The Effect of Bilingualism on The Working Memory

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Introduction
Learning and memory are related to each other. So, people look at them as one issue. However, the specialists consider them two different processes. You can learn any language by living in the country in which the language is spoken or by studying it at school. Then, you can use your memory to speak that language by retrieving the words that you have memorized. Memory is important to learn anything. It helps you to store the information then you can use them in need. Our memory is not only one process. Psychologically, different kinds of memory are working in humans. Accordingly, different parts of brain are at work. Both memory and learning are depending on each other. So, we should know if learning two languages is going to affect our working memory or not.

Who is bilingual?
Bilingualism is a term which is difficult to be defined. There is no specific definition for bilingualism. One of the definitions is ‘the use of two languages ‘. This definition may include people who only have some expressions, for example, greetings, in the target language. The other definition includes those who have perfect control of both languages. Bloomfield defined the term bilingualism as “native-like control of two languages” (1933, P.55). Mackey has a different view, he defined bilingualism as “ the ability to use more than one language “ (1962, P.52). Weinreich (1953) defined bilingualism, in similar way to Mackey, as “the practice of alternately using two languages”.

Degrees of bilingualism
1- Balanced bilinguals
Lambert et al. who was the first one who used the term balanced bilingual to describe those who have native-like competence. Fishman (1972) argued that one can speak two languages fluently...

... middle of paper ...

...is to find if there is an effect of bilingualism on working memory.
Some of the studies showed that there is no difference in performance between bilinguals and monolinguals while the others showed that bilinguals did better than monolinguals.
I am agree with those who said that bilingualism affects working memory. I think bilingual participants, in those studies which showed that monolinguals are better than bilinguals, have an identical memory but they did badly because of the verbal tasks.
Bialystok (2009) said that it is better to use nonverbal tasks to compare the memory of monolinguals and bilinguals.
Bilingualism has an influence on the cognitive function. Hutchison said “ Other studies have demonstrated that bilingual children are better at planning and cognitive control. So, Bilingualism affects the working memory. (2010, P.54)

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