Concept of Bilingualism | Essay

Running Head: BILINGUALISM
BILINGUALISM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

BILINGUALISM1
Bilingualism is the art of knowing more than one language, and it occurs in an individual
through various ways such as the exposure to two languages since birth, which makes them use
them for their entire life, and then some people learn their native language in childhood, and later
they learn the second language.
Bilingualism has several advantages, according to Antoniou (2019), for the person who is
experienced with more than one language because it helps in communicating with more number
of people, which will enhance an individual’s social circle as well as expanding links to
employment and trade. The opportunity to interact with other cultures and traveling to various
places with the confidence of knowing the local language. Sometimes it also helps in obtaining
medical services and career opportunities involving multiple languages such as a translator or an
interpreter. It is also said that being bilingual delays the chance of Alzheimer’s disease and
enhances executive functions (Woumans et al., 2015). The process of constantly interacting and
influencing people by using two languages that includes resolving and managing competition
between two languages results in several cognitive benefits. These benefits are seen in other
activities such as playing musical instruments, learning photography, and playing computer
games, which helps in cognitive stimulation. The management of multiple languages in the day
to day life has been more helpful in cognitive development because using languages is one of the
most complex activity a human can go through as it requires intense brain network to interact
with people all our life (Bialystok, Craik & Luk, 2012).
Bilingualism has few disadvantages too as seen in several studies by Kroll et al. (2015),
bilingual acquisition was referred to as ‘problem of the bilingual child’. It suggested that people
with bilingual nature tend to score low marks in verbal tests subjected on cognitive abilities. It
led to confusion in children when they used more than two languages in their daily life, which