Introduction of the Topic
The topic of our exhibit is the effect of multilingualism on social, academic and cognitive effects. This is a project for our English class: Living Multilingualism at Emory University. Our essays are analysis of four different sources that can be a source we read in class, one of the interviews we used for this project, another blog post or interview from previous classes, and a scholarly article. Our analyses focus on the different aspects of multilingualism. Bethanie focuses on the benefits of multilingualism beyond cognition, while Margaux writes about how multilingualism offers a mental flexibility to shuttle between languages. Doris’s analysis is about the social and academic effects of multilingualism and the role that teachers have in helping students shuttle between languages and cultures. Multilingualism is very prevalent in our society and it is important to understand what being multilingual means and how it affects life for multilingual and non-multilingual people.
Here is a link to our class's website http://multilingualismmandysuhrsytsma.weebly.com/.
Expand our Research
As you explore our site and read our analyses, we encourage you to build on our research. You may ask yourself the following questions:
After reading our analyses, we hope the above questions spark an interest in you to do some further research. Feel free to show us what you find by emailing us. Find our emails on the about page.
- Do you think knowing many languages gives you an advantage cognitively? How so? Does this lead you to perform better in school?
- Do specific languages have more or less of an impact?
- What other advantages of being multilingual do you experience?
- If you are a monolingual, can the said benefits of multilingualism influence you to learn a new language?
- Do you easily mix up the languages you know? Is this considered a disadvantage?
- How does being multilingual affect you socially or socioeconomically?
- If your first language is not English, do you think you experience different social or socioeconomic obstacles or benefits?
After reading our analyses, we hope the above questions spark an interest in you to do some further research. Feel free to show us what you find by emailing us. Find our emails on the about page.