Emily Leland

Frances McCue
Honors 205
2 November 2015
Benefits of Adult Second Language Acquisition
Many scientific studies have shown that being bilingual is beneficial to the
individual. Some commonly cited advantages are delaying the onset of dementia,
increased understanding of language structure, and promoting higher cognitive
function in children. But these studies often focus on people who have been
bilingual since they were children and tally the advantages to the individual. Little
thought is given to the larger societal ramifications of learning languages as an
adult, and which languages are learned is not often considered. I will argue that
despite the difficulty, actively learning a foreign language from a different language
family as an adult is valuable to the global community aside from the benefits to the
individual.
Becoming fluent in a language as an adult entails learning about and being
cognizant of the cultural background of the language. In this paper adult means an
individual whose brain no longer automatically learns language by immersion,
typically 12 years old or older. A child is then an individual who is still capable of
learning by immersion. Cognitively there are some enormous differences between
learning more than one language as a child by immersion in a bilingual home or
schooling environment and actively learning another language as an adult when
language acquisition is more difficult. The first can be achieved by passive listening
and rote imitation while the latter requires study and attention to such things as
grammar and pronunciation of sounds that the adult brain is slower to learn to hear,

let alone speak. In addition complex constructions like idioms which children learn
to imitate and take for granted are an automatic insight for anyone who has to learn
them while coming from an outside culture. This activeness means that even if the
learner is not trying to learn about another culture through language they will gain
insights into it simply because languages express the cultures that create them.
Learning a language from a different language family guarantees that it will
significantly differ in both logic and culture from the learners native language. The
linguists definition of a language family is when the languages are related through
descent from a common proto-language. For example, English and French are from
the same language family, Indo-European, while Mandarin is from a different
language family, Sino-Tibetan. This means that although they differ to the degree
that they are qualified as separate languages, languages in the same family share a
common logic bequeathed them by their ancestor. However, languages from
different language families do not share a meaningful common ancestor and
thereby share their mutable characteristics only on a coincidental basis. Language
families have unique geographical origins and historical influences that ensure that
each differs from the others in some significant way.
Awareness of other significantly differing cultures is beneficial to the global
community because increased understanding of differences allows for more
informed opinions and open-mindedness, which precludes violence. While
understanding does not necessarily lead to acceptance it is a requirement for it. The
more understanding each individual is of other cultures the more they are to be able
to accept those cultures and the individuals that are a part of them. Even if the
individuals understanding does not lead to acceptance it does lead to more
informed opinions. Apart from being more informed about one other specific culture,

individuals who have gone through the process of actively learning about another
significantly different culture must acquire some awareness of how difficult it is to
gain that knowledge and how complex cultures are. This awareness helps prevent
narrow or one-sided conceptions of all other cultures, or at least makes obvious the
fact that such conceptions are not a good representation of a culture. The more
open-minded and informed individuals are in the face of differing traditions the less
likely they are to jump to harsh or uncompromising judgments. Without proper
information and understanding these judgments can have large scale consequences
such as starting wars in addition to perpetuating other smaller-scale violent actions
with consequences such as psychological trauma and death. For example in the
wake of 9/11 the United States has experienced a huge increase in anti-ArabAmerican sentiment, often because people dont understand the religious and
cultural context for what happened. This has caused many instances of small scale
violence and has contributed to some individuals support for wars which, regardless
of their justification, have certainly caused death and destruction.
A possible objection is that while one can learn a great deal about another
culture by learning their language, learning information does not necessarily lead to
understanding of the culture as a whole. A person might learn vocabulary and
expressions by rote memorization and have gained nothing deeper than that
knowledge. And while small pieces of knowledge can build into great understanding,
they do not necessarily do so.
However, languages offer a unique vehicle for learning about culture that
requires understanding. Languages are by their very nature a way of understanding
and communicating ideas about how the world works. Different languages do this in
different ways, but all have that same core purpose. To become fluent in a language

requires that the individual learn and become capable of expressing their thoughts
and experiences about the world using the same patterns and methods as other
people who speak that language. Fluency implies the ability to communicate and
engage in dialogues, not just pass a spelling test. Learning vocabulary and grammar
structures by rote is an important piece of language fluency, but anyone who has
actually tried to talk to another person in a foreign language knows that the ability
to change mindsets and frame improvised thoughts using a different logical
structure is equally important. This is why translation programs are not really
effective. They can replace each word with an approximate equivalent, but they are
so far incapable of translating complex sentences into different logical frameworks.
Even something as simple as changing word order stumps google translate, let
alone finding equivalents for idioms and culturally significant phrases. In order to
use those the individual needs to understand when they are culturally appropriate
and the nuances of the ideas that they convey.
Overall actively learning a foreign language from a different language family
strengthens the individuals understanding of the culture that created the language
and therefore benefits the global community with increased open-mindedness. This
argues that an effective way for increased global cooperation could be to encourage
educational systems to put more emphasis on foreign language instruction,
especially in countries where globalization is advanced and profoundly affects each
individual. And to be effective such instruction must have as its goal fluency, not
the completion of a certain number of years of study. Traditional high school and
lower college level classes which focus on vocabulary and grammar acquisition but
neglect actually having students produce anything original in the language are not
sufficient. They must be accompanied by reading culturally significant texts and

writing and speaking to the degree that the learner is comfortable thinking in their
acquired language. This kind of instruction could have profound effects on the
global community.