'Bilingual Mind: Understanding How the Brain Speaks Two Languages'

In this text, Jeffrey Kluger reveals that being bilingual not only has practical benefits such as being able to communicate with others fluently in two languages, it also has many intellectual benefits. “The ability to speak two or more languages has a profound effect on the brain, from improving your analytical skills, to enhancing your cognition, to protecting your brain from dementia later in life.” Kluger stated. Bilingual children are believed to exhibit social empathy much sooner than their monolingual peers. “Lynch observed that these students seemed to show a greater facility with skills that relied on interpreting symbolic representations, such as math or music”. Speaking multiple languages are shown to thicken frontal lobes, as well as increase of white matter with as a result a higher level of planning and decision-making. When an experiment on seniors was performed, those who were bilingual required less energy in the frontal fortex to be used when switching between ideas resulting them in being much faster than those who only spoke one language.

Similar to Julia Alvarez’s “Names/Nombres”, Kluger discusses how people who are bilingual often use different words to describe something and how this code-switching often occurs amongst bilinguals in order to allows them to decide how to express something best in different situation. This is called dog-chien dilemma. In contrast to Kluger, Alvarez justifies this dog-chien dilemma as a form of self-expression and identity as they associate the language they use to the origin they feel most comfortable to in that particular situation.

source: Kluger, Jeffrey, and Northeastern University. "Bilingual Mind: Understanding How the Brain Speaks Two Languages." Exploring Language. By Gary Goshgarian. Fourteenth ed. Vol. 487. Boston: Pearson, n.d. 125-27. Exploring Language.

'You Say Up, I Say Yesterday'

According to Lera Boroditsky’s research of language’s impact of cognition. How language can affect thought. She discusses how space, navigation, time, and color can be perceived differently based on the language you speak. Different people who speak different languages focus more on the concept that their language can best describe, such as the different hues of blue. “Russian speakers could distinguish between hues of blue faster if they were called by different names in Russian. English speakers showed no increased sensitivity for the same colors.” 

“Slobin coined the term "thinking for speaking" to describe how the language-specific ways different cultures talk about space and time shape how they think about space and time”. “About a third of the world's languages do not rely on words for right and left. Instead, their speakers use what are called absolute directions—north, south, east and west”. Another dimension, time, also affected cognition as “In the Yagua language of Peru, there are five distinct grammatical forms of the past tense” whereas Indonesian only has one tense to describe all times. So when shown pictures of different motions of an action, the Indonesians described all images as the same as they perceive this time passing during the motion as the same. This is a "psychologically active perceptual boundary.” Where one speaker perceives certain details differently than speakers from a different language. 

This concept of Neo-Whorfianism aligns with the text “Horton Heared a Who” by Steven Pinker as both discuss the relationship between cognition and language. Pinker observes how the human mind plays a role in the English language nowadays, as the child instinctively obtains the main aspects of aspects and understanding of something. This supports Boroditsky’s hypothesis that the language impacts a person’s cognition as a child not only picks up the grammatical structures but also the dimensions such as time, direction, color, etc. Based on the mother language thought the child will (based on Boroditsky’s theory) instinctively focus more on certain aspects which can be described in that particular language (for example the different hues of Blue in Russian). Thus change the understanding of certain situations and concepts based on the thought mother language.


source: Hamilton, Joan O'C., and Northeastern University. "You Say Up, I Say Yesterday" Exploring Language. By Gary Goshgarian. Fourteenth ed. Vol. 487. Boston: Pearson, n.d. 463-68. Exploring Language.

'Yorkshire named top twang as Brummie brogue comes bottom'

The article discusses a social experiment carried out to find out whether accents affect the way people perceive one another’s intelligence. “Researchers asked 48 volunteers to look at photos of female models while listening to recordings of women with different accents describing their lives.” The volunteers had to rate the accents on a scale of 10 regarding intelligence. The accents that were being tested were the Yorkshire, Birmingham, RP accents and silence. “While accent did not change perceptions of the models” attractiveness, it had a significant impact on whether or not a particular model was seen as intelligent.” The results of intelligence rating per accent were as following: Yorkshire with 6.71, RP with 6.67, silence with 5.99, and lastly Birmingham with 5.6. Birmingham’s accent significantly scored the lowest in the rating, as well as rated less intelligent as silent.

Rating	Accent	Intelligence rating out of 10
1.	Yorkshire	6.71
2.	RP	6.67
3.	Silence	5.99
4.	Birmingham	5.6

This article relates to the effect that accent or language use has on perception by society. People are often prejudiced by their limited use of language or their dialect. These dialects are often associated with social classes as well as education. The Birmingham accent is ranked lower than silence. The Birmingham accent is associated with regional stereotypes which are in this case with criminal active regions which then is associated with a lower education and intelligence. In Tan’s essay, Tan highlights how her mother’s limited English use resulted in a less important perception by her society. 

