Bilingualism and Social Identity Research Assignment (Essay Sample)

Bilingualism and Social Identity
Student’s name
University
Course
Date
Bilingualism and Social Identity
Bilingualism is the ability to use or speak two or more languages. Australia is one of the countries in the world that has more than 200 different languages spoken within the country. Arguments that support this pattern of language have been based on increased globalization which has led to increased cultural openness that is a result of easy access to information through the internet (Bialystok & Martin, 2004, P. 331). Children can be brought up and socialized to learn several languages apart from their mother tongue to enable them achieve bilingualism. Studies on bilingualism reveal that it is not just the ability to speak the language but rather there are fundamental benefits associated with speaking several languages. It is argued that such like people are smarter and have better cognitive abilities as compared to monolinguals. The health benefit have been attributed to shielding dementia in old age and thus making the individual enjoys a better old life. There has been mixed differences on the importance and effects of bilingualism on children. Some studies have indicated that it affects the cognitive abilities of the individual while other argue that it has more profound positive effects on the child’s development. This essay analyses bilingualism and social identity by seeking to understand the effect of bilingualism on the social identity of the individual.
Bilingualism has varying levels that will determine the fluency of the individual in the languages. This means that one language will appear as dominant as compared to the other that the individual has learned. The best way to develop bilingualism is basic bilingualism where a child speaking with family members. This is achieved through one Person-One Language where children are socialized to speak certain languages by their family members (Dewaele, 2007, P. 393). Most bilingual children come from family backgrounds where different languages are spoken. In an attempt to learn the languages within the family, the child ends up bilingual since they have to catch with all the languages within the home setting. Children from such families perfect both languages easily since through communication, they can learn other languages at an early age.
Arguments supporting bilingualism have been placed on its ability to improve cognitive abilities through improving the brain’s executive function by developing the command system of the brain that directs plans and solves mentally challenging tasks. This allows the brain to easily switch from one task to another without affecting the concentration that it had set on another task. This makes bilinguals quicker in performing complicated tasks since their brain is used to switching and destruction received from the ability to use both languages. Ability to ignore distractions is improved by bilingual children is improve by the ability of the brain to switch willfully and still hold the other information together in mind. This has been effective in puzzle experiments and can be used in remembering sequence directions when driving. These abilities retraced back to the inhibition system that seeks to suppress one language and allow the development of the other simultaneously.
However, studies that have concentrated on bilingual abilities have indicated that they have a high ability to monitor the environment through switching to the convenient language in the situation. This means that such individuals have to keep track of changes around them and know the exact moment to switch from one language to another. According to Tokuhama-Espinosa (2003, P. 14), several studies have been carried out to determine how bilingualism enable the brain to overcome distractions and concentrate on the activity at hand. Linguistic relativity, a claim that the language people speak is influenced by the world they see complements these abilities by proving that bilinguals have a more diverse approach to the world as compared to monolinguals. This has led to the question of the effect of bilingualism on the social identity of the individual (Spotti., 2005, P. 2171). Since language has been used as an element of socialization and identity formation, then researchers have attempted to understand the role of bilingualism in identity formation.
According to Bialystok (1999, P. 637) bilingual children have better abilities that are developed from the cognitive effects of their bilingual learning process. Cognitive complexities in children develop when they learn different languages allowing them to easily overcome distractions. In reasoning processes, executive functioning is used to bring intentional processes that suppress intentional brain operations. Classical experiments have revealed that bilingual children have advantage in solving problems that require complexities in thinking. These complexities in thinking end up shaping the identity of the individual and the people that they become in future.
Language is one of the social elements used to determine the identity of a person. Many people will identify themselves based on the language that they speak rather than other physical conditions like race. Social identity is described as the relationship between the individual and the social world which makes language an important component in identifying people identity (Fielding, 2015, P. 32). Anthropologists argue that identity requires comparison with others who may have the same or different identity order to define an individual. According psychoanalysis theory, there are social forces within the individual’s environment that influence social identity through language. Fought (2006, P. 11) presents language as a key element in balancing social identities. This implies that language has different meanings to different persons which makes people associate it with their identity. The social theory of language suggests that, language is a form of social practice and the socialization process thus functioning within the social system. Lemke (2000, P. 16) adds that language leads to individual identities that fall within the setting that they are live in. Bilingaul identities lead to difficulties in choosing the superior language pattern and thus makes the individual confused from the fight between identities. This is because language is not only about structural and linguistic systems but rather how social meanings are placed within the structural linguistic system.
Language is an influence of socialisation used to shape the identities of people within their local settings. Ethnicity has been widely shaped by language since individuals who fall within a certain ethnic group will be socialised along the ethnic language of that group. Becoming a member of a certain group requires learning and speaking the language of the group. Through learning sufficient cultural and contextual knowledge of others and develops the ability to interact, negotiate and communicate freely with others, then the individual becomes accepted by the group and thus social identity is formed is formed. Vygotskian theory of learning of learning is based on the notion that interactions play a fundamental role in cognitive development of the individual. This means that language plays a key role in identity formation through learning. Human being are different from animals because of the ability to interact using language. This makes humans advanced animals as compared to any other animal in the mammal family. Language is used to shape the identity of individuals through allowing them to internalize socialization concepts that emanate from within their cultural settings.
Culture forms the basic part of an individual’s social identity achieve through socialization. The society has bestowed the power of socialization and identity formation to social institutions. The family is the basic institutions here individuals learn through nurture. Language patterns that children learn help them identify and interact with their family members and later fall in the society in which they are born in. the language is used to differentiate them from others who may not fall within the same identity that they have. For example in the US black Americans developed their own slang language as an identity to overcome the oppression that they were going through from the whites. Blacks who could not speak the Negro language had difficulties interacting with others since they did not meet the basic definition of what their community demands. Bilingualism is thus used to learn original and new cultures in both children and adults. The ability to speak a certain language gives command to identities associated with that language since the individual can quickly learn the requirement of that identity.
Studies on bilingualism have shown that it leads to the development of integrated identities in children. If children are exposed to the right amount two cultures, they can develop multiple identities through integrating the language patterns. According to Baker (2002, P. 12) this allows ethnic identities to be established through understanding the identities related to the language that they speak. Social identity theory focusses on how people perceive nad make sense of each other through fundamental processes of interaction (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002, P. 22). This defines the knowledge of where people belong through social identification with social groups. Through self categorization people categorize themselves using language patterns that they see in others. This means that bilingualism will lead to the development of bilingual identities in such speakers.
Arguments against the effect bilingualism have been related to the ability of the individual to belong to different identities. Since the importance of a particular ...