Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 2K views

    Argumentative Essay 1

    Uploaded by

    api-410437715
    This document discusses the benefits and drawbacks of being bilingual. It argues that being bilingual provides many advantages, such as being more useful in a globalized world where English is commonly spoken, finding better job and travel opportunities, and gaining new perspectives that expand one's worldview. However, some research indicates bilinguals may have smaller vocabularies in each language alone compared to monolinguals. There is also a risk that bilingual children may feel stressed by expectations or lose motivation if not enjoying the learning process. On balance, the author believes the benefits of being bilingual, such as improved creativity and understanding of other cultures, outweigh any negatives.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Argumentative Essay 1

    Uploaded by

    api-410437715
    2K views5 pages
    This document discusses the benefits and drawbacks of being bilingual. It argues that being bilingual provides many advantages, such as being more useful in a globalized world where English is commonly spoken, finding better job and travel opportunities, and gaining new perspectives that expand one's worldview. However, some research indicates bilinguals may have smaller vocabularies in each language alone compared to monolinguals. There is also a risk that bilingual children may feel stressed by expectations or lose motivation if not enjoying the learning process. On balance, the author believes the benefits of being bilingual, such as improved creativity and understanding of other cultures, outweigh any negatives.

    Original Title

    argumentative essay 1

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document discusses the benefits and drawbacks of being bilingual. It argues that being bilingual provides many advantages, such as being more useful in a globalized world where English is commonly spoken, finding better job and travel opportunities, and gaining new perspectives that expand one's worldview. However, some research indicates bilinguals may have smaller vocabularies in each language alone compared to monolinguals. There is also a risk that bilingual children may feel stressed by expectations or lose motivation if not enjoying the learning process. On balance, the author believes the benefits of being bilingual, such as improved creativity and understanding of other cultures, outweigh any negatives.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    2K views5 pages

    Argumentative Essay 1

    Uploaded by

    api-410437715
    This document discusses the benefits and drawbacks of being bilingual. It argues that being bilingual provides many advantages, such as being more useful in a globalized world where English is commonly spoken, finding better job and travel opportunities, and gaining new perspectives that expand one's worldview. However, some research indicates bilinguals may have smaller vocabularies in each language alone compared to monolinguals. There is also a risk that bilingual children may feel stressed by expectations or lose motivation if not enjoying the learning process. On balance, the author believes the benefits of being bilingual, such as improved creativity and understanding of other cultures, outweigh any negatives.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    You are on page 1of 5
    At a glance
    Powered by AI
    The passage discusses several benefits of being bilingual such as being more useful when traveling, having better job opportunities, and helping foreign visitors. However, it also notes some potential negative effects like stress and losing a sense of identity.

    The passage suggests that being bilingual could impact one's sense of identity, as bilingual children may feel pressure from classmates to speak another language and lose their place in their school community.

    The passage mentions that bilinguals may spend less time developing vocabulary in each language compared to monolinguals. It also says that bilingual children could feel stress from expectations and see language learning only as a way to please parents.

    Kie Ino Ino1

    ENG 028

    Professor Batty

    29 April 2018

    Is Being Bilingual Really Important

    Recently, the world is being more globalized and we see foreign people way often than

    before. Because of this, being able to speak other languages other than your own is

    recommended or required everywhere, especially at school and work. While I’m on the subject,

    I’m going to talk about why we should or should not become a bilingual. How does being

    bilingual affect one’s sense of identity? My belief is that studying at least one language is

    important and it would have a huge positive effect in a variety of areas and help the person have

    more confident.