Source: Batty, David. "Yorkshire Named Top Twang as Brummie Brogue Comes Bottom." <i>The Guardian</i>. The Guardian, 4 Apr. 2008. Web.

Good English and Bad

Have you ever wondered why “I’m hurrying, are I not?” is incorrect English whereas “I’m hurrying aren’t I?” is perfect English. In response to the article “Good English and bad” by Bill Bryson, there is no defensible reason why this contradiction of words that are very similar are very right or wrong English. This is because the English language is “a fluid and democratic language in which meanings shift and change in response to the pressures of common usage rather than the dictates of committees”. All the grammatical structures which the English language is based upon interpretation and common use as there “are no appointed guardians of the English language”. “They are because they are”.

Despite that the origins of the English language are based on Latin, these ancient rules do not apply to the complex system of English which is spoken today. This system consists of a variety of unwritten rules that often go against grammatical structures, and which are very complex to be explained to why it is that way.

Some concepts can somewhat be described, for example ellipsis; which is a concept for sentences which contain words that aren’t there. Examples are “What?”, “How?”, “Why”, and “where”. These sentences leave out words that are initially there, we just have to know in what situation and context there are used. For example ‘’Where did she leave her book’’, can be expressed as ‘’where?’’ if we know what situation it is used in. Bryson concludes that “To deal with all these anomalies of the English language, the parts of speech must be so broadly defined as to be almost meaningless”. English is a continuously developing and changing language. “Considerations of what makes good or bad English are to an uncomfortably large extend matters of prejudice and conditioning”. It is influenced by the people themselves as well as authoritarian figures who imply certain words or grammatical structures which are then picked up and socially accepted as right.

Bryson’s discussion touched on my own personal lapses of grammar in English which I make regularly. I personally find English grammar very complex and confusing, with as a result my grammar is not entirely accurate. I agree with Bryson’s statement which dictates that it is absurd to fully base English on Latin rules as these are two complete different languages with little to no resemblance amid them as this results in English grammar becoming unnecessarily complex. I strongly agree with Joseph Priestley’s argument which states that “We need to make no doubt but that the best forms of speech will, in time, establish themselves by their own superior excellence’’ (quoted by Baugh and Cable, pp 269). It is a language that should be able to evolve with its time rather than to stick with strict anticipated rules that limit improvements and changes to be applied with the purpose to maximize communication in the English language.

Source: Bryson, Bill. (1990). Good English and Bad. In B. Bryson, The Mother Tongue (pp. 143-51)

Mother tongue

In response to Tan’s article, the importance of a person’s mother tongue stood out for me the most. In my personal experience, my mother tongue—Dutch, still has a major impact on my daily life. Despite the fact that I spend most of my time speaking and listening to English I appreciate my mother tongue as it is another way to express myself. When I came to Abu Dhabi my English wasn’t too strong, since I had only been thought English six months prior to my arrival, once a week. My Dutch on the other hand was very strong, especially spelling words and having written dictations. However after a couple of years my English was clearly overpowering my Dutch as I had put my focus on improving my English rather than maintaining my Dutch. It was either keeping my mother tongue strong, or my English. I chose the English with no doubt as English was the best way to communicate with my friends as well as doing well in school. The moment I flew home to see my friends, I surprisingly struggled to fluently talk with them in Dutch. I started noticing that I easily forgot words and conjugations that I didn’t use too often when speaking to my family. When I was in a conversation in Dutch, I would often stop talking in the middle of the conversation to search for a word. This was very—I can tell you, very frustrating. After wasting hours to find a certain word I would give up and say the word in English. On top of that I partly lost my beloved dialect (which appeared to be pretty strong when looking back at videos of mini me). I wanted to stop making stupid grammar and spelling mistakes (which I was thought not to make in grade 4). There were three options to solve this awkward dilemma.

1.      To only speak Dutch, even to my English speaking peers and teachers.

2.      Give up my mother tongue and pretend like I never even knew Dutch in the first place.

3.      Some other alternative.

After countless hours, days, and even nights of “wikken en wegen” the pros and cons with my family we came up with an alternative! *cheering crowd*. I figured that the first option might have seemed like a great solution in theory, but in reality I would probably stay grade and-friendless. The second option was enthusiastically thrown out of the window by my family, no further explanation necessary. Option three, the other alternative, seemed like the most decent option of all. Choosing between English and my mother tongue was a tough call, so why not choose both? The alternative was to take Dutch lessons after school so that I could maintain my English, as well as keeping my mother tongue on track (win win situation). I believe that by trying to maintain my mother tongue, which I have spoken for the majority of my life, I can keep the connection to my roots strong as it is part of my identity. Up to this day I still try to embrace my mother tongue, as well as my English. I have started to appreciate my slight Belgian accent which can be heard when I speak English, because after-all it is not my native language, and I shouldn’t be shy of my accent which comes from my mother tongue as this is a part of me.

