Bilingualism and cognitive development: three perspectives

Bilingualism and cognitive development

7

Bilingualism and cognitive development:

three perspectives

Kenji Hakuta, Bernardo M.Ferdman,

and Rafael M.Diaz

The problem of researching the relation between bilingualism and cognitive development at once raises two thorny definitional issues. What do we mean by bilingualism, and what is it that develops in cognitive development? Much of the

confusion in this area can be attributed to the lack of theoretical specificity in defining the intersection point of these component concepts. Our primary emphasis

in this chapter is on the definition of bilingualism, with a secondary emphasis on

cognitive development. The reason for the asymmetry is to be consistent with the

traditional assumption that bilingualism is the independent treatment variable and

Cognitive growth is the dependent outcome variable, even though, as we shall see,

very few studies actually address the cause-effect issue. The major goal of this

chapter is to demonstrate the great range of social and theoretical contexts in

which the question has historically been asked and to argue for the importance of

integrating the many disciplinary levels and perspectives that bear on the problem.

Defining the component concepts

The concept of bilingualism has been used in various ways by scholars and lay

persons alike. It has been viewed as an individual-level mental concept - a characteristic of individuals who possess or who use two linguistic systems. It has also

been viewed as a social psychological concept, still a characteristic of individuals,

but of individuals who organize the social world in terms of the different groups

and social situations associated with the two languages in which they interact.

Bilingualism has also been used as a societal construct to describe the interactions

between social groups and societal institutions, as well as among groups, in which

the group and institutional boundaries correspond to linguistic boundaries. These

different starting points for the definition of bilingualism have resulted in discrepancies in the kinds of statements that have been made about bilingualism and its

relation with cognitive development.

The preparation of this chapter was supported in part by National Institute of Education Contract

400-85-1010 for the Center for Language, Education and Research.

284

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When bilingualism is defined in the first way, as tl characteristic of an individual

who possesses two linguistic systems - we call it cognitive bilingualism - one

tends toward statements about the packaging problem of fitting two linguistic SySterns in the mind of an individual. It is a cognitive puzzle on the relation between

language and thought and how these systems are represented neurologically and

conceptually. Variables of obvious importance in cognitive bilingualism are the

extent to which the individual has mastery of the two languages and the cognitive

functions in which the languages are engaged.

Bilingualism defined in the second way, as a characteristic of the social condition and affect of the individual - we call it social psychological bilingualism tends toward social psychological accounts of the packaging of value systems

within an individual. These emphasize not so much the linguistic aspects of bilinguals as the social correlates of the two languages. In this sense of the definition,

the grammatical qualities of languages hardly matter. What really matters is the

symbolism about group affiliation that the languages convey to the individual.

Bilingualism defined in the third way, as a characteristic of a societal unit - we

call it societal bilingualism - is concerned with between-group interactions in

which the two languages serve as a symbol over which interaction occurs. This

perspective is not so concerned with individual differences within groups. As in

the social psychological view of bilingualism, the extent of the vitality of the two

languages - vitality in the sense of the extent to which the grammar and form of

the languages are maintained - is not so important in this view, though it can be

made to be important depending on social conditions. What matters in this perspective is that language in some way signals membership in a group and serves

to maintain the group¡¯s cohesiveness and identity.

At the same time that there have been different levels of conceptualization of

bilingualism, different theories of cognitive development have preoccupied psychologists of different generations. The earliest systematic attempts to document

the relation were made at the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time, the

primary definition of what we now call cognitive development was a psychometric

one, based on the differential performance of individuals within a defined population on IQ tests. Subsequently, learning theory, skill theory, Piagetian operational thought, Chomskyan rationalism, and Vygotsky¡¯s views of mind and society offered additional conceptions of what develops in cognitive development.

Although a review of the various theories of cognitive development is far beyond the scope of this chapter, it would be important to consider the dimensions

of theories that would or would not predict effects of bilingualism on cognitive

development. One might think of bilingualism as an environmental ¡°treatment,¡±

to be compared with the alternative treatment of monolingualism.

