Bilingual cost: loss of first languages for young children
Jennifer mentions in the interview about her gradual loss of her first language. Since Jennifer was born and raised in Fuzhou, southern part of China, she was involved in the language environment of Fuzhou Hua. So her first language is technically a Chinese dialect (Fuzhou Hua) and mandarin is her second language. When Jennifer was at very young ages, she basically spoke in Fuzhou Hua to family members and locals in her city. When she grew to an older age, Jennifer started encountering with Mandarin in order to become educated and communicate with people who don’t understand her local dialect. According to Wong’s research, there’s a general phenomenon that people with bilingual background tend to “skew” to one of the language and lose another language gradually. The author states that most of children of immigrants in American tend to naturally treat English as the “predominant language” and forget their first language related to their heritage. Both the reasons for people at young ages to switch a second language to a predominant language and the process of how one’s ability of his or her first language shrinks are interesting to analyze.
Goral mentions that as a natural mental process, if a child does not use a language for long time, the language ability will be weakened specifically at speaking ability. Wong indicates another reason of losing first languages is related to “sociolinguistic factors”, the learner’s attitude and perspective specifically. According to Jennifer’s experience, she learned mandarin Chinese for satisfying education requirement and communicating with people from other provinces. The basic reason for children in China urgently study mandarin is that mandarin is more likely to be a formal and unified language spoken by every part of China. Therefore back to the “social factor”, it is the pressure of socially involvement that pushes children in China to learn mandarin, which makes them more literate and communicable.
The reason for bilingual people forgetting their first languages could more likely be based the neurobiological factors. It is described in Goral’s research that “phonological and morphological” factors directly lead to the loss of first languages. Basically, those factors serve to composite a language and thus if the large amount of usage of second languages twists those factors of the first language, people lose first languages finally. Referred to Jennifer’s experience, she gradually lose the spoken ability of Fuzhou Hua that she once was fluent in, though she is still managed to hear and understand when people speak in Fuzhou Hua. Practice is basically the way to learn a language and in the contrast lacking practicing leads to loss of a known language.
Another interesting problem is how age affects the speed of loss of language. Coral figures out in his research that “the younger the children and the lower the language proficiency, the faster attrition (learning second languages leads to loss of first languages) process progressed.” The reason could be that the brains of children, unlike those of adults “performing poorly and are inefficient inhibition mechanisms that increase vulnerability to distractions and may lead to difficulties concentrating on the task and/or the material at hand”. It makes more sense that children actually study fast at certain language fast however disabled to clearly divide the two languages they learned compared to adults.
Goral mentions that as a natural mental process, if a child does not use a language for long time, the language ability will be weakened specifically at speaking ability. Wong indicates another reason of losing first languages is related to “sociolinguistic factors”, the learner’s attitude and perspective specifically. According to Jennifer’s experience, she learned mandarin Chinese for satisfying education requirement and communicating with people from other provinces. The basic reason for children in China urgently study mandarin is that mandarin is more likely to be a formal and unified language spoken by every part of China. Therefore back to the “social factor”, it is the pressure of socially involvement that pushes children in China to learn mandarin, which makes them more literate and communicable.
The reason for bilingual people forgetting their first languages could more likely be based the neurobiological factors. It is described in Goral’s research that “phonological and morphological” factors directly lead to the loss of first languages. Basically, those factors serve to composite a language and thus if the large amount of usage of second languages twists those factors of the first language, people lose first languages finally. Referred to Jennifer’s experience, she gradually lose the spoken ability of Fuzhou Hua that she once was fluent in, though she is still managed to hear and understand when people speak in Fuzhou Hua. Practice is basically the way to learn a language and in the contrast lacking practicing leads to loss of a known language.
Another interesting problem is how age affects the speed of loss of language. Coral figures out in his research that “the younger the children and the lower the language proficiency, the faster attrition (learning second languages leads to loss of first languages) process progressed.” The reason could be that the brains of children, unlike those of adults “performing poorly and are inefficient inhibition mechanisms that increase vulnerability to distractions and may lead to difficulties concentrating on the task and/or the material at hand”. It makes more sense that children actually study fast at certain language fast however disabled to clearly divide the two languages they learned compared to adults.