The benefits of a bilingual brain & Do animals have a language?

PHILOSOPHY

THE BENEFITS OF A BILINGUAL BRAIN & DO ANIMALES HAVE A LANGUAGE?

The benefits of a bilingual brain

INDEX

THE BENEFITS OF A BILINGUAL BRAIN

ESSAY & QUESTIONS

ESSAY

The video begins by explaining that being bilingual means that the brain works differently and has a different look compared to monolinguals. Then he explains that linguistic ability is measured by the active skills (speaking and writing) and passive skills (listening and reading). A bilingual can classify them according to how they use language and how learned in: simultaneous, consecutive bilingualism and adulthood. The brain is divided into left hemisphere (the dominant and analytical) and right hemisphere (more active in the emotional and social processes). It is said that children learn languages more easy by the plasticity of their developing brains that allows them to use both hemispheres in language acquisition. In most adults learned language is limited to one hemisphere, usually the left.

ESSAY

Learning a second language helps to have more neurons and slow diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia. In the 60s it was considered inconvenient encourage children to learn other languages, thinking that they were spending too much energy to distinguish languages. Recent studies show that switching from one language to another generates more activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and potentially strengthen it and is the one responsible for example of problem solving.

Do animals have a language?

Do animals have a language?

SUMMARY & QUESTIONS

SUMMARY

The video begins by stating that all animals communicate, but the question of whether they have a language becomes. To answer that question we have to observe the qualities associated with language: the units (group of individual elements such as sounds or words that can be combined to communicate ideas), grammar (system of rules dictating how individual units are combined ), productivity (ability to use language to create an infinite number of messages), displacement (ability to talk about things that are not present as the past or the future). Now there is the question of whether the animal language has these qualities be associated. Some animals have some of these skills and others do not. But even though some animals have any of these qualities, none combines all the qualities as a human being. Animal communication is very limited. Human language stands by the powerful combination of grammar and productivity and the use of units and displacement.