Title: Exploring the relationship between bilingualism and intelligence

Student: Adrian Camacho Velazquez

Id: 218379287
Teacher: Maria Jose Estefania Gonzalez Betanco
Subject: Bilingualism and bilingual education

Univiersiad de Guadalajara
 Exploring the relationship between bilingualism and intelligence

Introduction
Prior to 1960, there was a common belief regarding bilingualism and cognition: being bilingual
was considered to have a detrimental effect on thinking, in other words, bilinguals had
disadvantages rather than advantages in terms of thinking. Moreover, this way of thinking was
easily reaffirmed by early research. IQ results confirmed that monolinguals cognitively
outperformed bilinguals. However, there is always a catch, in this particular case, the correlation
between language and intelligence that the IQ tests measure has not much to say about whether
monolinguals are smarter than bilinguals. Therefore, establishing a link between intelligence and
bilingualism is a big issue that needs to be explored.

According to Baker (2001) the relationship between bilingualism and intelligence hasn’t been
fully explored due to different factors: false beliefs (detrimental effect), vague concepts (not
clear concept of intelligence), not enough or reliable data (not reliable date since there is not a
reliable way of measuring intelligence), and perfunctory ways of applying methods (not clear
ways of measuring intelligence). It is important to highlight that when Baker published his paper,
time was a problem. Since then, many researchers have explored that subject, and their
discoveries are critical to know and spread. Therefore, this paper will focus on outlining some of
the new information in relation to bilingualism and intelligence. Some of the questions that this
paper will address are: What is the relationship between bilingualism and intelligence? Are there
any cognitive advantages that bilingual individuals have over monolinguals? If they exist, what
are those? Due to time constraints, this paper will take into account some relevant articles that
deal with the topic, and, under no circumstances, this is not an extensive research paper.

This essay is divided into three parts; the first part outlines a brief definition of the two concepts
of bilingualism and its relation to intelligence. In the second part of this paper, a state of the art
will be introduced. It will present how some experiments on bilingualism and intelligence have
been conducted up until now. In the third part, a critical analysis of those papers will be shown in
order to see some advantages and disadvantages of the results (this is in order to fix some
problems about concepts or methodology), and finally, some conclusions will be outlined.

Exploring bilingualism and intelligence

What is then the relationship between bilingualism and intelligence? Baker (2010) states that in
order to fully measure bilingualism and intelligence the following factors should be noticed:
Whether intelligence deepens on heredity or the environment. A strong hereditarian viewpoint
tends to argue that intelligence is relatively fixed and unlikely to be affected by becoming
bilingual. An environmental view of the origins of intelligence may be more appealing to
supporters of bilingualism. The environmental view holds that intelligence is neither fixed nor
static, but modifiable by experience.
Does intelligence comprise one unitary factor, or can intelligence be divided into a wide variety
of factors or components logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic,
and personal ‘multiple intelligences’)? IQ tests tend not to consider cultural boundedness. In
other words, IQ tests suggest that cross-cultural generalizations are dangerous and limited
because those only measures one specific part of society.

The discussion has not changed up until now. For example, in Peal’s paper (1962) The relation
of bilingualism to intelligence, the concept of intelligence is similar to the letter b. The research
was designed to examine more extensively the effects of bilingualism on the intellectual
functioning of children and to explore the relations between bilingualism, school achievement,
and students’ attitudes to the second language community. Therefore, verbal and nonverbal
intelligence tests and measures of attitudes to the English and French communities were
administered. The idea of multiple intelligences can easily be noticed since Pearl equated
intelligence to verbal and nonverbal aspects of language (speaking and grammar).

On the other hand, in his article by Angel Munoz (2014), Does being bilingual make you
smarter? He focuses more on the issue of categorizing bilinguals. He states the need for
establishing what being bilingual means. He contends that bilingualism is not a categorical
variable (i.e., ‘you are either bilingual or not’), but a multidimensional construct composed of
two linked parts. The first of these is language proficiency, and the second is language use. In
other words, it is difficult to measure both since special care needs to be taken in order to
measure language proficiency and language use.

Finally, Sear (1923), in his paper The Effect of Bilingualism on Intelligence, uses the Binet scale
of intelligence in order to conduct his research. In this case, the concept of intelligence that is
used in this paper is similar to letter c. Since the Binet scale is a type of IQ test, the results that
were thrown show that intelligence is equated to vocabulary which is only one aspect of it.

Analysis
The two articles that this paper will analyze in order to highlight the relationship between
bilingualism and intelligence are the effects of bilingualism on intelligence by D J Sear, and the
relationship of bilingualism to intelligence by Peal. It should be noticed that both articles have a
different approach to characterizing the relationship between intelligence and bilingualism.

