观点碰撞
过 去研究者认为，因为两种语言相互干扰，双语会负面影响孩子的智力发展和学业。双语学习的孩子两种语言的发展确实都滞后于单语孩子。塞翁失马，焉知非福，双 语相互干扰迫使大脑不断试图解决内部冲突，这种锻炼最终使大脑的执行控制功能（executive function)更强更。执行控制能力包括诸如 专注力（stay focused），解决难题能力 （solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks）， 对不同事物注意力的自如转换（switching attention willfully from one thing to another），大 脑存留信息的能力（holding information in mind)等等。
以下是纽约时报原文（中英文版）：
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
在日益全球化的今天，说双语显然比只会说单一语言有更多实际的好处。但近几年，科学家们通过研究发现掌握两种语言比广泛交际更为重要。研究表明，掌握双语，能让人更加聪明。它会对你的大脑有深远的影响，不仅能提高语言之外的认知技能，甚至能防
止老年痴呆。
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
这个观点与20世纪大多数人对双语的了解截然不同。从认知方面来说，研究人员、教育工作者和政策决策者长久以来认为第二语言是一种干扰，阻碍孩子的学习和智力发展。
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
诚如他们所言，第二语言确实是种干扰：大量的证据表明，即便双语者只使用一种语言，其大脑中两种语言的系统都是活跃的，这就会导致一种语言系统干扰另一种 语言系统的情况。但塞翁失马，焉知非福。研究人员发现，这种干扰并无大碍。它会迫使大脑解决这种内部的矛盾，锻炼思维，强化大脑中与认知功能相关的肌肉。
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a 2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
比 如，双语者相较于单一语言者而言，更长于解决心理方面的困惑。2004年心理学家艾伦*比亚维斯托克和米歇尔*马丁瑞共同开展一项研究，分别要求双语和单 一语言的学龄前儿童对电脑屏幕上蓝色圆圈和红色方块进行分类，将它们分别放进两个数码储物箱——这两个储物箱上分别有蓝色方块和红色圆圈的标记。
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
在 项任务中，孩子们被要求按照颜色进行分类，把蓝色圆圈放进印有蓝色方块标记的储物箱里，红色方块放进印有红色圆圈的储物箱里。两组孩子都相对轻松地完 成了这个任务。接下来，孩子们又被要求根据形状分类。这个任务更具挑战性，因为要把图案放进印有相反颜色的储物箱里。掌握双语的孩子在完成这项任务时更迅 速。
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
从 许多类似的研究中得出的大量证据表明，双语的经验会提高大脑中所谓的“执行功能”，即大脑中的命令系统，引导意识的加工形成，进而用于制定计划、解决问题 或完成其他各种各样智力方面的任务。这个意识加工过程包括忽略旁杂事物，保持专注，任意地把注意力从一件事物上转移到另一件，并在大脑中存留信息——比如 驾驶时，能记忆一系列的方位。
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition? Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
为 何同时活跃的两个语言系统之间的矛盾会提高这些认知方面的能力呢？直到近，研究人员才认为这种优势主要来源于大脑的阻断能力。这种能力经过大脑压制另一 语言系统的活动而得到磨练：这种压制被认为会帮助训练双语者的思维，忽略在其他情况下旁杂无关的事物。但自从研究表明，双语者即便在完成不需要运用大脑阻 断功能的任务时也能比单一语言的人更好时，这种解释便愈发显得不充分。比如将一条线穿过随意分散在页面上的数值上升的数字时，他们也能完成得更好。
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
双 语者与单一语言者的主要差异也许更加本质：具备更强的监测环境的能力。“双语者不得不经常转换语言——可能和父亲谈话用一种语言，和母亲谈话用另一种语 言，”西班牙庞培*法布拉大学的研究人员艾伯特*科斯塔说道。这就像我们开车时要监测周遭的环境一样，他们需要持续追踪周遭的变化。在对德意双语者和只会 意大利语的人进行的研究中，研究人员对他们大脑的监测能力进行比较。科斯塔和他的同事们发现，双语者不仅表现得更好，甚至能在大脑中负责监测功能的部分不 那么活跃的情况下也能完成得更好，这代表他们这部分的大脑功能比单一语言者更加。
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
双语经验似乎从婴儿直到老年时期都会一直影响大脑（而且有理由相信，这种影响也会对那些后来才学习第二语言的人同样适用）。
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
在 2009年，由意大利的里雅斯特国际研究学院研究人员阿哥内斯*科瓦奇主持的一项研究中，研究人员将生活在双语环境下的7个月大婴儿与生活在单一语言 环境下的婴儿进行对比。在一套初步的试验中，婴儿们会听到声音提示然后看见屏幕上的一侧出现木偶。两组婴儿都学会看荧幕上的那一侧，希望能瞧见木偶。但在 接下来的一套试验中，当木偶出现在屏幕上相反的一侧时，生活在双语环境下的婴儿很快就学会转换到新的凝视方向，而生活在单一语言环境下的婴儿则不能。
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
双 语影响甚至能延伸到晚年。在近的一项研究中，研究人员对44名年老西班牙、英语双语者进行研究，在圣地亚哥加州大学的神经心理学家他玛*高兰的主持下， 通过对他们的每种语言熟练程度进行相对评估，科学家们发现拥有更高程度双语能力的人，相较于其他人，更不易患上痴呆症或阿尔兹海默氏的其他症状：双语程度 越高，发病年龄越迟。
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
从未有人质疑过语言的力量。但又有谁曾想过，我们听到和说出的字句会留下如此深刻的烙印？
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a staff writer at Science.
余和吉特*巴塔查尔吉是《科学杂志》的特约撰稿人
