最新研究：会双语让人更聪明(有声)
Being Bilingual May Boost Your Brain PowerAt the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, nine-month-old infants listen to Mandarin Chinese in play sessions with native-speaking Mandarin speakers. Some psychologists say being bilingual may actually be good for children's cognitive development.
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RENEE MONTAGNE, host: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
In today's health segment, people with rare diseases help each other using the Internet. But first, in an increasingly interconnected world, speaking more than one language is becoming common. Approximately one out of five Americans speak a language other than English at home. Around the world, as many as two-thirds of children are brought up bilingual. And it turns out that being bilingual is also good for the brain. Reporter Gretchen Cuda-Kroen has the story.
Ms. JUDY SZENTKIRALYI: (Foreign language spoken)
Mr. PAUL SZENTKIRALYI: (Foreign language spoken)
GRETCHEN CUDA-KROEN: Judy and Paul Szentkiralyi both grew up in the U.S. bilingual - speaking Hungarian with their families and English with their peers. And when they married they knew they wanted to raise their children speaking both languages. So their two daughters, Hannah and Julia, heard only Hungarian from mom and dad at home.
Ms. HANNAH SZENTKIRALYI: (Foreign language spoken)
CUDA-KROEN: Then came school and learning English. Judy recalls Hannah's first few months with the new language.
Ms. SZENTKIRALYI: When she did go to preschool that accent was very thick. She's counting like vun(ph), two, tree. And by the time maybe four or five months went by it was totally gone.
CUDA-KROEN: Most people were supportive, but not everyone. Judy's husband Paul recalls an uncomfortable confrontation Judy once had in a local grocery store.
Mr. SZENTKIRALYI: I remember one time you came home, you said this one lady was, well, when's she going to learn English. It's like, well, when she goes to school she'll learn English.
CUDA-KROEN: The Szentkiralyi's says that people often asked them if their kids got confused or if they fell behind in school. Janet Werker has an answer for them. She's a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who studies language acquisition in bilingual babies. Werker says the idea that children exposed to two languages from birth become confused or that they fall behind is a common misconception.
Ms. JANET WERKER (University of British Columbia): Growing up bilingual is just as natural as growing up monolingual. There is absolutely no evidence that bilingual acquisition leads to confusion and there is no evidence that bilingual acquisition leads to delay.
CUDA-KROEN: Werker and other researchers say the evidence to the contrary is actually quite strong. Being bilingual, they say, may actually be good for you.
Ellen Bialystok, a psychologist from York University in Toronto, says the reason lies in the way the bilingual mind uses language. No matter what language a person is speaking at the moment, Bialystok says both languages are active in the brain.
Ms. ELLEN BIALYSTOK (York University, Toronto): The evidence is very dramatic. Even if you're in a context that's utterly monolingual where you think there's absolutely no reason to think about Chinese or Spanish or French, it is part of the activated network that's going on in your brain.
CUDA-KROEN: This means bilinguals have to do something that's monolinguals don't do. They have to keep the two languages separate. Bialystok likens it to tuning into the right signal on the radio or television the brain has to keep the two channels separate and pay attention to only one.
Ms. BIALYSTOK: The brain has a perfectly good system whose job it is to do just that - it's the executive control system. That's what it does. It focuses attention on what's important, and ignores misleading distraction. Therefore, for a bilingual, every time you open your mouth to speak, you recruit this executive control system. It's always used in every sentence you utter. That's what makes it strong.
CUDA-KROEN: Bialystok says that constantly engaging this executive control function is a form of mental exercise, and some researchers, including herself, believe that this can be beneficial for the brain. Bilingual speakers have been shown to perform better on a variety of cognitive tasks, and one study Bialystok did found that dementia(痴呆) set in 4-5 years later in people who spent their lives speaking two languages instead of one.
Ms. BIALYSTOK: They can get a little extra mileage(好处，益处) out of these cognitive networks because they have been enhanced throughout life.
CUDA-KROEN: And the advantages of bilingualism may be due to more than just mental fitness. Bialystok says there's some preliminary evidence that being bilingual may physically remodel parts of the brain.
For NPR News, I'm Gretchen Cuda-Kroen in Cleveland.
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外语是现代生活中必不可缺的一项技能，但是很多人却对外语很头疼：学习外语需要记住那么多语法规则，背下那么多单词，如果把学习外语的时间用来钻研工作或者享受生活该有多好！
最近发表在美国《心理科学》杂志上的文章，用实验研究发现，学习另外一种语言可以促进双语者对母语的加工。这个研究说明，在学习第二语言之后，人们理解世界的方式都发生了改变。
在这项研究中，比利时的研究者找了45个母语是荷兰语的大学生，他们都是从14~15岁时开始学习英语的。研究者让这些学生阅读一些荷兰语的句子，其中有些句子中包含一些同源词，也就是在荷兰语和英语中意思相同，而且拼写也相同的单词（比如“sport”在英语和荷兰语中都是“运动”的意思）。同时他们也阅读一些只会出现在荷兰语中的单词，在被试的阅读过程中，研究者记录了他们的眼动变化。研究者发现，被试在看同源词时花费的时间要少于看其他词所用的时间，这说明被试对于双语词语的加工更有效率。
这个研究的启示在于，即使在双语者阅读本国语言时，也会受到第二语言的影响。也许一个旅居海外多年的华人看到一个汉字时，他反应出来的并不是这个字在中国文化传统中的，而是在西方文化中的含义。
也许，文化就这样通过语言一点点地丰富我们的思想，扩展我们的视野。双语者也会在语言理解中表现出更强的对模糊的容忍能力：有一位阅读者在看过这项研究成果后也表示赞同：她会说三国语言，她发现她在理解方言的能力上也远远强于只会汉语的丈夫。这些证据都指向同一个事实：多学会一门语言，不仅仅是一种生存技能，而且让我们的思想更开放，眼界更开阔。
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