Brief description of the paper

According to Elizabeth Peal (1962), the paper was designed to examine the effects of
bilingualism on the intellectual functioning of children and to explore the relations between
bilingualism, school achievement, and students’ attitudes to the second language community. We
basically have school achievements or academic achievements similar to intelligence.
In terms of methodology, the subjects were 10-year-old schoolchildren from six French schools
under the jurisdiction of the Catholic School Commission of Montreal. The testing took place in
the classroom and was divided into five sessions of 1 hour each, spaced about a week apart. All
instructions to the children were given in French by native speakers of French, except for the test
of English vocabulary which was administered by a native speaker of English.

Verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests and measures of attitudes to the English and French
communities were successfully administered. Contrary to previous findings this study found that
bilinguals performed significantly better than monolinguals on both verbal and nonverbal
intelligence tests. It is argued that they have a language asset, are more fluent in concept
formation, and have greater mental flexibility. The results of factor analyses applied to the data
supported the hypothesis that the structures of the intellect for the two groups differ. The
bilinguals appear to have a more diversified set of mental abilities than the monolinguals.

Positive aspects
 The article uses other ways to link bilingualism and intelligence. They defined
intelligence as academic achievements and oral and written tests of the languages.
 The authors focus on a big sample, so her study is big enough to draw a conclusion.
 It would be interesting to replicate this study but using other languages
 The theory matches the data. In other words, the possible explanation that bilinguals
outperformed monolinguals shows that the shape of their cognitive abilities is different in
terms of fluency and mental flexibility.

Weak aspects
 It would be interesting to focus on another type of student, in other words, not only in
catholic schools but also in the public sector.

Even though Peal’s paper shows positive cognitive aspects of bilinguals over monolinguals, the
next paper shows another picture. However, it is critical to underscore that Sear’s paper was
conducted using IQ tests which only measure vocabulary abilities a no other aspects of the
languages.

Brief description of the paper

According to Sear’s paper, the research was designed in order to see the effects of bilingualism
on the intelligence of people. In terms of methodology, the investigation was conducted in seven
districts in Carmarthenshire. In six of these districts, the mother tongue was Welsh but they have
learned English in school. Five of the districts were rural and the others were urban and
industrial. The tests contained an element of vocabulary, dextrality, rhythm, composition, and the
Stanford Binet scale.
Some of the main findings are:
  Monolingual children in rural areas show a considerable superiority over bilingual
children.
 The range of vocabulary of monolingual children is higher than that of bilinguals.
 Mental confusion is seen to exist in bilingual children to a higher degree than in
monoglots children even in urban areas by the test of destrality, and also in the rhythm
tests when the organs of speech expression functioned in signing a series of to laa.
 It is suggested that the greatest influence on the mental confusion occurring in
bilingualism is exerted by the language used by bilingual children in their play and in
their free association with youthful companions when that language is not also that in
which they are first taught at school.

Positive aspects
 It was one of the first attempts to link bilingualism and intelligence.
 It tried to include different social classes in the investigation (rural and urban areas).
 The sample was big enough since it tried to see differences in terms of socio-cultural
aspects.
 It was a longitudinal study that shows how children were progressing over the years.

Weak elements
 It used only IQ tests which inevitably reduce the different aspects of language.

Conclusions
As this paper has shown, the relationship between bilingualism and intelligence has had many
ways of defining its relation. This has brought up many ways of conducting research. The
previous two papers offer a way to link these two concepts together. In order to conclude, this
paper will outline some of the most common cognitive advantages that bilinguals possess over
monolinguals. The main advancement that has been attained thanks to research is to overcome
the outdated idea that being bilingual had pejorative connotations.

 Bilingualism affects the development and efficiency of the brain's multifactorial

executive control system. The bilingual brain is used to handle two languages at the same
time. Because bilingual people are used to switching between their two languages, they
are also better at switching between tasks, even if these tasks are nothing to do with
language. People who speak two languages have also been shown to have more efficient
monitoring systems. Bilingual people also outperform monolingual people in spatial
working memory tasks.

 Bilingualism has widespread effects on the functional and structural properties of various
cortical and subcortical structures in the brain. Our brains change and adapt as a result of
experience. Studies have shown that people who are multilingual have a higher density of
 grey matter and that older people who are bilingual tend to have better-maintained white
matter in their brains.

 Bilingualism promotes cognitive reserve in elderly people. Taking part in stimulating

physical or mental activity can help maintain cognitive function, and delay the onset of
symptoms in people suffering from dementia. The onset of dementia symptoms is
significantly delayed -by as much as five years - in patients who are bilingual.

Bibliography
Bak, T. H. (2014). Does Bilingualism Influence Aging? Annals of Neurology, 959-963.
Baker, C. (2001). Foundations of bilingual Education and bilingualism. Great Britain:
Multilingual Matters.
Bialystok, E. (2010). Consequences of Bilingualism for cognitive development. Canada.
Kenji, H. (1985). The relationship between degree of bilingualism and congnitive ability.
Children language, 320-344.
Peal, E. &. (1962). The relation of bilingualism to intelligence. Psychological Monographs:
General and Applied, 76(27), 1–23.
Saer, D. J. (1923). The effect of bilingualism on intelligence. British journal of psychology, 19-
38.