Thirty Country Experts and Core Scientific Research Team European Union Commisioned

 The study was conducted during the period May 2008-June 2009 on 27 EU member States including Norway and Turkey.  It is an analysis of scientific literature, from different European and International researches on the brain and multilingualism.  Input taken from 30 Country Experts and a Core Scientific Research Team was set against five hypotheses, specified by the European Commission.

Pluralingualism refers to the ability to use several languages to varying degrees and for distinct purposes is defined in the Common European Framework for languages(Compendium on Contribution of Multilingualism to Creativity,p.162)as the ability “to use languages for the purpose of communication and to take part in intercultural action, where a person viewed as a social agent, has proficiency of varying degrees, in several languages and experience of several cultures”. This ability is concretized in a repertoire of languages a speaker can use.(Council of Europe,2007:17)

 Multilingualism as used in the study is the ability of societies, institutions, groups and individuals to engage, on regular basis, with more than one language in their day- to-day lives.  The language learner becomes plurilingual and develops interculturality. The linguistic and cultural competences in respect of each language are modified by knowledge of the other and contribute to inter-cultural awareness, skills and know –how.

 There is a link between multilingualism and creativity.  Multilingualism broadens access to information.  Multilingualism offers alternative ways of organizing thought.  Multilingualism offers alternative ways of perceiving the surrounding world.  Learning a new language increases the potential for creative thought.

 Methodology :  Analysis of literatures on researches on multilingualism and the brain.  Data were collected from different literatures on research on multilingualism and the brain which brings out creativity among individuals.

Research conducted within neurosciences offers an increasing amount of strong evidence of versatile knowledge of languages being beneficial for the usage of the individual’s brain.(David Marsh,2009) Six main areas where multilingualism and mastery of complex processes of thought put one in advantage: Complex thinking and creativity, mental flexibility, interpersonal and communication skills and possible delay in the onset of age- related mental diminishment later in life

 The enhanced memory can have a profound impact on cognition function.  It was assumed in earlier studies that differences in the brain would only occur if a person is bilingual or trilingual, that is with a very high command of different languages as compared to monolinguals.  One of the studies gathered by the CSRT, from Coggins, kennedy and Armstrong,2004, monolinguals and bilinguals exhibited significant differences in the corpus callusom in particular.

 The corpus callosum is involved in several functions of the body including:  Communication Between Brain Hemispheres  Eye Movement  Maintaining the Balance of Arousal and Attention  Tactile Localization

 The research suggests that changes in the brain’s electrical activity may happen even at the start of new language learning. 

 The Flexible mind about extending the capacity to think. It is called an “adaptable mind’.  ‘ It can be argued that speaking more languages brings cognitive benefits which may be associated with increased use of the brain. One of possible spin off benefits is creativity,’(Tokuhama-Espinosa,2008:93)  Bilinguals and multilinguals see the world through different lenses.

 The Problem-solving Mind  Language processing in the bilingual or multilingual mind will differ from the monolingual mind because there is more than one language to use at a given time.  Is having a multilingual executive function a form of cognitive asset which could enhance the potential for creativity?

 Bialystok (2007) Multilinguals recruit executive functions of controlling attention to more than one language system in order to maintain fluent performance in one of them. Moreover they can even manage two or more language systems.  Colzato et al. (2008) stated that bilinguals have acquired a better ability to maintain action goals and to use them to bias goal- related information.

 Bilinguals tend to be better in problem-solving which is cognitively demanding.  Knowing more than one language may help the brain sharpen its ability to focus. Managing two languages helps the brain sharpen — and retain — its ability to focus while ignoring irrelevant information.  Research revealed that when engaged in highly demanding problem-solving tasks, bilingual students outperform monolinguals.  The Multilingual mind may be better at multitasking. Some problem solving tasks and processes include processes that leads to creativity.  “lingusitic and scientific creativity is enhanced by bilingual language proficiency.”(Kessler& Quinn 1987)

 The Learning Mind Every learning process can be seen as a creative process. This is called the “emergence phenomenon”.  Episodic memory  Semantic memory In all our experiments in a research made by Kormi-Nouri et al.(2008), a positive effect of bilingualism was found on episodic and semantic memory tasks. The bilingual advantage was not affected by changing cognitive demands or by using first/ second language in memory tasks. The research they made support the cross-language interactivity hypothesis.

The Interpersonal Mind  Learning through the medium of a second language enhances the communication awareness of the first language.  Linked to language awareness and the types of metacognitive competence which can be developed when a person has more than one language.(Haritos,2005)  Multilingualism is reported as helping to nurture interpersonal communication. This suggests that it tends towards multi-skills in interpersonal communication thus, can have a bearing on the potential or craetivity.

 Cognitive research associates bilingualism with heightened mental flexibility and creative thinking skills, enhanced metalinguistic awareness, and a greater communicative sensitivity.(Lazaruk, 2007)  It is viewed as one human phenomenon which can have a positive impact on a region’s talent because people think differently as a result of their bilingualism or multilingualism.

 The Ageing Mind  Speaking more than one language may have cognitive benefits that extend from childhood to old age.(BilingualBrain:2008)  Changes in the executive function and working memory resulting from knowledge of more than one language may slow down the rate of decline of certain cognitive processes as a person ages.  Cognition can be enhanced thus, providing a protective function, due to neural plasticity, compensatory use of alternative brain regions, or enriched brain vasculature.

 Knowledge of more than one language points to the expansion of certain types of human potential, including the potential for creativity.  Thinking, learning, problem - solving and communicating which are knowledge-steeped skills used in our daily lives can be enhanced through multilingualism.  There is room for improvement in language education. Children should be encouraged to engage in higher order thinking.

 Learning a language separately is less effective than learning it across the curriculum.  The results of the study and analysis of different studies on the brain and multilingualism show that it is likely that multilingualism produces a special advantage in utilizing a person’s brain capacity as creatively as possible.

Study on the Contribution of Multilingualism on Creativity.Europublicsca/cva.Compedium Part.Multilingualism and Creativity: Towards an Evidence-base. EU. July 16, Language and the Human Mind.Ask.com retrieved:Nov.18,2013.

Thanks for listening. Merry Christmas!