Disadvantage of Bilingualism for Language Acquisition

I need to confess that bilingualism has several benefits. Nevertheless, tackling this concern, the linguistic conditions in which kids are raised to be able to speak two languages equally well ought to be also considered.

Lots of linguists underline that while introducing the 2nd language to student, his/her direct exposure to a given linguistic system is crucial. Thusly, moms and dads making every effort for teaching their kids a secod language/a non-native language typically depend on industrial language products such as books, videos, tv programs, etc.

Nonetheless, scientists (Kendall King and Lyn Fogle, Georgetown University) have found that live, human interaction such as reading or speaking to a child is more reliable than discussion of recored sounds (e.g., in television) and, for that reason, the best approach for cultivating both first and 2nd language advancement. What is more, Other research studies have found that, for older children, being checked out aloud to in the second language increases second language vocabulary a lot more than watching tv in that language (patterson, 2002).

I would like to concentrate now on this parent-child communication and its effect on language abilities of minors. There is some evidence that infants can hear even in the womb. After their birth, as they are growing, they try to imitate the ‘noises’ they hear. According to Deborah D.K. Ruuskanen, Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Vaasa in Finland, and mother of three bilingual children, it is significant to expose babies to native-speaker sounds, in order to facilitate them acquisition, and eventually execution, of native-speaker/that sounds.

Generally, there is no problem when children are raised bilingual in families where the parents are completely bilingual themselves, that is to say, they use two native languages (each parent speaks separate mother-tongue) or they speak the non-native language exceptionally well. In other cases/Otherwise, introducing a second language to children since their infancy is not advisable. It is not only because babies might learn parents’ mispronunciation or faulty accent, but also because it might confuse them unnecessarily. The parents who are not comfortable or fluent in second language should be dissuaded from doing that so as not to affect harmfully their children’s linguistic abilities.