As a first approximation toward appreciating the range of cognitive theories

available, one can begin with commonly used typologies, particularly as relevant

to bilingualism. These include nativism versus empiricism, modularity versus

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K¡®. HAKUTA,B . M . FERDMAN,A N D R . M . DIAZ

commonality of functions, and context and cultural sensitivity versus independence.

With regard to the nativistic-empiricist dimension, any theory of cognitive development that subscribes to primarily innate factors, with respect to both the

qualitative aspects of cognition and differences among individuals, would not predict bilingualism to have any effect on the course of cognitive growth. This would

include a Chomskyan orientation that attributes the characteristics of our linguistic

and other cognitive knowledge to our genetic makeup. It would also include a hereditarian interpretation of individual differences in intelligence, such as that espoused by Jensen ( 1980). In contrast, theories that emphasize the role of learning

and the environment would easily accommodate influences of bilingualism on development. These would include traditional learning theory and skill theory, as

well as Piagetian constructivism.

The second dimension of cognitive theories - modularity versus commonality

of structures - will predict, given some effect of the bilingual treatment on cognitive development, how it would generalize to other domains of cognitive functioning. For example. Chomsky and Fodor¡¯s extreme modular approach (see Piatelli-Palmarini, 1980). in which cognitive functions including language are

considered to be analogous to structurally autonomous organs of the mind, would

find minimal compatibility with broad-sweeping effects of bilingualism. The effects would be confined to the specific aspects of cognitive functioning that are

influenced by the bilingual environment. For example, if bilingualism were to be

defined strictly as a linguistic treatment rather than a social or societal one, the

effects would be confined to linguistic aspects of cognitive functioning. In contrast. learning theory as well as theories of general intelligence and Piagetian operational theory would expect generalized effects since all cognitive functioning

share a common source and are interrelated. However, it should be noted that

Piagetian theory, though a theory of general intelligence, is characterized by its

ascription of a marginal role for language in structuring intelligence.

The third dimension of cognitive theories, the cultural or context seslsitivity of

theories, holds the strongest promise for relating cognitive development with the

social psychological and societal levels of bilingualism. The theory best noted for

its emphasis on culture is Vygotsky¡¯s (1962), in which specific cognitive functions might exist in rudimentary form as part of the child¡¯s genetic endowment,

but the majority of the variance in cognitive growth can be explained by the ways

in which society amplifies and interrelates these capacities. In contrast, both

Chomskyan and Piagetian views on the role of culture are limited.

In this chapter, we make two general points centering on the definitional considerations of bilingualism described above. First, we point to the importance of

drawing clear distinctions among the definitions of bilingualism. Failure to do so

can lead to misunderstandings about the role of bilingualism in cognitive development. Second, even though these various perspectives can and should be distin-

Bilingualism and cognitive development

287

guished, attention should also be paid to the interactions of variables across levels.

Indeed, the question of bilingual cognitive development highlights the importance

of maintaining multiple perspectives and cutting across levels of analysis in social

science.

We make these points using the following structure. The first section takes a

historical perspective in examining changes in the way bilingualism has been

thought to influence intelligence in children. The section illustrates the importance

of maintaining clear distinctions among definitions of bilingualism, while at the

same time pointing to the importance of the historical context of research. Then,

we follow with a discussion of bilingualism and cognitive development as seen

from each of the three levels discussed above - cognitive, social psychological,

and societal. Obviously, the cognitive perspective has the most to say with regard

to cognitive development, but the latter perspectives are important to the extent

that social psychological and societal factors influence the degree of bilingualism

that might be attained by the population of interest. In the concluding section, we

trace the implications of this multilevel analysis of the problem toward a greater

understanding of language, mind, and society, drawing from our own research

efforts.

