Language planning in Singapore has its origins since the early 1980s – one of which is through the promotion of bilingualism, with the intention to build and prevent the erosion of culture of the heritage groups in Singapore. No doubt, being bilingual has many other benefits not easily identifiable by the public eye, ranging from the enhanced ability to focus on a singular task or switch between tasks more efficiently. However, many of these unique abilities reported in bilinguals are often seen through the actions of adults – but what about the little ones?

Many resources, many talents! Research into bilingualism despite the focus tends to acknowledge one thing – compared to monolinguals, bilinguals require more cognitive effort to master two languages. Scoping even further, acquiring the ability to grasp how non-tone languages (e.g. English) stress on emotion and questions (do you wish to EAT? vs. do YOU wish to eat?) and tone languages (e.g Mandarin) that use pitch to discern information (拔 bá (pluck) vs. 爸 bà (dad)) at the same time does deserve some commendation. As such, this helps one to understand multiple languages in a mixed sentence, using the ability to “switch off” one’s sensitivity to cues of the first language while “switching on” the second one almost simultaneously. Of course, acquiring this ability is not entirely at all difficult. Known as perceptual switching, this ability to interpret conversations that bear conflicting languages in a selective manner is ever present in your child.

Come, Look-see, Hear-see. When would your child develop this ability, then? In 2016, a study conducted by Singh and Quan sought to identify this gap. Children aged 3 or 4 years were taught two new two-syllable words with a matching object, through a puppet show in English and Mandarin. They were later presented with the same object, either with the word they learned, or the same word just with the tone changed in a language-specific sentence. Interestingly, what they found was that there was a distinction in the way children would discern these words. While children aged 3 years could not identify the difference between what they learned and what was wrongly presented, those aged 4 years could do so using tone as a language cue!

Can your child recognize the difference between correct and incorrectly pronounced words?
Photo by Iana Dmytrenko on Unsplash

Okay, so what leh? Perhaps, findings from Singh and Quan’s study could inform us on how we may use our language around our children at home. With so many languages in Singapore, we may be concerned that our children may not learn effectively with the mixing of languages in their environments. However, this may not hold true as they grow. Harnessing the ability to understand different languages in a mixed sentence is not something to be frowned upon – rather, this may just be the start of a cascade of benefits just waiting to blossom in the long run. 

Reference:
Singh, L., & Quam, C. (2016). Can bilingual children turn one language off? Evidence from perceptual switching. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 147, 111-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.006 (~20min read)

This blog post was written by our intern Cameron and edited by our lab manager Fei Ting.

What do you call the people around you? Do you call strangers ‘uncle’ and ‘auntie’? Do you use these same words for family members? We’re interested to find out more about these ‘kinship terms’ used in Singapore! Participate in our online study here: https://ntusingapore.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6WgBjxXcjSM3IvI