話說美國《紐約時報》3月17日刊登了科學(xué)雜志（Science）撰稿人Yudhijit Bhattacharjee一篇文章，題目是Why Bilinguals Are Smarter（為什么會兩門語言的人更聰明）。文章引用科學(xué)家的觀點(diǎn)說，雙語的優(yōu)勢不僅在于能夠與范圍更廣的人交談，而且雙語能力可讓人更聰明，有助于改善與語言無關(guān)的認(rèn)知能力，比只會單語的人較善于解決心理難題，還可以保護(hù)抗擊老年癡呆癥。今天美國駐華使館的微博推介了這篇文章的中文譯文，轉(zhuǎn)載如下：
與使用一種語言的情況相比較，在世界日益全球化的條件下使用兩種語言有實(shí)際的明顯優(yōu)勢。但近年來，科學(xué)家們已經(jīng)開始證明，雙語的優(yōu)勢甚至比能夠與范圍更廣的人交談更有根本的意義。有雙語能力可讓你更聰明。雙語能力可以對大腦產(chǎn)生巨大影響，不僅有助于改善與語言無關(guān)的認(rèn)知能力，甚至保護(hù)你抗擊老年癡呆癥。
在雙語問題上的這種觀點(diǎn)比20世紀(jì)大部分時間人們所理解的雙語問題迥然不同。研究人員、教育工作者和決策者長期以來認(rèn)為從認(rèn)知上講，第二語言是一種干擾，阻礙孩子的學(xué)業(yè)和智力發(fā)展。
他們所謂的干擾并沒有錯：有充分的證據(jù)顯示，在具有雙語能力的大腦里，兩種語言系統(tǒng)都很活躍，甚至在只使用一種語言的情況下也是如此，從而造成一個系統(tǒng)妨礙另一個系統(tǒng)的情形。但研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，這種干擾并不是障礙，反而有點(diǎn)因禍得福，因?yàn)楦蓴_迫使大腦解決內(nèi)部沖突，促進(jìn)頭腦的運(yùn)動，增強(qiáng)認(rèn)知肌肉的鍛煉。
舉例來說，會雙語的人似乎比只會單語的人較善于解決某種心理難題。2004年，心理學(xué)家埃倫·比亞韋斯托克（Ellen Bialystok)和米歇爾·馬丁-李(Michelle Martin-Rhee)做了一項(xiàng)研究，讓雙語和單語的學(xué)前兒童把計算機(jī)屏幕上蘭圓圈和紅方框的圖形放入兩個數(shù)字箱里——一個標(biāo)明藍(lán)方框，另一個標(biāo)明紅圓圈。
作為第一項(xiàng)作業(yè)，孩子們先按顏色挑選，形狀可以不同，藍(lán)色的圓圈放在標(biāo)有藍(lán)方框的盒子里，紅色方框放進(jìn)標(biāo)有紅圓圈的盒子里。兩組做得都相當(dāng)輕松。接下來要求孩子們按形狀挑選，難度更高，因?yàn)樾枰褕D形放入顏色完全不同的箱子里。會雙語的兒童完成這項(xiàng)任務(wù)比較快。
許多此類研究的共同證據(jù)表明，雙語活動可以提高大腦的所謂指令性功能——即指導(dǎo)我們集中注意力進(jìn)行規(guī)劃，解決問題以及履行其他各種要求腦力的任務(wù)的指揮系統(tǒng)。這些過程要求排除干擾，專心致志，注意力可隨心所欲地從一件事轉(zhuǎn)到另一件事，并在大腦里儲存信息——如同開車時記住一系列指令一樣。
為什么兩個同時活躍的語言系統(tǒng)相互爭斗會提高這些方面的認(rèn)知呢？不久前，研究人員仍然以為雙語的優(yōu)勢主要源于通過壓制一種語言系統(tǒng)而磨練出來的抑制力：這種抑制力被認(rèn)為有助于培養(yǎng)雙語頭腦在其他情況下做到注意力不分散。但是，這個解釋越來越缺乏說服力，因?yàn)檠芯勘砻?，雙語人員甚至在不需要抑制力的情況下也比會單語的人做得好，例如在紙上劃一條線把一系列沒有規(guī)律的數(shù)字從小到大連在一起。
雙語和單語之間的主要區(qū)別可能是更基本的：增強(qiáng)監(jiān)測周圍環(huán)境的能力。西班牙龐培法布拉大學(xué)（University of Pompeu Fabra）的研究員阿爾伯特科斯塔（Albert Costa）說：“使用雙語必須常常進(jìn)行語言切換——你可能與父親用一種語言講話，和母親用另一種語言，需要隨時注意身邊的變化，如同開車時需要注意我們的周圍的情況一樣?！痹谝豁?xiàng)比較使用德語和意大利語的雙語人員和只會意大利語的單語人員從事監(jiān)控工作的研究中，科斯塔先生和他的同事們發(fā)現(xiàn)，雙語參試者不僅表現(xiàn)得更好，而且大腦參與監(jiān)控部分的活動較少，表明他們的效率更高。
從嬰兒到老年人，雙語的經(jīng)歷顯然對大腦都有影響（有??理由認(rèn)為，可能也適用于后來學(xué)習(xí)第二語言的人）。意大利里雅斯特國際高級研究學(xué)校（International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste)的艾格尼絲·科瓦奇（Agnes Kovacs) 2009年主持的一項(xiàng)研究把從出生就接觸兩種語言的7個月大的嬰兒和在一種語言環(huán)境中成長起來的嬰兒相比較。最初的一組實(shí)驗(yàn)先給嬰兒一個音頻提示，然后在屏幕的一側(cè)顯示一個木偶。兩組嬰兒都學(xué)會了看屏幕的一側(cè)，等待木偶出現(xiàn)。但在后一組實(shí)驗(yàn)中，木偶開始出現(xiàn)在屏幕的另一側(cè)，接觸雙語環(huán)境的嬰兒很快就學(xué)會了把他們預(yù)期的注視方向切換到另一側(cè)，而其他嬰兒卻沒有這樣做。
雙語的效果也已擴(kuò)及到老年群體。最近，以加利福尼亞大學(xué)圣地亞哥分校（University of California, San Diego）神經(jīng)科專家塔馬?高蘭（Tamar Gollan）為首的科學(xué)家對44名西班牙-英語雙語的老年人進(jìn)行了調(diào)查，通過比較個人使用每一種語言的熟練程度衡量他們的語言能力。調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，雙語能力較高的個人較少出現(xiàn)癡呆和阿爾茨海默氏癥的其他癥狀。雙語能力越高，發(fā)病率越低。
從來沒有人對語言的力量產(chǎn)生任何懷疑。但是誰能想到，我們平常聽到人們說的話以及我們自己的語言表達(dá)能夠產(chǎn)生如此重大的影響。
英語原文：
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
英語原文鏈接：
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html
中文譯文鏈接：http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/chinese/article/2012/04/201204123757.html#axzz1sAFk0lSqaxzz1sAFk0lSq
