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| Bilingual babies are precocious decision-makers 會(huì)雙語的嬰兒在決策上表現(xiàn)超常 WHETHER to teach young children a second language is disputed among teachers, researchers and pushy parents. On the one hand, acquiring a new tongue is said to be far easier when young. On the other, teachers complain that children whose parents speak a language at home that is different from the one used in the classroom sometimes struggle in their lessons and are slower to reach linguistic milestones. Would 15-month-old Tarquin, they wonder, not be better off going to music classes? A study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may help resolve this question by getting to the nub of what is going on in a bilingual child’s brain, how a second language affects the way he thinks, and thus in what circumstances being bilingual may be helpful. Agnes Kovacs and Jacques Mehler at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste say that some aspects of the cognitive development of infants raised in a bilingual household must be undergoing acceleration in order to manage which of the two languages they are dealing with. The aspect of cognition in question is part of what is termed the brain’s “executive function”. This allows people to organise, plan, prioritise activity, shift their attention from one thing to another and suppress habitual responses. Bilingualism is common in Trieste which, though Italian, is almost surrounded by Slovenia. So Dr Kovacs and Dr Mehler looked at 40 “preverbal” seven-month-olds, half raised in monolingual and half in bilingual households, and compared their performances in a task that needs control of executive function. First, the babies were trained to expect the appearance of a puppet on a screen after they had heard a set of meaningless words invented by the researchers. Then the words, and the location of the puppet, were changed. When this was done, the monoglot babies had difficulty overcoming their learnt response, even when the researchers gave them further clues that a switch had taken place. The bilingual babies, however, found it far easier to switch their attention—counteracting the previously learnt, but no longer useful response. Monitoring languages and keeping them separate is part of the brain’s executive function, so these findings suggest that even before a child can speak, a bilingual environment may speed up that function’s development. Before rushing your offspring into Tongan for Toddlers, though, there are a few caveats. For one thing, these precocious cognitive benefits have been demonstrated so far only in “crib” bilinguals—those living in households where two languages are spoken routinely. The researchers speculate that it might be the fact of having to learn two languages in the same setting that requires greater use of executive function. So whether those benefits accrue to children who learn one language at home, and one at school, remains unclear. 