The ability to speak two languages equally shapes the human mind. Language surrounds people at any moment of their lives because it is a tool that allows individuals to communicate thoughts, feelings and connect with others. Language gives a sign of identity to those around us and culture. Bilingualism comes with practical benefits for enhancing cognitive and sensory processing that allows a person to better process information in any setting leading to foster improved learning (Kroll, Bobb, & Hoshino, 2014) . Individuals with bilingual brain demonstrate higher attention ability and task twitching capacities as compared to those with monolingual brains. Bilingualism allows people to effectively adapt to the environmental changes and exhibit less cognitive decline. Bilingual people have a profoundly shaped mind that benefits them in all aspects of life.
Studies indicate that when a bilingual individual uses one language, the other language remains active at that time. The brain plays an integral part in matching the signal to the activated words. The activation in bilingual people is not limited to a particular language because it stimulates the recognition of words that correspond to the signal regardless of the language of belonging. The eye movement is essential in determining the co-activation because people look at things that are in their minds (Bialystok, 2017). The brain strives to map what is heard onto the spoken words to identify language without averting similarity. The mind avoids the confusing of two languages by trying to understand the message by striking a relative balance between the two languages (Stocco, Yamasaki, Natalenko, & Prat, 2014) . The brain achieves this by relying on the executive functions and regulatory system that facilitate general cognitive capabilities that entail attention and inhibition. The two language system keeps the mind active and active because one is able to utilise control mechanisms at any moment he or she speaks or listens. The steady practice is useful in strengthening the mind because the control mechanisms and changes take place in the brain region.
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Bilingualism shapes the mind by ensuring that bilingual people to execute tasks that need conflict management effectively. It ensures that the mind is very flexible enough to handle various tasks (Buchweitz, & Prat, 2013). . The cognitive system of bilingual individuals enables them to ignore irrelevant words and focus on the critical aspects. This is achieved through inhibitory control which is the capability to ignore conflicting perceptual information to concentrate on the relevant input. Inhibitory control shapes the mind because one can switch tasks and categorize them based on the reflected cognitive power.
Besides, bilingualism assists in shaping the mind because it is not limited to the language network of the brain. The mind is stimulated because the brain is forced to alternate between the two languages; thus it stays active, for instance, one is able to switch between naming colors in French and naming them in English. The brain is involved in linguistic, cognitive control that is related to sensory processing. Bilingual people have a substantially more extensive and better encoding that is instrumental in sound frequency and also have a higher blood flow in the brain that stimulates response to the sound. The higher blood flow fosters encoding that is associated with benefits in auditory attention and neurological function.
Additionally, bilingualism fosters improved learning and attention to details that allow one to grasp the two languages. Bilingualism shapes the mind because one is able to easily access new words leading to a wider gain in vocabulary and new skills. Bilingualism enhances neurological benefits because a person is in a position to maintain a cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve promotes effective utilization of brain network that fosters brain function during ageing. Bilingualism experience ensures that cognitive mechanism is kept sharp leading to the recruitment of extensive brain network to replace the damaged ones during ageing. This improves memory and executive control.
Short-term or Long-term Consequences of Bilingualism on Processing Information
The brain plays an integral part in manipulating and processing temporary information that is required to accomplish several tasks at any given time. Bilingualism enhances different cognitive process like problem-solving, reasoning and language comprehension. Bilingual children have a high working memory that enables them to perform tasks with heavier memory loads (Yang, 2017). Bilingualism ensures that people have effective information management skills that allow them to have a wider size of vocabulary.
In the short term, bilingual people have difficulty coping with two new languages. Vocabulary development is critical for children because it predicts the later literacy development and overall success in bilingualism. Verbal short-term memory is a crucial cognitive factor that allows language input and vocabulary acquisition. Bilingual people demonstrate a superior recall accuracy of words in the two languages.
The successful acquisition of vocabulary needs the storage in memory of several words and the related concepts and grammatical rules. A bilingual is required to store information about two languages and be in a position to access and process the linguistic information based on the changing linguistic contexts (Bialystok, & Craik, 2010). There is a possibility for the two languages to compete for the capacity of memory resources and processing. Information processing under short term is consciously shown by verbally recounting events that give a person a chance to acquire new vocabulary and grammar (Bartolotti, & Marian, V. 2012). Information that is kept in short memory has to be accessed and transferred to short-term memory for processing. Bilinguals co-activate the two languages to a particular level during language processing. A bilingual is in a position to effectively interact in a single language, but the two languages stay active
Conclusion
In conclusion, the increase in immigration has made bilingualism to be part and parcel of everyday lives. The advantages of bilingualism are extended from the early development of a child to old age because the brain is able to process information to maintain a cognitive control. Bilingualism is essential in shaping the human mind because it fosters improved learning, enhances greater attention ability, keeps the brain active and allows people to adjust the changes in the environment. Bilingualism assists in expanding the memory network of an individual because it exposes a person to a broader range of information, vocabulary size and processing. Also, bilingualism allows a person to improve his or her meta-linguistic awareness which is the capability to recognize language as a system that can be manipulated and explored. The strengths of the available evidence are it provides consistent evidence on how minds are able to adapt to exceptional situations and that related consequences for the mind and brain. The available evidence has some weakness because it does not provide adequate information on how bilingualism affects the representation of the two languages in the human mind. More research has to be done on how bilingualism shapes the mind of the adults due to reducing memory.
References
Bartolotti, J., & Marian, V. (2012). Bilingual memory: structure, access, and processing. Memory, language, and bilingualism: Theoretical and applied approaches, 7-47.
Bialystok, E. (2017). The bilingual adaptation: How minds accommodate experience. Psychological Bulletin, 143(3), 233.
Yang, E. (2017). Bilinguals’ Working Memory (WM) Advantage and Their Dual Language Practices. Brain Sciences, 7(7), 86.
Buchweitz, A., & Prat, C. (2013). The bilingual brain: Flexibility and control in the human cortex. Physics of life reviews , 10 (4), 428-443.
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S. C., & Hoshino, N. (2014). Two languages in mind: Bilingualism as a tool to investigate language, cognition, and the brain. Current Directions in Psychological Science , 23 (3), 159-163.
Stocco, A., Yamasaki, B., Natalenko, R., & Prat, C. S. (2014). Bilingual brain training: A neurobiological framework of how bilingual experience improves executive function. International Journal of Bilingualism , 18 (1), 67-92.
Bialystok, E., & Craik, F. I. (2010). Cognitive and linguistic processing in the bilingual mind. Current directions in psychological science , 19 (1), 19-23.
