native speaker of the language. This does not extend to those learners who have some competency in the language but do not thinking in the language they are speaking at the time they are speaking it. Mastery of a language involves thinking in the languages whilst engaging in communication in that language.