The Bilingual Advantage and the Language Background Bias

Abstract

The idea that bilingualism can give us an advantage in life is of great interest to the scientific community due to its significant positive implications for healthcare and education at large. In recent years, several scholars have provided evidence in favour of the so-called bilingual advantage or benefit, suggesting a positive association between bilingualism and cognitive development. In order to understand whether the claim is fully warranted, the present paper sets out to examine the evidence in support and against the existence of a bilingual benefit for individuals. Following a brief discussion on the use of the terms bilingualism and multilingualism in the literature, the paper proceeds to provide a summary of evidence of advantages and disadvantages currently associated with prior language knowledge in the mind, highlighting some of the possible reasons for the different results that are being reported and introducing the language background bias. The paper ends with some suggestions for future research that can help us move forward and increase our understanding of the bi-/multilingual advantage as a broader phenomenon.