Rising to the bilingual challenge: self-reported experiences of managing life with two languages

Abstract

ABSTRACTA recent surge of findings on bilingual cognitive advantage has attracted attention from both researchers and the media. An advantage has been demonstrated with regard to, inter alia, inhibiting, switching, monitoring and updating. However, Paap et al. argue that the advantage does not exist or is only limited to executive functioning. Both sides of the debate are well grounded in research. Nevertheless, what seems to be missing from the current discussion is the voice of bilingual speakers, that is , how they manage life with two languages and if they perceive any cognitive, social or economic advantages or indeed, disadvantages of knowing two languages more than one language. Here, I report on an extensive questionnaire in which German–English participants reflected upon their use of languages and the particular benefits as well as the challenges they face. Constructs, such as inhibition, retrieval of words language mixing were explored. It has been elicited that all participants considered knowledge of two languages to be highly advantageous despite encountering occasional problems in the form of: tip of the tongue states, code switching or relying on literal translation. In general, all participants agreed that the positive aspects of being bilingual greatly outweigh the negatives.