Alaina J.

Granger

Professor Ortiz

English 1301

18 October 2022

Becoming Bilingual and the Benefits it Brings

My inquiry follows the line of learning languages, furthermore becoming bilingual and

how that can benefit not only children but also adults. I wanted to find out about the science

behind the common theory that it is easiest to learn your second, third, etc language at a young

age as opposed to when you’re older. I chose this line of inquiry as I find it interesting and have a

personal connection in the sense that I grew up understanding but not being fluent in Samoan. In

recent years my Mother began to learn the Samoan language but found it hard to become fluent,

even though she has a good understanding of the language already. My Mother’s older siblings

are able to speak Samoan fluently due to how much my Grandparents used it, but my Mother is

not fluent as when she was growing up English became more prominent in the household. In my

own family household which consists of my Mother, Father, and older Brother, there is little to

no Samoan spoken which likely led to the decrease in my Mother’s understanding of the

language. This personal connection made me question many things regarding languages that I

aim to answer throughout this inquiry, the main topics being; the science behind learning

languages, learning languages as a child versus an adult, and the benefits of being bilingual.

When people think of language fluency, it can mean one thing to one person, and another thing

to another. For example some people would argue that if you were fluent in a language, you

would be able to speak the language as if you were a native speaker, whereas fluency is moreso a
spectrum. Whilst there is no definitive definition of second language fluency, I will be following

the ICLS’s (International Center for Language Studies) definition which follows that; a speaker

achieves language fluency once they can confidently, competently, and easily express themselves

in a language other than their own. 1 Bilingualism can also be defined in different ways,

depending on what someone defines as language proficiency, but in simple terms, bilingualism is

the ability to use two languages to communicate. One of my main sources that I will refer to

throughout my inquiry defines language proficiency as “the ability to use language as a tool to

get things done.”2

1
Bernoussi, Driss. “What Do We Mean by Language Fluency?” ICLS, 26 Feb. 2022,
https://www.icls.edu/language-fluency-means/.
2
Hardison, Chaitra M, et al. Background on Adult Language Learning, 201AD, pp. 5–16.