    First of all, those bilingual people would find themselves more useful. If the person can

    speak English/Chinese for example, he/she can talk with anyone from all over the world. James

    Lane, author of Babbel Magazine, wrote “If you’re reading this article, you may be one of the

    360 million-odd native English speakers, or one of the half a billion people who speak it as a

    second language.” According to him, English is the most spoken language in the world as lingua

    franca, which means that the most common language for people’s second language in English. I

    was already taking English class when I was in kindergarten and elementary school even had a

    course which students and teachers only speak English through the 6 years. I can see how

    importantly educations are seeing language classes. Needless to say,the ability will let bilinguals
    Ino 2

    have greatest differences compared to monolinguals and this will be useful to look for a job,

    opportunities, and more. Also, in a city, the person can help travelers to have a better visit by

    explaining things in their language and help them understand. I’ve seen friends saying that they

    had no idea what to do because no one spoke English in Japan. There is going to be an Olympic

    game in Tokyo in 2020 and people are already gathering those bilinguals to prepare for tor tons

    of foreign visitors.

    Of course, not every single person is thinking that it is important to become a bilingual.

    Kristina R Olson Ph.D., an author of “When Does Being Bilingual Help or Hurt?”, said, “While

    the size of an individual’s vocabulary or lexicon varied widely, on average monolinguals had

    more vocabulary in their one language than bilinguals had in either of their languages alone.”

    This might be actually true because bilinguals spend times to learn another language while

    monolinguals work on their own language. Furthermore, if a bilingual is studying abroad, he/she

    would have to study in another language even the person is not actually understanding and

    learning in class because of the lack of language skill. Then monolingual would definitely be

    more concentrated on actual detail of the class. Not only her, there is a lot of opinions about

    negative points of being bilingual. Two of them are those children will get stressed out from

    pressures from other people and the child might start to think that learning language is just to

    please his/her parents. When people don’t have the ability to reach a goal, they will want another

    person who has it. Those bilingual people will get stressed out eventually by getting asked and

    pressured by school, parents, or company because monolinguals could expect too much on

    bilinguals. I actually have seen my bilingual friend who was born to be a bilingual because of

    her foreign parent being asked to speak another language by classmates and she was obviously
    Ino 3

    feeling uncomfortable. From this experience, I could imagine those bilingual kids loosing their

    place in school which would never be a positive effect. I also said that children could find

    learning language is not fun, but they have to do it just to make their parents happy. It is true that

    those young kids could loose the important reasons/points to study extra subject. Especially

    when they don’t find it interesting or fun. This could also lead them to feel never want to study

    again.

    But beyond those negative effects, other positive effects are more important, I’d say. I can

    assure that the person would have a better creativity than other people who only speak one

    language. Because they can communicate with people from other countries, they can share and

    learn a bunch of different points of view. In 1922, in “Logico-Tractatus Philosophicus”, the

    philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my

    world.” It’s a clear fact that the more words you have, the bigger your sight becomes. In my

    experience, there was a difference between histories in the States and Japan about nuclear bomb

    the US dropped in Hiroshima, Japan. If I could not understand English, I could have not

    experienced this while I was on the exchange program. By learning another culture as you learn

    its language, the person can include the differences between his/her own culture and others and

    create something new. The person would even be able to find the normal things more important

    or interesting by changing the point of view that he/she leaned by communicating with foreign

    people.

    Those are the reasons why I still think being bilingual is important than anything else.

    When the person has no idea what to do for the future, if he/she could at least acquire another
    Ino 4

    language, it will become a huge help/power later. Bilingual is something everyone in the world

    can become. There is no limit, there is no impossibility. Also if those people who were born to

    be a bilingual and stressed out right now could start to think positively and appreciate their

    specialty, they would be able to have a brighter future.


    Works Cited

    James, Lane. “The 10 Most Spoken Languages In The World.” Babbel Magazine, 24 April 2016,

    https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/the-10-most-spoken-languages-in-the-world/

    Kristina R Olson Ph.D. “When Does Bilingual Help or Hurt?” Psychology Today, 27 April 2014

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/developing-minds/201404/when-does-

    bilingualism-help-or-hurt

    Ludwig, Wittgenstein. “Logico-Tractatus Philosophicus” 1922 from Great Philosophers, 2002

    https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Wittgenstein/wittgenstein.html

    You might also like