Nowadays, cross-cultural communication forces most people to be bilingual or multilingual to maintain competence globally. This rich linguistic environment helps people to communicate their thoughts in different settings, connect with them, and identify with their own culture. Bilingualism has advantages, such as enriched cognitive control, that outweigh its disadvantages, increasing the importance of the communicative approach for second language acquisition that considers the Sapir-Whorf theory.
The bilingual acquisition offers many advantages to its learners. Genesee’s (2015) paper divides them into local, national, and global by stating that bilingualism facilitates interpersonal communication in indigenous communities locally. On a national scale, citizens of the European Union who know multiple languages can freely travel and enjoy personal benefits. Meanwhile, Genesee (2015) and Marian and Shook (2012) identify cognitive benefits as global ones. For example, bilinguals outperform others in selective attention that requires focusing and switching attention, as in switching between languages without disturbance. Additionally, Genesee (2015) rejects the myth of a monolingual brain, suggesting that children who simultaneously acquire two languages have incomplete grammar and delayed development patterns. Instead, bilinguals achieve the same fundamental milestones in language development as monolinguals but with more social and economic benefits.
Neurological reasons for a bilingual advantage suggest that adults should acquire more languages regardless of age to maintain their mental health. If they do so, they better encode the fundamental frequency of the sounds and enhance auditory attention (Marian & Shook, 2012). However, more importantly, they can postpone symptoms of dementia due to enhanced cognitive control, as Bialystok et al. (2012) suggest. Their research findings remark that bilinguals demonstrate symptoms 3–4 years later in 78.6 than their monolingual counterparts. Therefore, bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve with a more prominent role in older ages than younger ones.
Regarding the disadvantages of being multilingual, researchers focus on daily linguistic difficulties in people’s cognition. For example, Marian and Shook (2012) believe it causes slow naming of things and tip-of-the-tongue states when speakers cannot conjure a word due to language co-activation. Moreover, monolinguals’ verbal skills are more potent, and their receptive vocabulary size is more extensive than those who acquire two languages (Bialystok et al., 2012). Bilinguals struggle because both language systems are constantly active and competing whenever they speak and listen.
Considering that people have problems with increasing receptive vocabulary, the recommended approach for second language acquisition is based on the communicative act when speakers have considerable language input that increases fluency. When a person uses the target language without focusing on grammar as the starting point, they produce incorrect mixed sentences as two linguistic systems are not differentiated based on different grammar and syntax (Genesee, 2015). Additionally, such speaker chooses communication over the accuracy, neglecting linguistic rules. However, when this language becomes the instruction language, and its learners immerse in its linguistic system through direct communication, they demonstrate better proficiency. Moreover, an academic approach based on specialized vocabulary and grammar makes second language acquisition more complex and longer than the suggested strategy. Therefore, speakers produce written and oral discourses after communicating with instructors in different contexts with better results and less learning time.
Successful second language acquisition requires a communicative partner, and a language model that bypasses Sapir-Whorf’s theory of linguistic relativity suggests that people speaking different languages think differently. As Boroditsky (2011) identifies the prominent influence of the mother tongue on people’s categorization and understanding of time and space, it could cause many challenges when someone starts learning a new language. For example, speakers of Pormpuraaw should be able to distinguish cardinal directions to communicate as they are always used to indicate space occupation, unlike in English. Furthermore, English speakers arrange time and space from left to right, but Hebrew people choose the opposite direction. These research examples prove that the model for second language acquisition should consider the Whorfian theory to eliminate these cognitive differences. Therefore, when people are taught a second language, they should distinguish between its linguistic features that affect cognition, such as gender, time, and space markers.
This communicative approach increases cognitive function as speakers learn to inhibit specific competing distractors when switching between languages. When learners primarily focus on communication rather than grammar, they become more proficient in ignoring the translation equivalent of the concepts through inhibition of the parietal cortex and frontal gyrus, increasing their attentional control (Bialystok et al., 2012). Therefore, these speakers have better results in naming the font color regardless of distractors and demonstrate easy completion of task switching. In professional settings, during communication with interlocutors, such learners use two languages differently and appropriately with others (Genesee, 2015). This approach allows them to adapt to the interlocutor’s preferences and abilities quickly, increasing communicative competence and developing cognitive advantages that ease communication in professional settings.
To conclude, bilinguals have better linguistic and social skills, making them efficient communicators in various environments and cultures. Although they demonstrate more effort while retrieving a common word due to language co-activation, they enjoy more significant cognitive advantages of being bilingual. For example, they are better at focusing, have mental flexibility, and have brain reserve. The most successful approach for second language acquisition should consider communication as the primary focus and eliminate thinking differences between speakers based on the Sapir-Whorf theory.
References
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 240–250. Web.
Boroditsky, L. (2011). How language shapes thought. Scientific American, 304(2), 62–65. Web.
Genesee, F. (2015). Myths about early childhood bilingualism. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 56(1), 6–15. Web.
Marian, V., & Shook, A. (2012). The cognitive benefits of being bilingual. Cerebrum: The Dana forum on brain science, 13(1), 1–12. Web.