It seems that being bilingual is a good thing - and in particular it seems that bilingualism is good for the brain, as jumping between languages challenges the brain.
The ability to do jumping between languages is a called 'code switching. And code-switching means: jumping between different registers, different voices and different languages.
Looking at all of this, Gill Ragsdale of the E L Gazette explores the findings of recent research and asks:
Your language or mine?
Code switching taxes the brain.
Bi – or multi-lingual speakers sometimes alternate between different languages when conversing – even within a single sentence. This is ‘code switching’ and tends to come at a cost paid in time and/or accuracy. The mental flexibility to code switch efficiently is influenced by several factors such as the level of proficiency in the different languages and the time available to prepare the switch...
Overall, stronger languages were processed more efficiently, and while all code switching had a cost, switching from a more to less proficient language was more costly than vice versa. Thus, multilingual speakers are constantly adjusting their brain activity depending on timing and language dominance and these results pave the way for further research into how such demands are managed.
Here's the full study which she refers to: An ERP Study on the Neural Mechanisms of Code-Switching Processing Among Chinese-English-Japanese Trilinguals | Journal of Psycholinguistic Research | Springer Nature Link
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