Multilingualism – Assessing Benefits
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• helping preschoolers and young children develop task control
precociously (Bialystok & Martin 2004; Bialystok 2010; Martin-Rhee & Bialystok 2008; Carlson & Meltzoff 2008; Feng et al. 2007), • enhancing performance of 20-year-olds (Green 1998; Costa et al. 2008), • preserving the success rate in persons advanced in years at nearly that of 30-year-olds (where monoglots were slower and less accurate; Bialystok et al. 2004, 2006; but see Morton & Harper 2007 for lack of such a language-based performance difference), • delaying deterioration of attentional control mechanisms associated with cognitive decline (cf. Craik & Bialystok 2006) and ‘demonstrating that the bilingual advantage extends well beyond childhood’ (Wodniecka & Cepeda 2007: 4). Multilinguals’ enhanced performance is accounted for either by their ability to hold two languages in the mind concurrently without allowing words and grammar to leak from one into the other, or by superior memories for information storage and processing (Bialystok et al. 2004). An alternative interpretation (Colzato et al. 2008) is that bilinguals do not differ from monolinguals in terms of active inhibition (whose aim is to exclude particular information from processing), but have acquired a better ability to build up and maintain action goals in working memory: learning to keep two or more languages separate leads to a general improvement in selecting goal-relevant information from competing, goal-irrelevant stimuli). Bilinguals are also better at resolving conflicting information (Costa et al. 2008), an asset due to bilingualism helping to ignore information irrelevant for the task at hand, to take more advantage of cues when giving a response, or to reach and/or maintain a state of alertness allowing them to prepare for monitoring and conflict resolution (Costa et al., op. cit.). It is believed that bilinguals should have fewer problems with concentration, the capability to effectively monitor their actions, or multitask (Wodniecka 2007). Individuals speaking more than one language also have a better ear for listening and sharper memories (at least in the case of immersion programmes; Ratte 1968; Lapkin et al. 1990). Recent evidence saw bilinguals outscore monolinguals on controlled recall tests; for instance, they proved more accurate at remembering episodic information (the context in which they have come across a fact; Wodniecka, Craik & Bialystok 2007; Wodniecka et al. 2010), showing similar levels of recollection to younger monolinguals, ‘suggesting that bilingualism may help offset age-related