Takuya Kobayashi

3COLUMNNOTES
Sources
1.Book
Language history,
language change, and
language relationship:
an introduction to
historical and
comparative linguistics
written by Hans
Henrich Hock, Brian D
Joseph, New York, 1996

Annotation
As we can expect from the
title, this book is mainly
talk
about
language
history, how it change over
the time, how it related to
other languages and how it
used in the past. Author,
Hans Henrich Hock holds
a Ph.D. in linguistics from
Yale University and Brian
D Joseph is a professor
and his career has been the
study of languages change
through time.

Thoughts
This book would
definitely help me get
many ideas of what I
really want to know
from my inquiry
question. Also, I
thought it is important
to learn about history
of language first so that
I can develop a rational
understanding of
languages. In
conclusion of this
book, it was found that
some languages are
somehow related each
other in a grammatical
paradigm. I believe
these are useful for my
research.

2. Web article
Sarah Griffiths, Daily
Mail, Being bilingual
DOESNT make you
smarter: Cognitive
benefits of speaking two
languages are myth,
claim scientists.
Published on 28 Aug,
2014

This article is focused on

the researchers claim of
how bilinguals are not
smarter than monolinguals
based on their experiment.
Researchers did examine
cognitive control between
bilinguals
and
monolinguals and they
found out that there was no
difference between two of
them. They also say that
many scientists tried to
find out that bilinguals are
smarter but yet they have
not found any conclusive
answer.
Moreover,
researchers found out that
there is no benefit for
bilinguals no matter what
language
they
speak:
English,
European
language, any variety of
Asian languages. One of
the researchers is Vera
Kampe who is a professor
of
Psychology
of
Language Learning at the
university. However, she
mentions that especially
young people should learn
other language not to be
smarter than monolinguals,
but to be able to
communicate with people
from another country so
that people could be more
open-minded.

I believe that this

article has interesting
research results and
would help my
research.
This article helped me
realize that speaking
two languages
definitely make their
brain works effectively
even though it does not
mean make them
smarter.

3. Web article
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee,
The New York Times,
Why Bilinguals Are
Smarter, published:
March 17, 2012

This article is focused on

scientists statement saying
that bilinguals are smarter
than monolinguals based
on their study. Scientists
study on elder SpanishEnglish bilinguals. They
found that those bilinguals
who have a higher degree
of bilingualism are less
likely to the onset of
dementia and symptoms of
Alzheimer
disease
compared
to
elder
monolinguals.

This study results have a

possibility to answer my
inquiry question because
this is very specific and
does make sense to me.
This study was led by the
neuropsychologist Tamar
Gollan of the University of
California, San Diego.
These scientists proved that
speaking two languages are
definitely advantage and
have benefits. This article
would give me a tip to
figure out my research.
Also, so far I have found
out that bilinguals have
more benefits.

4. Web article
Ben Ambridge,
Education &
Technology, Are
bilingual people smarter
than people who speak
one language?,
February 12, 2015

5. Website
published by Technovate
Translations, April 14,
2013, Monolingual vs
Bilingual

This article is mainly talk

about how bilinguals are
smarter than monolinguals
by proving researchers
recent study results. Their
study shows that the
struggle handling two
languages makes their
brain workout and end up
smarter than monolinguals.
A Canadian psychologist,
Ellen Bialystok of York
University in Toronto
studied and found out this
research result above. She
also argues that bilinguals
are better at repress
inappropriate information
because this is what they
do all the time. But she is
uncertain
whether
bilinguals are smarter than
monolinguals
or
not.
According to her thought,
all she can say is that
bilinguals are good for
their brain
This website is focused on
how each bilingual and
monolingual have benefit,
comparing them using
research results. They
showed
the
statistics
saying that 79% of
children ages 5-17 only
spoke English at home
while 21% of US children
spoke a different or
additional
language.
Moreover, in 2009-2010,
only 50.7% of US
universities required taking
foreign language, and it
was 67.5% back in 19941995. They also says that
being bilinguals have some
benefits such as more

Even though
psychologists say that it
is uncertain that
bilinguals are smarter
or not but still what
they studied was
interesting and I
believe it would help
me getting some ideas.
This helped realize that
even though many
researchers show that
bilinguals are smarter,
but still there is no
conclusive answer and
cannot really
determine. All I can say
is that being bilinguals
are benefit in many
ways.

