Bilingual Society

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There is currently a movement taking place to split the United States into a bilingual society. Many Hispanic political leaders are pressing for bilingual education which could possibly mean that English and Spanish will become the official U.S. languages (Hayakawa 7). The bilingual education program seeks to permit non-English speaking children to use their native language instead of English in school systems (Rodriguez 8). This program will put foreign languages in competition with our native language. Good communication cannot exist if our nation has to communicate through interpreters. If bilingual education is accepted, its participants will suffer the horrifying social disadvantage of being isolated and the economic disadvantage of not being able to find a stable job. The nation will suffer economically as well as from poor communication.

If this bilingual education system is enforced, there will be no encouragement of Spanish speaking immigrants to learn the dominant language of our nation. The nation would become divided into separate groups Spanish speakers and English speakers. How could such a divided nation be governed? Communication is essential for unity and peace. Former California Senator Hayakawa comically clarifies this idea stating that America unified, a result of the melting pot, but bilingual education encourages that the national ideas should be a salad bowl, rather than a melting pot, in which different elements do not melt but mingle (Hayakawa 71).

Countries that do not require monolingual education tend to have severe problems with communication. For example, in India, three languages are required for internal communication the language of birth, the regional language, and the official national language (Roberts 106). Poor communication has often interfered with the governing of India. The former Soviet Union is another good example of poor governing as a result of lack of communication. The inability of the Serbs, Poles, and other divided groups to communicate with one another steadily increased cultural differences. These differences led to cultural uprisings against the national government which was unable to accommodate all of the cultures within its body. Throughout history, cultural conflicts have been one of the major causes of revolution and governmental breakdown. The best way to minimize cultural conflicts is to communicate with only one national language.

In her essay Sociocultural Change and Communication Problems, Jane Roberts explains that the internal communication is possible for any nation when one language is known by the vast majority of the population. Roberts demonstrates the complexity of communication by explaining the three ways in which countries manage communication

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The first way is that the country may have a national

language which is known by the majority of the people.

Second, where several languages are spoken, one of

these is dominant and is learned by many of the

minority language speakers. Third, if several

languages are spoken and for political or other reasons

one of these fails to achieve superordinate status,

another language is adopted and learned by most people.

(Roberts 106)

These methods of internal communication demonstrate the complexity of multilingual countries.

There are also economic reasons for not enforcing bilingual education in the United States. In 181, Ronald Reagan cut funding for bilingual education as part of an effort to relieve federal spending. Speaking out against bilingual education, Reagan proclaimed that it was absurd to have a bilingual education program that was adamantly dedicated to preventing immigrants from ever learning English proficiently and preparing for the job market (Romaine 5). In 18, U.S. English, Senator Hayakawas organization which was lobbying for a constitutional amendment to make the official language of the United States English, presented Congress with testimony against bilingual education. U.S. English recommended developing alternative methods of education for non-English speakers and suggested that the funds saved in doing so be allocated for improving and greatly expanding foreign language programs for American students at all levels (Hakuta 10). U.S. English chose a good time to present their case to Congress because bilingual education was then costing the government $18 million (Hakuta 08).

It is obvious that Americans who never learn to speak and write the English language will be very limited in the number of jobs they can hold. Non-English speakers will suffer economically and increase the economic depression of non-English speaking communities as a whole because of job limitations. Therefore, bilingual education will harm the economic situation of the people as well as the government.

Probably the worst aspect of bilingual education is the social isolationism. In his essay Caught Between Two Languages, Richard Rodriguez describes how uncomfortable he was as a child because he could not speak the public language. He describes how uneasy he was just watching his parents trying to communicate with people such as cashiers and service station attendants. Rodriguez was uncomfortable around all English speakers which included nearly everyone outside his own family (8-10). An Italian immigrant named Irving Child described similar experiences of isolationism. As Child was growing up, he was so frustrated by not being able to communicate with people outside his own family that he rebelled against his parents and other authority figures, blaming them for his isolated condition. After finally learning English and being accepted into society, Childs attitude towards his parents changed, and he became more submissive to authority (Hakuta 17-17). Rodriguezs and Childs experiences summarize the ordeals of many non-English speakers who are confined to their own families and are unable to integrate into the mainstream of the American society.

Further evidence of bilingual education promoting social isolationism is the current social situation in Montreal. Montreal is divided into two major ethnic-linguistic groups who have very few means of communicating with one another. Lambert describes an incident that occurred while he was studying bilingualism in Montreal. The event happened while he was on a bus sitting behind two English speaking French women and in front of two French speaking women. All of the French speakers on the bus were completely separated from the English speakers. Lambert heard one of the English speaking women say that she was paranoid when she heard French people laughing, afraid that they may be laughing at her (14).