Some history

If one were to look at the literature on bilingualism and intelligence over its long

history, it would at first seem that the early literature showed that bilingualism had

negative consequences, whereas the more recent literature, improving on the earlier methodologies, showed the opposite, that bilingualism could have a positive

influence on cognitive development. Consider the contrast to be found in following

two accounts of the relation between bilingualism and intelligence. Conclusions

from the early literature can be summarized by the following statement that a p

peared in George Thompson¡¯s (1952) American textbook on child psychology:

There can be no doubt that the child reared in a bilingual environment is handicapped in

his language growth. One can debate the issue as to whether speech facility in two languages is worth the consequent retardation in the common language of the realm. (p. 367)

A rather brighter portrait is drawn by Elizabeth Peal and Wallace Lambert (1962)

in reporting a study of bilingual children in Montreal. They describe their typical

subject as

a youngster whose wider experiences in two cultures have given him advantages which a

monolingual does not enjoy. Intellectually his experience with two language systems Seems

to have left him with a mental flexibility, a superiority in concept formation, a more diversified set of mental abilities . . . . In contrast, the monolingual appears to have a m m unitary structure of intelligence which he must use for all types of intellectual tasks, (p. 20)

These statements and their inherent contradictionscan be interpreted as a dramatic

example of misunderstandings that resulted from failure to distinguish between

different levels of definition of bilingualism.

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A N D R . M.DIAZ

Clearly, if the goal of a study were to establish whether the extent of bilingualism in children had an effect on individual-level cognitive development. one

should define bilingualism in terms of their abilities in the two languages. What

one should nor do is to use a societal definition of bilingualism. Yet the earlier

literature primarily used a societal definition - bilinguals consisted of newly arrived immigrants to the United States - whereas the more recent literature has

tended to use a cognitive definition. In part, this discrepancy in definitions and

findings can be attributed to improvements in methodological controls. For example, the more recent studies attempt to control for the socioeconomic status

(SES)of the comparison groups, whereas the older studies did not. However, a

historical perspective enables us to appreciate why the earlier literature used the

societal definition and essentially ignored what are now considered obvious confounds, such as SES.

In order to comprehend the early literature and what the debate was all about,

one must view them against the backdrop of the concerns of Americans at the turn

of the century (see Gould 1981; Hakuta 1986). At that time, there raged a social

debate over the quality of the new immigrant groups from southern and eastern

Europe, a fear that was expressed forcefully by Francis Walker, president of MIT

and a prominent spokesperson for immigration restriction:

These immigrants are beaten men from beaten races, representing the worst failures in the

struggle for existence. Europe is allowing its slums and its most stagnant reservoirs of degraded peasantry to be drained off upon our soil. (Quoted in Ayres, 1909, p. 103)

The various measures of intelligence, particularly in the tradition of Goddard¡¯s

translation of Binet¡¯s IQ test, came to play a major role in this debate, for the immigrants¡¯ performance on these tests seemed to confirm the worst fears of restrict ion ist s I i ke Walker.

In explaining the poor performance of the new immigrants on intelligence tests,

the battle line was drawn between those who believed in genetic versus those who

believed in experiential explanations. Researchers in those days - including luminaries in the field such as Lewis Terman, Florence Goodenough, and George

Stoddard - debated whether bilingualism was or was not a handicap in the measurement of intelligence.

The hereditarians, who believed that IQ test performance was attributable

largely to genetic factors, accounted for the poor test performance of the new immigrants - those primarily from southern and eastern Europe - in terms of selective migration. The data were considered to support the general fear about the

quality of the new immigrants. The strongest data in support of the hereditarian

position were the results of the testing of U.S. Army recruits in World War I, conducted by Robert Yerkes and synthesized and popularized by Carl C. Brigham

(1922).The most compelling bit of evidence, in the eyes of hereditarians, was the

decreasing intelligence test scores as a function of recency of immigration. Brigham¡¯s explanation was as follows:

Bilingualism and cognitive development

289

Migrations of the Alpine and Mediterranean races have increased to such an extent in the

last thirty or forty years that this blood now constitutes 70% or 75% of the total immigration. The representatives of the Alpine and Mediterranean races in our immigration are

intellectually inferior to the representatives of the Nordic race which formerly made up

about 50% of our immigration. (p. 197)

The alternative explanation, of course, was that those who had immigrated most

recently had learned less English and that inadequate proficiency in English resulted in poor test performance. This possibility of a language handicap in test

taking was recognized by proponents of the hereditarian position, such as Lewis

Tennan (1918). He and his students began a full-scale assault of the possibility

that the bilinguals might be taking the tests under a language handicap and attempted to show that the differences existed even despite it (Young, 1922). Such

heroics notwithstanding, however, it became clear that the recent immigrants the bilinguals - were operating under a handicap. For example, Terman¡¯s own

student Darsie (1926) showed that bilinguals performed particularly poorly on the

subtests of the Binet scale that required language.