老師、研究者以及“望子成龍”的父母親們對(duì)是否需要對(duì)年幼的兒童教第二外語爭(zhēng)論很大。一方面，據(jù)說在孩子很小的時(shí)候掌握一門外語會(huì)輕松的多。另一方面，老師們抱怨說，孩子們的父母親在家里說的語言不同于這些孩子們?cè)谡n堂上使用的語言的時(shí)候，這些孩子們有時(shí)候?qū)W習(xí)很吃力，同時(shí)在達(dá)到語言上的“里程碑”方面也要慢一些。他們?cè)趯に迹?5個(gè)月大的Tarquin去學(xué)音樂難道不是更好么? 剛剛發(fā)表在《美國(guó)科學(xué)院院刊》（Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences）上的一項(xiàng)研究可能會(huì)有助于解決這個(gè)問題，該項(xiàng)研究通過在如下三個(gè)方面進(jìn)行的研究來解決上述問題：1）研究在會(huì)雙語的兒童的大腦活動(dòng)的本質(zhì)；2）第二外語如何影響兒童的思考方式；3）在何種情況下會(huì)雙語可能是有利的。來自意大利第里雅斯特國(guó)際高等研究學(xué)院(International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste）的Agnes Kovacs 和 Jacques Mehler說，那些在雙語家庭中成長(zhǎng)的嬰兒，為了處理他們所接觸到底是這兩種語言中的哪一種，他們的某些認(rèn)知發(fā)展必須加速。 問題中所涉及的認(rèn)知方面就是所謂大腦的“執(zhí)行功能”的一部分。這部分允許人們進(jìn)行組織、計(jì)劃、安排活動(dòng)的優(yōu)先順序、把注意力從一件事情轉(zhuǎn)移到另外一件事情以及壓制一些習(xí)慣性的反應(yīng)。會(huì)雙語在第里雅斯特很普遍，雖然第里雅斯特屬于意大利，但是它幾乎被斯洛文尼亞(Slovenia)所完全包圍。因此 Kovacs博士和Mehler博士研究了40名七個(gè)月大的“前語言期的”的嬰兒，這些嬰兒中一半在單語言家庭中成長(zhǎng)，一半在雙語言家庭中成長(zhǎng)，Kovacs博士和Mehler博士比較了這些嬰兒在完成一項(xiàng)任務(wù)中的表現(xiàn)，而這項(xiàng)任務(wù)需要執(zhí)行功能的控制。 首先，研究者們讓這些嬰兒們聽一些他們發(fā)明的一組毫無意義的詞語，經(jīng)過訓(xùn)練后，這些嬰兒們就會(huì)期望在屏幕上看到一個(gè)木偶的出現(xiàn)。然后，研究者們改變這些詞語以及木偶的地點(diǎn)。當(dāng)這些改變完成后，即使研究者們進(jìn)一步給他們暗示，提示他們已經(jīng)有了改變，那些只會(huì)一種語言的嬰兒在克服他們已經(jīng)學(xué)過的反應(yīng)的時(shí)候仍會(huì)有些困難。不過，那些會(huì)兩種語言的嬰兒很容易轉(zhuǎn)換他們的注意力---抵消掉以前學(xué)過的但是再也沒有用處的反應(yīng)。 大腦“執(zhí)行功能”的一部分工作就是監(jiān)控語言以及把這些語言分隔開，因此這些研究表明，即使在兒童能說話之前，雙語環(huán)境可能會(huì)加速“執(zhí)行功能”的發(fā)展。不過，在急急忙忙把你的孩子送到 “嬰兒湯加語學(xué)校”之前，有幾個(gè)警告需要注意。第一，到目前為止，這些超常的認(rèn)知益處僅僅只在“搖籃”雙語者（譯者注：指雙語環(huán)境下的嬰兒）中展示出來，在這些“搖籃”雙語者生活的家庭中，兩種語言經(jīng)常被用到。研究者們推測(cè)，這可能是基于在同一環(huán)境中必須學(xué)會(huì)兩種語言的事實(shí)要求更多地使用執(zhí)行功能。所以，對(duì)于那些在家里學(xué)習(xí)一門語言，而在學(xué)校學(xué)習(xí)另外一門語言的孩子們來說，他們是否也能獲得這些這些益處目前還不清楚。 Vocabulary: Bilingual: 會(huì)說兩種語言的 Precocious: （能力或行為）早熟的 Dispute: 爭(zhēng)論 Pushy: 執(zhí)意強(qiáng)求的 Acquire: 獲得 Complain: 抱怨 Struggle: 奮斗；抗?fàn)? Linguistic: 語言的 Milestone: 里程碑 Nub: 要點(diǎn)；核心 Affect: 影響 Circumstance: 環(huán)境；條件 Aspect: 方面 Cognitive: 認(rèn)知的 Acceleration: 加速 Prioritise: 劃分優(yōu)先順序 Suppress: 壓制；壓抑 Preverbal: （幼兒）前語言期的 Monolingual: 只用一種語言的 Puppet: 木偶；傀儡 Monoglot: 使用一種語言的 Counteract: 抵消；抵抗 Caveat: 警告；告誡 Crib：搖籃；嬰兒床 Routinely：例行常規(guī)地 Speculate：推測(cè) Accrue：增加；積累 注釋： Tongan for Toddlers：Tonga是太平洋上的一個(gè)小島國(guó)。Tongan的意思是“湯加語”。Tongan for Toddlers，“適合嬰兒的湯加語”，在文中實(shí)際是借指學(xué)習(xí)另外一門語言，并非就指湯加語。（編輯：胡慧） （英文原文來自The Economist 《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》http://www.economist.com） |
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