From: Science
Speaking a second language may change how you see the world
Science:
Where did the thief go? You might get a more accurate answer if you ask the question in German. How did she get away? Now you might want to switch to English. Speakers of the two languages put different emphasis on actions and their consequences, influencing the way they think about the world, according to a new study. The work also finds that bilinguals may get the best of both worldviews, as their thinking can be more flexible.
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The results suggest that a second language can play an important unconscious role in framing perception, the authors conclude online this month in Psychological Science. “By having another language, you have an alternative vision of the world,” Athanasopoulos says. “You can listen to music from only one speaker, or you can listen in stereo … It’s the same with language.”
“This is an important advance,” says cognitive scientist Phillip Wolff of Emory University in Atlanta who wasn’t connected to the study. “If you’re a bilingual speaker, you’re able to entertain different perspectives and go back and forth,” he says. “That really hasn’t been shown before.”
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It has long being known the left brain is the language, listening, learning , literary brain. Any stimulation of left brain boosts its cognitive function. Thus a second language learnt would certainly boost the left learning language brain. People who have acquired a second language find it even easier to learn a third language. As the left brain improves the hasty impulsive temperamental right brain becomes less of a problem.
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