Despite evidence of this sort, the hereditarians did not change their position on

the genetic quality of the new immigrants. Florence Goodenough (1926). for example, turned the argument around and wrote that ¡°those nationality groups

whose average intellectual ability is inferior do not readily learn the new language¡± (p. 393).

In contrast to the hereditarians, psychologists who emphasized the environmental factors associated with intelligence test scores, spearheaded by George Stoddard and Beth Wellman of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, were trying

to explain the poor performance of immigrants using experiential factors (Stoddard & Wellman, 1934). Rather than question the validity of the IQ tests for this

particular population, they arrived at the conclusion that bilingualism - an experiential factor - must cause some kind of mental confusion, resulting in the poor

development of verbal skills.

Madorah Smith, who received her doctorate at Iowa, figures prominently in this

history. For her dissertation, she had pioneered a method of analyzing free speech

utterances of young monolingual children to obtain quantitative indices of language development. Later, she moved to Hawaii, where she began applying her

method to the Speech of bilingual children from a wide variety of language backgrounds (Smith, 1939). A comparison of these statistics with her Iowa samples

showed that bilinguals were inferior to the monolinguals, leading her to the conclusion that ¡°an important factor in the retardation in speech found in the preschool population is the attempt to make use of two languages¡± (p. 253). (There

are many alternative explanations of her data, a discussion of which can be found

in Hakuta, 1986.)

The twists and turns of this research area can be recapitulated as follows. The

backdrop of the initial research was concern with the new immigrants, who per-

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K¡®: HAKUTA,B. M.FERDMAN,

A N D R. M. DIAZ

formed poorly on tests of intelligence. The hereditarians argued that this poor performance reflected inferior genetic stock and attempted to argue against a language handicap in test taking. The evidence mounted, however, that bilinguals

were operating under a handicap. The hereditarians then interpreted this handicap

to be the result of innately inferior intelligence. In contrast, the environmentalists

took the language handicap of bilinguals to be the result of experience, the most

salient experience to them being exposure to two languages.

What is remarkable about this debate is that the language handicap of bilingualism, initially construed as a test-taking factor associated with a group trait namely, foreignness and recency of immigration - soon became an alleged characteristic of a supposed mental state - in our terminology, cognitive bilingualism.

How were these early studies of bilingualism and intelligence conducted? They

were primarily comparisons of two groups of students, one labeled ¡°bilingual¡±

and the other ¡°monolingual,¡± on the various tests of intelligence (including the

Stanford-Binet) that were becoming increasingly popular in those days. And how

was bilingualism defined? Societally. For example, studies were conducted in

which children were classified as bilingual if they had a foreign last name. What

was relevant for these researchers was that bilinguals were from certain ethnic

backgrounds and were recent immigrants to the United States. We do not know

whether the bilinguals in these studies were actually cognitively bilingual or only

societally bilingual. It is quite possible that children participating in some of these

studies actually were proficient only in their native, non-English language. What

these studies suggest to us is that societal bilingualism, being a label in this historical context for individuals who are low on the societal totem pole, can be detrimental to performance on tests of intelligence that are used as the basis for predicting success in the educational system. What they do not suggest is that

cognitive bilingualism could be detrimental to the mental development of children, since the extent to which they were cognitively bilingual is uncertain.

Indeed. as we argue in the following section, if we adopt a cognitive definition

of bilingualism, as recent studies of bilingualism and cognitive development have

done, there emerges a relatively consistent picture of a positive relation. In these

studies where bilingualism is defined cognitively rather than societally, the criterion has often been to include only those children who are equally proficient in the

two languages.

In general, this shift in definition of bilingualism from a societal to a cognitive

one has gone hand in hand with a shift in the type of subject population studied.

