SDLC 105 Learning Journal #9

[Hongzhen Chen]

The two articles talked about how and why bilinguals  were considered smarter. As it was mentioned in "Why Bilinguals are Smarter", being bilingual can have a profound effect on the brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age. Similar points were also mentioned in "Are Bilinguals smarter?" that the executive function in the bilinguals' brains were strengthened, which can help people do a lot of things that may make them seem smarter, such as doing more things at once and canceling out distractions. From my perspective, saying another language would not necessarily make people more intelligent, but will structure their brains in a different way which will help them react faster from changes i, making them easier to fit in a new environment. However, as somebody who can speak two languages fluently, I don't think I am a bilingual because I was not raised under the second language environment and my brain had already used to think and express in Chinese. In my opinion, the 7-11 is the most important time for language and brain development. After that time, even if you are continuously exposed to the new language environment, your way of thinking and structure of your expression would not change too much. This is to say, although I could still improve my English in terms of pronunciations, grammars, and fluency,  my brain would not be able to improve the so-called executive function because it had already shaped for a long time.