This article made me

realize that how studying
foreign
language
is
uncommon in the U.S. This
also made me think how
American people would
study foreign languages. I
found out it would be
difficult
unless
their
parents are bilinguals or
have
some
sort
of
background like they used
to live in foreign country.
This article also says that
bilinguals
have
some
benefits in many ways
which made me think that
bilinguals have definitely
have benefits.

creative, better complex

problem solvers, and better
planners. On the other
hand, monolinguals are
wider
vocabulary,
increased word retrieval
rate, and better letter
fluency.

6. Website
Published by American
speech-languagehearing association,
The advantage of being
bilingual

This website is focused on

explaining how bilinguals
are smarter and how their
brain is more efficient.
Researchers show some of
the
advantage
that
bilinguals have. 1. Being
able to learn new word
easily. 2. Being able to use
information in new ways.
3. Coming up with
solutions to problems. 4.
Good listening skills. 5.
Connecting with others.
Researchers also says that
for bilingual children,
difficulties of learning
second
language
is
depends on the first
language they speak.

In my opinion, for
English speaker
children, it is easier to
learn Spanish
compared to Japanese
or Chinese because
character is similar and
some of English
vocabularies are come
from Spanish. Based on
these, researchers prove
that how being
bilingual has some
benefits and how their
brain works efficiently
compared to
monolinguals. I could
use this research results
to answer my inquiry
question and have a
good quality for
academic use I believe.

7. Web article
Do Bilingual People Get
Paid More? Published by
Chron, Morgan Rush,

This article is basically

talking
about
how
important
and
rare
bilinguals are for company.
The
importance
of
bilinguals
has
been
increasing
in
social;
activities nowadays where
the
globalization
is
expanding
in
various
fields. Researches have
showed that bilingual
employees are more highly
valued than employees
who speak just one
language.

I could probably use this

source for my research
paper. I knew bilinguals
definitely
have
some
benefits, but I did not know
they actually do better at
work as well. So I thought
this
article is quite
interesting. I could focus
on how bilinguals do well
at school and at work, also
compared to monolinguals.

8. Web article
Published by HR & Talent
MANAGEMENT, Laurie
Harley, January 17, 2014

This article is talking about

why bilinguals are better
and bilingual employment
benefits. Employees are
increasingly
seeking
bilingual employees or
training workers in foreign
language in order to meet
the needs of a global
marketplace.
Author
stated that bilinguals are
more likely to have
opportunity to get hired
than monolinguals do.

This article made me

realize that how bilinguals
are in demand and needed
in todays society. This fact
could be mentioned in my
research paper in order to
get readers attention. I
could also use a fact
mentioned in the article
that bilinguals have better
cognitive skills and also
less likely to become
dementia in old age. I
thought this article is very
useful for my research, I
could
use
lots
of
information from this
article.

9. Web article
Published by Medical
Daily,
Dana
Dovey,
November
12,
2014,
Bilinguals Benefits: How
learning another language
keeps your mind sharp, no
matter your age

Author covers benefits of

learning foreign languages,
and how it affects brain.
Also how to learn a
foreign
language.
Researchers showed some
research results. The result
showed that Bilingual
speakers were better than
monolingual at filtering
out the competing words.
Additionally, author stated
how fun foreign languages
are and how to start
learning
so
that
monolinguals could learn
something new from this
article.

This article is very

interesting that how author
encourage monolinguals to
learn a foreign language.
Author well explained the
process of learning a new
language and how fun it is
to
get
monolinguals
attention. This is a very
useful example for my
research
paper
to
encourage reader.

10. Web article

Published by globalpost,
Damon Verial, Demand
Media, Child Development
in
a
Bilingual
VS
Monolingual Household

This article covers how

children develop in a
different
household.
Author is talking about
their
Rule
seeking
behavior,
Duality
of
cultures,
Concentration,
and
Learning
speed.
Author
stated
that
bilingual children often
switch
their
mental
dialogue
from
one
language to another. This
enables bilingual children
to improve their ability to
direct their attention to a
specific task. Like this
example, author explained
the differences between
bilingual children and
monolinguals children.

For previous sources, most

of
them
are
about
bilinguals students or
bilinguals employees so
that this article about
bilingual children is pretty
interesting for me. I could
probably use this source in
order to explain how good
learning a foreign language
at an early age is.
Moreover, I did not know
there are already much
difference
between
bilingual children and
monolingual children. I
found out it is interesting
how children at an early
age already do better at
study and cognitive skills.