Earlier studies tended to look at immigrants and minorities in the process of language shift from their native language to English. The more recent studies, though

not all, have tended to look at subjects who live in societal circumstances where

equal proficiency in two languages is possible and advantageous, such as in Canada, and who tend to come from middle-class populations. Thus, in order to appreciate the full range of studies conducted on the topic of bilingualism and cog-

Bilingualism and cognitive development

29 1

nitive development, it will become necessary to delve into the societal correlates

of different types of bilingualism. First, however, we turn to a fuller consideration

of the cognitive perspective.

Cognitive-level bilingualism

In this section, we review two types of studies conducted strictly at the cognitive

level of bilingualism, where subjects are defined in terms of their relative abilities

in the two languages rather than on a social or societal basis. The first type of

study looks at cognitive performance in balanced bilingual children; the second

type relates children¡¯s degree of bilingualism to cognitive ability. The section concludes by documenting the present search for a model at the cognitive level that

explains how bilingualism might affect the development of children¡¯s intelligence.

The concept of the ¡°balanced¡± bilingual child was conceived by Peal and Lambert (1962) in an attempt to distinguish ¡°pseudobilinguals¡± from truly bilingual

children. In our terminology, they shifted the definition of bilingualism from a

societal to a cognitive one. Peal and Lambert were responding to the long history

of bilingual research, just described, that failed (from the cognitive perspective)

to take into account the actual language proficiency of bilingual samples. In their

famous monograph, the investigators argued that, in order to understand the effects of bilingualism on children¡¯s intelligence, the first thing that is needed is

truly bilingual subjects or, in their new term, a sample of ¡°balanced¡± bilingual

children. Furthermore, they argued that previous negative findings could be attributed to careless sampling procedures, under which subjects¡¯ bilingual proficiency was questionable. Several formal definitions of balanced bilingualism have

been formulated through the years, some more rigid than others. For the purpose

of the present review, we assume the idealization that a balanced bilingual child is

a child who can function, age appropriately, in his or her two languages.

When Peal and Lambert compared their sample of French-English balanced

bilingual fourth graders with a group of comparable monolinguals on a battery of

intelligence tests, the results were surprisingly in favor of the bilingual children.

The study had a significant impact on the field, on two different counts. First, the

positive findings questioned the validity of a long string of studies that had employed the societal definition of bilingualism and had concluded that bilingualism

had a negative influence on a child¡¯s language and cognitive development. Second, the study was perceived as a methodological breakthrough. Peal and Lambert¡¯s research paradigm (Le., a comparison of balanced bilinguals with monolinguals, controlling for SES,parental education, years of schooling, and other

relevant variables) promised to be a sure way to document empirically what linguists¡¯ case studies (e.g., Leopold, 1949; Ronjat, 1913) had been claiming for

years. The new paradigm, as evidenced by the studies reviewed below, fulfilled its

promise.

In a detailed account of his daughter Hildegard¡¯s bilingual upbringing, Leopold

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k.HAKUTA,B . M. FERDMAN,

A N D R. M. DlAZ

( 1949) not only reported adequate language development and minimal confusion

between the child¡¯s two languages, but also suggested that bilingualism seemed

to be an advantage in his daughter¡¯s mental development. Leopold noted Hildegard¡¯s special objective awareness of language, proposing that bilingual children,

forced to make an early separation of word and referent, would develop an early

awareness of the abstract and symbolic nature of language. According to Leopold,

such awareness would free the child¡¯s thinking from the concreteness and ¡°tyranny¡± of words. At present, such objective awareness of language is commonly

referred to as ¡°metalinguistic awareness.¡±

A large number of studies have shown that, when compared with monolinguals,

balanced bilingual children show definite advantages in measures of metalinguistic awareness. Ianco-Worrall (1972) showed that children raised bilingually outranked monolinguals in the capacity to compare words along semantic rather than

phonetic dimensions. Cummins (1978) found that Irish-English and UkranianEnglish bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on several measures of

metalinguistic awareness, including the capacity to evaluate tautological and contradictory sentences. More recently, in a study of Spanish-English bilingual children in El Salvador, Galambos (1982) found that bilinguals had a stronger ¡°syntactic orientation¡± than both English and Spanish monolingual children when

judging grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in both languages. Syntactic

orientation was defined as the ability ¡°to note errors in constructions, to use syntactic strategies in the correction of these constructions, and to offer syntactically

rather than semantically oriented explanations for the ungrammaticality noted¡±

(p. 2).

