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After reading this article you will learn about the need, advantages and disadvantages of learning more than one language to speak, to write, to understand, or all of these.
Need for Learning More than One Language:
One of the important features of modern life is that increasingly people are facing the need to learn more than one language to speak, to write, to understand, or all of these. While it is true that in many parts of the world, particularly in the underdeveloped third world countries and in our own country in the remote rural parts people still manage to survive with mastery over one language, this is not true of cities or even major towns, where economic, educational and social developmental activities are taking place.
Further in our country migration from the villages to cities has become very common and this has made it necessary for such people to acquire mastery over a second or even a third language at least to the level of speaking. In our educational system, there has been a lot of confusion about whether to teach two languages or three languages. The issue has often been politicized.
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The increasing trend which has necessitated a person to acquire proficiency in more than one language appears to be irreversible and perhaps to reverse, such an attempt may even be undesirable because in today’s world cultural, linguistic and other forms of man-created boundaries are collapsing. Thus, ability to use two languages or even more languages has become a very common feature.
A bilingual person may be defined as one who uses two languages different in speech sounds, vocabulary and syntax. Sometimes we also come across people who use more than two languages and even achieve a high degree of competence. Such individuals are called multi-linguists or polyglots.
In India it is not very uncommon to find people who have mastered a good number of languages. An outstanding example of this type is our former Prime Minister Shri. P.V. Narasimha Rao. Lambart, a pioneering researcher on the problem of bilingualism has defined two types of bilingualism. In the first type which he called additive bilingualism, an individual acquires mastery over his own mother tongue and an equal degree of mastery in another language.
Here there is an addition of one more language to one’s own language or mother tongue. This is very common in India where reader learn English in addition to their own mother tongue. In additive bilingualism both the languages are treated with equal respect and prestige. But, in the other category known as subtractive bilingualism, a new language is acquired at the expense of one’s language or mother tongue.
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A tribal child being brought up in an urban city does not learn her or his own language, but learns some other language. A child who is adopted by parents belonging to a different group also falls in this category. Here, one can see the importance and implications of political or social factors and attitudes in learning of a second language. For example if the second language is perceived as a dead language like Sanskrit, then the learners are not going to be highly motivated. Similarly in every society, there are stereotyped attitudes about the various ethnic groups speaking different languages.
Attempts to teach Hindi as a second language in schools of Tamil Nadu had to confront and overcome the image of Hindi as a North Indian language and not a well-developed language. In general, it has been found that the learning of a second language is easier if the learner carries with him or her a favourable notion of the people or community speaking the second language.
The importance of political and social factors in any learning could be seen in our country especially during the days of the anti-Hindi agitation. While it has been shown clearly that people from Tamil Nadu could very easily master the Hindi language, as exemplified by those living in Northern Indian States, politicking about a language certainly created problems and attitudes in the minds of the language learners. Of course, our country has a remarkable ability to politicize everything.
A number of studies have shown the importance of the socio-political factors. On the other it has also been shown that learning a second language changes and brings about a more favourable perception and attitudes to a group dominantly speaking the second language.
It has been shown that children in Canada learning French are more favourable to the French-Canadians compared to those English children who do not learn French. Certainly here one can see a positive contribution of learning a second language.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Learning More than One Language:
As is the case with any issue, there have been different notions on the issue of requiring people to learn a second language. It was originally argued that any learning involves integration and coordination of cognitive skills, even social knowledge, responding to and acquisition of non-verbal gestures and emotional qualities of empathy and sympathy.
According to this view, one may wonder whether such a complex coordination can be brought into action to learn more than one language. A doubt has also been raised as to whether such an effort at learning more than one language can affect the learning of other more important subjects and also create emotional blocks.
While some of these doubts may sound rational or even logical, what makes one wonder is the fact that in fact a large number of people acquire proficiency in many languages. A visit to any metropolitan city in India like Bombay or Delhi, is enough to provide evidence of this and in many instances, it has been found that top ranking scientists have acquired proficiency over more than one language and their ability has not come down, but enhanced.
Such doubts as mentioned above, were also raised by some early researchers on language learning. It was argued that since the human brain-energy, and abilities are limited any effort spent on learning an additional language will have an adverse effect on the learning of other important subjects. But these early researches were not free from serious limitations like defective sampling. In many instances, studies were carried out using mainly mono-lingual groups from upper strata of society and bilingual groups from lower strata. Further the tests of intelligence and ability used were biased towards mono-lingual groups.
A reaction to this type of research was the emergence of a series of well- organised, well-controlled and scientific studies where sampling procedure was correct and the tests used were absolutely satisfactory. A series of such studies originally carried out in Montreal and subsequently repeated in Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and New York reported certain general findings. These have been very well summarised by Peal and Lambart.
Some of these findings are as follows:
1. Bilingualism, in addition to helping the person to gain proficiency and fluency in a second language was also found to be associated with a greater degree of proficiency even in the first language. Bilingual children were found to be superior to monolinguals even in their original language.
2. Secondly, bilingual subjects showed a greater flexibility and adaptability in the use of language. They seem to appreciate the fact that names and labels are just mere words and often of accidental origin. For examples, if a term like ‘army’ comes to have a certain meaning, it is just by accident and another term like ‘ramy’ would have served the same purpose. They appreciated the limitations of the words.
3. Further, bilingual children were found to be more flexible and adequate in the actual use of language and adapt themselves better. Thus, they were able to vary their speech in terms of speed while speaking to a deaf person or while talking to a person who is relatively less educated. They were also found to use more of body language and enable people to understand what they mean. In fact, they were much more pragmatic and practical in the use of a language both the first language and the second language.
4. On tests of creativity, bilinguals were found to show greater degree of divergence and flexibility of thinking.
Some of the findings reported above show that contrary to the early apprehension and also findings of the early studies, bilinguals are far superior to monolinguals in many respects. But one wonders whether there are no adverse effects at all. Of course, some studies have shown that bilinguals often change pronunciations of certain words in both the languages.
It has also been shown that they are a little slower in making certain language related decisions. For example a bilingual person writing a letter to another bilingual person, takes some time to decide in which language the letter is to be written. But one can clearly see that such marginal disadvantages mainly in terms of speed are nothing compared to the advantages which have been shown in favour of bilingualism.
Thus, bilingualism appears to be associated with many forms of superiority in cognitive functioning in addition to the social advantages they have. However, what is important appears to be how the second language is taught at what stage and what for it is taught. In our schools additional languages are often taught only to conform to a state imposed curriculum.
Some researches on the factors influencing learning a second language have been carried out. These studies indicate that the earlier the age of initiation into the learning of the second language, the easier and more effective is the process of acquiring proficiency in the second language and also in related skills.
A classical study by Johnson and Newport on people migrating to the USA with the basic language as Chinese or Korean showed that these children who were between the ages of 3-5 and when induced to learn the English language reached the same level of competence as natural English speaking children by the age of seven.
Thus early childhood appears to give a distinct advantage, for learning a second language. An explanation for this is offered by Lenneberg who postulated that there is a critical period of language learning in the life of an individual and this is the early period of maturation. This view is supported by many researchers who also claim that this is true whether one learns the first language or a second language and applies to language learning in general.
In this section an attempt has been made to present to the reader a discussion on different areas of language acquisition, including ability to speak, ability to comprehend and also semantic structures. The findings of the various studies were mentioned. An attempt was also made to examine briefly certain forms of language disabilities and difficulties.
Language behaviour is the most evolved, complex and even complicated form of human activity and our understanding of all aspects of the same may not be quite complete for many more years to come. In fact, language has the potential to cause a lot of good as well as bad.