Research Paper Example on Bilingualism

Bilingualism is common compared to in the past. Many people will learn a new language now because it could be a part of their culture, ethnicity, for fun, or moving to a new country. But many people do not know that knowing a second language can increase brain cognition. When someone speaks more than one language, they will think in both languages’ even though only one language is physically used (Hayakawa et al. 2020). When a person speaks more than one language, even if they are not proficient at it, they will tend to think in there native or first language even though that language may not be relevant in that situation, although this is finding that we know now (Hayakawa et al. 2020). In the past it was said that if you know a second language and you are not proficient at it will not influence the way you think, but instead the dominate language in that situation will be used and that it can be easy to ignore. According to the research we have now we know that the language would be hard to ignore, even though when you talk aloud you would talk in the dominant language at that time, you most like thought about it in the second or native language even if you are not proficient in it (Hayakawa et al. 2020). This not only occurs during speaking but it also occurs while doing tasks.

Hypothesis

Hayakawa et al. (2020) are saying that if a non-dominant or your native language is used for any task then you will have more focus towards it, even if you are not proficient in it and this I because it is hard to ignore it. The researchers are aiming to say saying that your native tongue will override the dominant language that is being used in the task. In the research case the dominate language was English and the native language was Spanish. Even though you know that the dominate language is English in a task if something is said to you in Spanish even if its just once, you will pay more attention to it even if you do not understand it right away (Hayakawa et al. 2020). The native language will grab your attention so you will slow down your pace, but you will be more attentive to it, because you want to listen, understand/ comprehend, and then make your next move. 

Participants

For this experiment there were twenty-seven bilingual speakers that were asked to participate. The bilingual speakers spoke Spanish and English, some of the participants had to be removed. Two of them had to be removed due to high proficiency in another language, three had to be removed because they were not proficient enough in Spanish and another three were removed due to technical issues (Hayakawa et al. 2020). There were nineteen participants left in the experiment in which two were male and seventeen were female (Hayakawa et al. 2020). According to a the article most if not all the participants are more proficient in English, then in Spanish, and this could have been for several reasons, such as they only know the language because they are self-taught it (Hayakawa et al. 2020). All of the participants were pre-examined by the researchers to see how proficient they were in both the languages, and the nineteen participants that remained out of the original twenty- seven were a good suit for the experiment that followed (Hayakawa et al. 2020). 

Method

All the participants were given a task, and their task was to identify which of the two drawings had changed color. Each trial began with started a cross that stayed on the screen for 1000 milliseconds, then the images would be shown for either 200 milliseconds or 2000 milliseconds depending on what type of preview they were doing (long or short), this would happen before a word was said into the headphones of the participant, the word could have been said in either English or Spanish. For example, they showed a paintbrush (this image was the target image that changed color), and squirrel (distractor image), but in their headphones the word that was said was “Squid’’. In another trial they showed a shirt (target image), and they showed rice (distractor image) and the word that was said in the headphones was “arroyo” (stream). For this trial, the images were still shown but the word that was said was in Spanish. “There were five practice trials and 20 trials of each condition (competitor and control), resulting in 80 experimental trials in each preview window (160 experimental trials in total). (Hayakawa et al. 2020).” For the previews, the times were 200 milliseconds (short preview) or 2000 milliseconds (long preview). The short preview portion was conducted first, and then they did the long preview portion of the experiment. Once the image had changed color the participant had to pick which of the image had changed color. They did this by hitting the left shift key if it was the left item, or the right shift key if it was the right item (Hayakawa et al. 2020). The word that was being said during each of the trial was irrelevant and they had to attempt to ignore it, but the researchers knew that the word would have some sort of an effect on the participants, and this is what they were looking for (Hayakawa et al. 2020).

Results

Hayakawa et al. (2020) had to eliminate 20.4% of the trials to get to there end results, they excluded many trials from the long and short previews. The trials were excluded due to many reasons, and they included, giving an incorrect response, answering faster then the time that the object changed color, answering slower than the individuals mean compared to their other times, and if the distractor image was labeled incorrectly by the participant, it was also excluded. The trails where the distractor image was incorrectly labeled were exclude because, “phonological interference could not be expected if the auditory word and the distractor image did not share phonological features. (Hayakawa et al. 2020)” 2,462 trials were analyzed by the researchers to get the results. The findings show that in either preview condition, participants heard their native language, but the participants in the long preview condition took significantly longer to respond even though the task did not require language processing, phonological competition (competition between word that sound similar but that are not necessarily similar) still existed in there less proficient language (Hayakawa et al. 2020). This is a sign of being bilingual and showing brain cognition, because even though you do not fully understand the second or native language it makes you stop and think more in depth about what was said. It will activate your brain to slow down and listen or to think more carefully (Hayakawa et al. 2020).

Conclusion

The results were consistent with what the researchers had predicted because the participants did slow down significantly when something was said in Spanish, and therefore their hypothesis was correct (Hayakawa et al. 2020). Even though the participants were not perfectly proficient in Spanish, they still slowed down and thought about what they heard and what they were doing, this is a part of brain cognition because it activates that second familiar language in the person’s brain. So, they will slow down and think about it twice essentially, once in the dominate language and once in the other language even if you are not proficient in it. Hayakawa et al. (2020) said even if you are weak in a different language it, could be hard to ignore (Hayakawa et al. 2020). With this experiment being done on bilingual people we can see what the effect of knowing a second language is like on the brain even if they are not proficient at it. The non-dominant language will always stick out and, it will be hard to subside your thoughts about it (Hayakawa et al. 2020).

References

Hayakawa, S., Shook, A., & Marian, V. (2020). When it’s harder to ignorar than to ignore: Evidence of greater attentional capture from a non-dominant language. International Journal of Bilingualism, 24(5-6), 999-1016.