A study done with Hebrew-English balanced bilingual children (Ben-Zeev,

1977) clearly shows bilinguals¡¯ awareness of linguistic rules and structure. The

investigator gave children a ¡°symbol substitution¡± task, measuring children¡¯s

ability to substitute words in a sentence according to the experimenter¡¯s instructions. For example, the children were asked to substitute the word ¡°I¡± for the word

¡°spaghetti.¡± The children were given correct scores when they were able to say

sentences like ¡°Spaghetti am cold¡± rather than ¡°Spaghetti is cold¡± or a similar

sentence that, although grammatically correct, violated the rules of the game.

Basically, in the symbol substitution task, the children were asked to violate the

rules of grammar, and hence the task demonstrated their control over the somewhat

automatic production of correct sentences. Needless to say, this task required an

unusual awareness of and attention to linguistic features and detail. Through

their performance on this and other related tasks, the balanced bilingual children showed a greater objective awareness of language than their monolingual

peers.

Bialystok (1984; Bialystok & Ryan, 1985) increased the sophistication of the

conceptualization of metalinguistic awareness by hrguing that the skill consists of

two components: access to the knowledge about language, and the ability to con-

Bilingualism and cognitive development

293

trol linguistic processes and apply them to a problem situation. She argued that

bilingualism would influence the latter, but not the former. To support her point,

she demonstrated that bilingual children were superior to monolingual controls

specifically on items with anomalous meanings that were nevertheless grammatically correct. Bialystok argued that these items recruited controlled processing of

linguistic knowledge, since the subject has to overlook the meaning and focus on

the grammatical form. Bialystok further related her findings to the attainment of

biliteracy, since of the different groups of bilinguals that she tested, the strongest

effect was observed among students who had developed the ability to read in both

languages. Presumably, the positive effects of bilingualism are most likely to occur in situations where the use of both languages in the literate, decontextualized

functions (Snow, in press) is emphasized.

The paradigm comparing balanced bilingual to monolingual children has also

been used to assess bilingual advantage on measures other than metalinguistic

awareness. Balanced bilingual children outperform their monolingual peers on

measures of concept formation (Bain, 1974; Liedtke & Nelson, 1968). divergent

thinking skills and creativity (Torrance, Wu, Gowan, & Alliotti, 1970), and field

independence and Piagetian conservation concepts (Duncan & De Avila, 1979) as

well as in their capacity to use language to monitor cognitive performance (Bain

& Yu,1980). With unusual consistency, the findings suggest that bilingualism has

a positive effect on a child¡¯s developing intelligence.

Despite consistent positive findings, the methodology adopted in the studies of

balanced bilingual children has been criticized (see Diaz, 1985a; Hakuta & Diaz,

1985; MacNab, 1979). The foremost criticism is that bilingual and monolingual

groups are not comparable groups. Children are not randomly assigned to bilingual or monolingual upbringings and, more often than not, childhood bilingualism co-occurs with variations in a wide range of socioeconomic, cultural, educational, and ethnic variables. Regardless of experimenters¡¯ efforts to match the

groups on relevant variables, good experimental science tells us that cognitive differences between bilinguals and monolinguals could ultimately be explained by

differences other than proficiency in a second language. A second criticism of this

line of research concerns its exclusive focus on balanced bilingual children. These

children are not representative of the majority of children who are exposed to two

languages at an early age or who are educated bilingually. The findings, therefore,

cannot be generalized to most populations of interest. Finally, the conclusion that

bilingualism has a positive effect on children¡¯s cognitive development has been

criticized because of its gross inference regarding causality. The finding that balanced bilinguals outperform their monolingual peers can also be interpreted in the

reverse way: that only the most intelligent children become truly balanced bilinguals. Research comparing balanced bilinguals and monolinguals cannot distinguish between these two alternative explanations. Of course, a third explanation

is that other factors are related to both balanced bilingualism and cognitive ability.

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