Learning the native language of a country is especially important with respect to the attitudes of educators. Florence Goodenough, a well known researcher of bilingual education, collected data on foreign languages in the homes of immigrants from different nationalities. She showed a negative relationship between the amount of foreign language used in the home and the median IQ of the group. The less foreign language the subjects used and the more English used, the higher the IQ (Hakuta 7). Goodenough believes that her findings conclude that those nationality groups whose average intellectual ability is inferior do not readily learn the new language (Hakuta 7).

Similar studies showed that in urban areas bilinguals compared well with monolinguals in IQ tests. However, rural bilinguals scored poorly compared to rural monolinguals. The lower scores of the rural population are most likely a reflection of lack of opportunity and context to use and hear English (Romaine 10). Clearly there are many outside factors that influence test scores. However, so much judgement is placed on standardized IQ tests that in order for students to be easily accepted as intellectual equals, they must be exposed to the public language as much as possible.

Many feel that learning a second language can be detrimental to the human brain. Some research indicates that bilingual children take longer to name an object than monolinguals because they must take time to differentiate their first language from their second (Lambert 115). As mentioned earlier, bilinguals tend to score lower on IQ tests than monolinguals for various reasons. There are even some studies that conclude that monolingual students score better on performance and nonverbal tests than bilingual children (Lambert 11). However, it is only fair to point out that there is almost an equal number of studies suggesting that bilingualism has a positive effect on intelligence.

Some studies indicate that learning a second language exercises the brain and therefore increases the learners intelligence. Wallace Lamberts studies suggest that learning a second language increases ones cognitive skills (100). In many studies, bilinguals have achieved higher scores on performance and nonverbal tests than monolinguals. However, bilinguals naturally did not score as well on verbal tests. W.A. Stark, a researcher of bilingualism, concluded from one of his studies that early bilingualism may be an asset to the mental development of children (Lambert 114-116).

Of course there are studies which conclude that bilingualism has no effect on intelligence. One study conducted with the Italian-American students resulted in there being no conclusive differences between the scores of monolinguals and bilinguals on verbal, nonverbal, and performance tests. (Lambert 117). Another experiment conducted by Arsenian showed no variation between the intelligence levels of bilinguals and monolinguals on controlled tests (Lambert 118).

The existing research and test results are so contradictory that there seems to be no concrete evidence supporting positive or negative effects of bilingualism on the brain. Although different activists use this type of information to argue for or against bilingual education, such information is not really relevant to the question of bilingual education.

Another good reason for not allowing immigrants to be educated in their native language is that generally, learning a second language comes easier to a child than to an adult. Children learn a second language by rule formation. At an early age it is easier to learn these rules from the speech to which the children are exposed. However, adults tend to prefer learning these mechanical language differences at home in their restricted environments, using whole formulas rather than small general rules (Shapira 55). The problem for the adult learner is that the discourse of Adult-Adult conversation relies much less on immediate environment than Adult-Child or Child-Child interactions (Harley 1). Therefore, if someone has not had any encouragement to learn English during his childhood, and he waits until adulthood, the second language acquisition process will most likely be much more difficult.

Although many people shun the possibility of America ever converting to a bilingual society, the process has already begun in many areas. Certain areas of Miami, for example, have already broken down and changed their present system to accommodate monolingual Spanish speakers. In many fast-food restaurants both Spanish and English menus are provided. The local and state government have spent valuable tax dollars to create new highway and road signs in Spanish which have been posted next to the existing English ones. Not only has transportation given in to accommodating two languages, but county parks, newspapers, libraries, and other public facilities have given in as well. Parts of New York, Texas, and California have also experienced similar transitions. Hayakawa illuminated that...

Countless millions of immigrants successfully made the

transition from their native tongues to English and

became assimilated into the American mainstream. It

is condescending and insulting to single out todays

immigrants and suggest they cannot do the same (7-7).

American immigrants need English because they come from so many different speech communities, and the English language is their only passport to social and economic advancement. Monolingual education is needed to keep immigrants from being isolated and to keep them in good economic condition. In order to avoid conflicting cultural differences and possible uprisings, the United States needs to maintain its current monolingual education policy. Making English the official language of the United States may be the single most important aspect in maintaining American unity.

Works Cited

Hakuta, Kenji. Mirror of Language. New York Basic Books, 185.

Harley, Burgit. Age in Second Language Acquisition. San Diego, Calif. College Hill, 186.

Hayakawa, S.I. Why English Should Be Our Official Language. Language Awareness. New York St. Martins, 10 ed.

Lambert, Wallace E. Language, Psychology, and Culture. Stanford, Calif. Stanford, 17.

Roberts, Jane. Socioculture Change and Communication Problems. Study of the Role of Second Languages. Washington, D.C. Center for Applied Linguistics of Modern Language Association of America, 16 ed.

Rodriguez, Richard. Caught Between Two Languages. Language Awareness. New York St. Martins, 10 ed.

Romaine, Suzzanne. Bilingualism. New York B. Blackwell, 18.

Shapira, Loraine. Age and Bilingualism. Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, Mass. Newberry House, 178 ed.

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