双语让儿童更有创造力

Bilingual children outperform children who only speak one language in problem-solving skills and creative thinking, according to research led at the University of Strathclyde.

斯特拉斯克莱德大学的一项研究表明，双语儿童在解决问题的能力和创造性思维等方面，都比单语儿童要更优秀。

A study of primary school pupils who spoke English or Italian- half of whom also spoke Gaelic or Sardinian- found that the bilingual children were significantly more successful in the tasks set for them. The Gaelic-speaking children were, in turn, more successful than the Sardinian speakers.

对说英语或意大利语的小学生-其中有一半还会说盖尔语或撒丁语——进行的研究表明，双语儿童明显比单语儿童更能成功地完成任务。而会说盖尔语的儿童比会说撒丁语的儿童则要更加成功。

The differences were linked to the mental alertness required to switch between languages, which could develop skills useful in other types of thinking. The further advantage for Gaelic-speaking children may have been due to the formal teaching of the language and its extensive literature.

双语儿童和单语儿童之间的差异主要是与在语言间转换所需的思维敏捷性有关，这种思维敏捷性会促进养成一些对其他类型思维方式有用的技能。而会说盖尔语的儿童更有优势，这可能是因为这种语言进行了正式讲授并存在着大量的文献。

In contrast, Sardinian is not widely taught in schools on the Italian island and has a largely oral tradition, which means there is currently no standardised form of the language.

与之对比，撒丁语在意大利小岛撒丁岛上并没有在学校里得到广泛讲授，大多是靠口头传授的，也就是说，现在这种语言还没有进行标准化。

Dr Fraser Lauchlan, an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde's School of Psychological Sciences & Health, led the research. It was conducted with colleagues at the University of Cagliari in Sardinia, where he is a Visiting Professor.

弗雷泽·劳克伦博士是斯特拉斯克莱德大学心理科学与健康学院的名誉讲师，他是该项研究的负责人。该研究是他在撒丁岛卡利亚里大学做客座教授时和那里的同事一起进行的。

Dr Lauchlan said: "Bilingualism is now largely seen as being beneficial to children but there remains a view that it can be confusing, and so potentially detrimental to them.

劳克伦博士说："现在基本上都认为双语对孩子有益，但是仍有观点认为，双语会让孩子混乱，对他们有着潜在的不利影响。"

"Our study has found that it can have demonstrable benefits, not only in language but in arithmetic, problem solving and enabling children to think creatively. We also assessed the children's vocabulary, not so much for their knowledge of words as their understanding of them. Again, there was a marked difference in the level of detail and richness in description from the bilingual pupils.

"我们的研究发现，双语有着显而易见的好处，这不仅仅体现在语言上，它对算数、解决问题或创造性思考等方面都有益处。我们也对孩子们的词汇进行了评估，对词语理解的评估内容比对词语了解的相关内容要多一些 。双语儿童在描述的细节和丰富程度上，再一次体现出了显著的差异。

"We also found they had an aptitude for selective attention- the ability to identify and focus on information which is important, while filtering out what is not- which could come from the ‘code-switching' of thinking in two different languages."

"我们发现他们有选择性注意的倾向，他们有发现并关注重要信息而忽略不重要信息的能力，这可能来自两种语言不同思维的‘代码转换'。"

In the study, a total of 121 children in Scotland and Sardinia- 62 of them bilingual- were set tasks in which they were asked to reproduce patterns of coloured blocks, to repeat orally a series of numbers, to give clear definitions of words and to resolve mentally a set of arithmetic problems. The tasks were all set in English or Italian and the children taking part were aged around nine.

在研究中，共有121名儿童，他们分别来自苏格兰岛和撒丁岛——其中62名是双语儿童。给这些儿童布置了一些任务，要求他们重现彩色方块的图案、口头重复一串数字，对词语给出清晰的解释，并只通过思考来解决一系列算数问题。任务都是用英语或意大利语说明的，参与的儿童年龄在9岁左右。

During the research, Dr Lauchlan's post at the University of Cagliari was funded by the Sardinian Regional Government (Regione Autonoma della Sardegna). he study has been published in the International Journal of Bilingualism.

在该研究中， 劳克伦博士在卡利亚里大学的职位是由撒丁岛地区政府赞助的。该研究已发表在 《国际双语研究》上。