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Being Bilingual Research Paper

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Bilingual: To be, or not to be My mom always believed that learning and acquiring two languages will help me in the future. After my family immigrated to Canada from Korea (South) when I was only 7 years old, she always told my brother and me about the importance of becoming and staying bilingual, learning both English and Korean. She believed that bilinguals were superior in sense compared to monolinguals as they would use more brain power than monolinguals, producing more neuronal connections and exercising their brains more complexly.
As I have gotten older, I wondered if my mom’s beliefs were true. If being bilingual actually gave me an advantage. If this was true, I wondered if I would age slowly than other monolinguals …show more content…
In her 2004 research paper, she found that there was a bilingual advantage with adults. Using Simon task, where they compare reaction times of stimulus occurring in the same or different relative location as the response, she studied results of monolinguals and bilingual middle and old aged adults (30-88 years). Specifically, she found bilingual advantages on executive processing (ex. remembering things, paying attention, and problem solving) and inhibitory control (ex. holding back and not following instructions). Also, she has found that the bilinguals declined slower in control processes with aging compared to monolinguals. However, not all the other researchers agreed to her findings and tried to do their own …show more content…
Bialystok (2007) was also involved in a study where she investigated whether on set of dementia was delayed for bilinguals in old age. In her research, bilinguals showed symptoms of dementia of about 4 years later than monolinguals. However, we cannot conclude that this is true from one study and more research is necessary in order to prove that the delay in dementia for bilinguals is significant.
From various of studies done on bilingualism on middle-aged and old-aged adults, we can only conclude that information available online were incorrect. There is no significant support so far regarding bilingual advantage for bilinguals. Bilinguals may be protected against memory decline into old age but is currently inconclusive. There were so many hidden factors that could have affected the results, like proficiency, the age of acquisition, or sociological factors. More research is necessary in whether or not bilingualism gives us an advantage over monolinguals and if this advantage can persist into old

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