Free Essay Anwering What Bilinguals Tell Us About Culture, Cognition, and Language?

The choice of the article under review was informed by the relevance of the article to human behavior. Human behavior influences information exchange from one individual to another. This is expressed in a language in which two or more interlocutors are proficient. Since the article delves into the role of language in inducing certain human behaviors, it provides a perfect reference for study in the sense that it helps the reader to connect human behavior and the processes that take place in the human mind before a response is given. Such information is critical for students studying psychology.

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The article is about the reactions of bilinguals (specifically Chinese emigrants in the United States) to the presence of two distinct language environments- the native language, and the second language. More specifically, the study evaluates how Chinese speakers react to a language environment of Chinese and English, and how culture and cognitive abilities affect language performance. The authors, Judith Kroll and Rhonda McClain, use the literature review approach to establish the behaviors of bilinguals in the context of language, culture, and cognition. The study finds that Chinese bilinguals show a significantly high sensitivity to cultural cues in the presence of a native language even when they are engaged in a conversation with native speakers of English. Further, the study established that, unlike earlier findings, using at least two languages does not cause disorders in communication; it is rather a natural phenomenon in which culture, language, and cognition interact unhindered in same mind and brain.

One of the interesting aspects of the article is that the author selected a title which is appropriate and relevant to the content of the body. As such, the reader is able to get a sense of what to expect in the article. In the body of the article, the idea that is implied in the title is comprehensively explored. Additionally, the latter finding as highlighted in the previous paragraph is critical in the study of bilingualism as it attempts to remove the negative connotations that have been associated with bilinguals for many years. In other words, it provides a new window for research to establish the many potential benefits of bilingualism. However, the research design does not provide convincing evidence to the conclusions of the authors. Notably, the article employs literature review as the research design. An approach that does not collect data makes it difficult to test the validity of the conclusions. Since the emphasis of the article appears to dissuade readers away from a scientific view (negative notions about bilinguals) which had existed among researchers for at least 25 years, it is important to select a research approach which tests the validity of conclusions that seek to disrupt long-held scientific positions. Therefore, an approach that would test collected data against earlier findings would offer more credibility to the theme of the authors. Moreover, Kroll and McClain extensively reference the work of Zhang et al. and justify their conclusions based on the findings of these authors. Although the literature review has included several authors, it appears that the purpose of the review was to underscore the findings of Zhang et al. rather testing the validity of the findings of the mentioned authors. Given this, the reader does not get the chance to digest what other authors in the text contribute in the study.

Works Cited

Kroll, J. F., and R. McClain. "What Bilinguals tell us about Culture, Cognition, and Language." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110, no. 28, 2013, pp. 11219-11220.