A Unique Name

Let me introduce myself once again, my full name on my passport is Fere Elise Christianne Marie Vande Kerckhove— a long name to introduce myself by. However I just go by the name Fere Vande Kerckhove, which is—despite the difficult long name, a pretty though name to swallow. When I was born I not only had a mother, grand-mother but also a great-grandmother in the same blood line. This is known as a ‘’four blood bond’’.  This is very unique as most people start pretty late having children. To emphasize this my parents gave me four names. The name Elise comes from the name Elsa, which was my great-grandmother’s name. Christianne is my grandmother’s name and Marie comes from my mum’s name, which is Mieke.

Originally my first name, Fere, originates from the old time when names was first being introduced and recorded in Northern Holland. ‘’Fere’’ is Old Frisian for ‘’Peace and Happiness’’. It is pronounced as Fay-rah (the A is pronounced as U from under, the H and Y is not pronounced).

Despite the fact that my mum missed out on the lunar eclipse when in the hospital prior to my birth, my mother had plenty of time to read books and figure out what she was going to name her first child. She read one book, Nights at the Circus written by Angela Carter, which grabbed my mom's attention. It is a story about a magical aerialist called ‘’Fevvers’’, a beautiful heroine who charmed everyone with her aerial performance as well as her unique personality and appearance. The book was translated into Dutch and the name ‘’Fevvers’’ soon became ‘’Fere’’. My mum initially planned on calling me ‘’Fee’’ (pronounced as Fay), but as this didn’t sound nicely with my last name she had found the perfect name for her child; Fere.

My whole life I have had many comments about my name; some referring it back to the boy’s name Ferre, others mistaking Fere for Vere (a common Dutch name) or Ferry (like the boat). Despite the fact that many people do struggle with my name, I find amusement in the good-willed efforts they make to pronounce my name right. I love my name for being so unique, it is really nice to hear how everyone I meet adds their own personal touch to the pronunciation of my name in the effort to say it correctly.

My last name; Vande Kerckhove, its origins are unknown. ‘’Kerckhove’’ could be interpreted as ‘’Kerkhof’’ or ‘’Kerkhoven’’, which is Dutch for cemetery or church gardens. It might as well refer back to a village in West-Flanders in Belgium, which is called ''Kerckhoven''.

I believe my name contributed to the person I am today as it definitely helped me embrace my uniqueness and be proud of my incredibly long and difficult name. My name for me has been a blessing and a curse. A blessing as it makes me stand out, I often can tell when my name is about to be called out by seeing the confused and concentrated sights given on the paper sheet. It is somewhat a curse as I often have to repeat my name a billion times, especially to non-Dutch speakers. However I have gotten to embrace my name and I really do forgive the many people who still cannot pronounce my name correctly, I understand your struggle.

Introduction: the part that Language plays in my Life

 

Blog. Pronounced as b-l-ɒ-ɡ. Well, what is a blog? Even though I am largely familiar with the term ‘’Blog’’ I have never really understood the true meaning of a blog. I knew it was often a website with someone posting posts on it—so far my knowledge extended. The term ‘’Blog’’ which originated from the term weblogging—obtained a significant rising popularity in the ‘90s; the era of the choker necklaces and the Tamagotchi’s. As for now, in my Language and Literature class I have discovered the meaning of a blog; a regularly updated webpage which discussed specific topics, views and opinion. As for this, I will start this blog to reflect on what I have learned in my English class as well as discussing certain topics.

As for now, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Fere, I’m a native Belgian living in the UAE since five years. As English is my second language, I have always found it fascinating how, despite the different cultures and origins, individuals can easily communicate with each other through the use of the English language. Even though I can consider English my second language, it has not always been easy for me to express myself in a different language. I can still remember my mom and I struggling our way through the first chapters of the novel ‘’The Giver’’. It took me a few weeks before I realized the novel was fiction, to my relief. As one philosopher once said ‘’the only normal way to master a new language is to begin speaking badly’’. Despite the struggles I have faced, I grew an interest in learning and developing other languages such as English, French and Dutch as I enables me to express my ideas to others.

I am also quite passionate about playing the violin. I love how you can express yourself and put so much emotion into a piece of music, which is why I like it so much. I also love how after many years of practice, I can play many famous pieces from big composers such as Beethoven as well as covering pop songs. I care about giving back to the community, I believe that contributing to others can make a positive impact on others. This is especially true when doing voluntary work as you benefit others doing it. This year I aspire to manage my time well so that I can find the right balance between leisure and school work. In this way I will try my best to spend as much time possible with my friends despite the demanding but challenging Diploma Programme. In the future I would like to pursue happiness in as many ways possible, such as doing what I am passionate about.