The Advantages of Bilingualism Debate

@article{Antoniou2019TheAO,
  title={The Advantages of Bilingualism Debate},
  author={Mark Antoniou},
  journal={Annual Review of Linguistics},
  year={2019}
}
  • M. Antoniou
  • Published 16 January 2019
  • Psychology
  • Annual Review of Linguistics
Bilingualism was once thought to result in cognitive disadvantages, but research in recent decades has demonstrated that experience with two (or more) languages confers a bilingual advantage in executive functions and may delay the incidence of Alzheimer's disease. However, conflicting evidence has emerged leading to questions concerning the robustness of the bilingual advantage for both executive functions and dementia incidence. Some investigators have failed to find evidence of a bilingual… 
View via Publisher
gwern.net
140 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
5
Background Citations
48
Methods Citations
2
Results Citations
8

140 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Clear Theories Are Needed to Interpret Differences: Perspectives on the Bilingual Advantage Debate
TLDR
It is argued that the move from behavioural studies to a focus on brain plasticity is not going to solve the debate on cognitive effects, especially not when brain changes are interpreted in the absence of behavioural differences.
Ecological Validity in Bilingualism Research and the Bilingual Advantage
Cognitive and Neurocognitive Effects From the Unique Bilingual Experiences of Interpreters
TLDR
A critical review of work that offers insight on the cognitive and neurocognitive effects that seem to arise from the unique, highly-cognitive-demanding practices experienced by interpreters is provided.
The Effects of Bilingualism on Attentional Processes in the First Year of Life.
TLDR
This study indicates that bilingualism modulates attentional processes early on, possibly as a result of bilinguals' experience of encoding dual-language information from a complex linguistic input, but it does not lead to significant advantages in attentional control in the first year of life.
Duration and extent of bilingual experience modulate neurocognitive outcomes
Thinking outside the box: The brain-bilingualism relationship in the light of early neurobiological variability
Characterizing Bilingual Effects on Cognition: The Search for Meaningful Individual Differences
TLDR
A recent study by Pot, Keijzer, and de Bot (2018), which focused on the relationship between individual differences in language usage and performance on an executive function task among multilingual older adults, is considered.
A Bilingual Advantage? An Appeal for a Change in Perspective and Recommendations for Future Research
TLDR
This paper briefly reviews some of the more pertinent literature that has attempted to identify attenuating, modulating, and confounding factors in research comparing monolingual and bilingual populations, and highlights issues that should be taken into account in future research.
University of Birmingham A bilingual advantage? An appeal for a change in perspective and recommendations for future research
The debate on possible cognitive advantages bilinguals have over monolinguals continues to occupy the research community. There is an ever-growing research body focusing on adjudicating whether there…
Can Machines Find the Bilingual Advantage? Machine Learning Algorithms Find No Evidence to Differentiate Between Lifelong Bilingual and Monolingual Cognitive Profiles
TLDR
It is concluded that bilinguals are not cognitively different from their monolingual counterparts, even in older demographics, and that studies that have reported a bilingual advantage could well have confounded other key variables that may be driving reported advantages.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 68 REFERENCES
Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition
TLDR
It is argued that the tendency to consider bilingualism as a unitary phenomenon explained in terms of simple component processes has created a set of apparent controversies that masks the richness of the central finding in this work: the adult mind and brain are open to experience in ways that create profound consequences for both language and cognition.
Is Bilingualism Associated With Enhanced Executive Functioning in Adults? A Meta-Analytic Review
TLDR
It is concluded that the available evidence does not provide systematic support for the widely held notion that bilingualism is associated with benefits in cognitive control functions in adults.
Bilingualism, dementia, cognitive and neural reserve.
TLDR
The role of bilingualism as a source of cognitive reserve is discussed and the putative neural mechanisms through which lifelong bilingualism leads to a neural reserve that delays the onset of dementia are proposed.
No evidence for bilingual cognitive advantages: A test of four hypotheses.
TLDR
The authors suggest that bilingual benefits are not as broad and as robust as has been previously claimed and that earlier effects were possibly due to task-specific effects in selective and often small samples.
Bilingualism and Cognition
The topic of bilingualism and its influence on executive control development is an active field of research. Executive controls are high-level processes that affect an individual's ability to…
Are bilingual advantages dependent upon specific tasks or specific bilingual experiences?
Paap and Greenberg concluded that there is no coherent evidence for bilingual advantages in executive processing. More optimistic researchers believe that the advantages may be restricted to certain…
Bilingualism and Cognitive Decline: A Story of Pride and Prejudice.
TLDR
The literature offers substantial evidence for a bilingual effect on the development of cognitive decline and dementia, and it is argued that most of these studies actually controlled for these two variables and still found a positive effect of bilingualism.
Bilingual advantages in executive functioning either do not exist or are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances
Maturation of executive functioning skills in early sequential bilingualism
Previous research has demonstrated that being bilingual from birth is advantageous for the development of skills of social cognition, executive functioning, and metalinguistic awareness due to…
The effect of bilingualism on amnestic mild cognitive impairment.
TLDR
Preliminary evidence suggests that the early protective advantage of bilingualism may be specific to single-domain aMCI, which is the type of a MCI most specifically associated with progression to DAT.
...
...