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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.
在这个日益全球化的世界，会说两种语言当然比只会单一语言的人有着明显的实际好处。但近些年来，科学家们的发现开始表明，比起能够跟不同母语的人言语交流，双语还有很多更为重要的优势。事实证明，会说两种语言会让你更聪明。双语机制会对你的大脑有深刻的影响，能提高与语言无关的认知能力，还能预防老年痴呆。
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.
这种双语观点与20世纪以来人们对双语的理解有着显著差异。长期以来，研究者、教育家和决策者都认为第二语言是一种干扰，从认知角度来说，会阻碍儿童的学业和智力的发展。
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.
第二语言的干扰的确存在：有充分的证据显示，双语者只使用其中某一种语言时，他的大脑中的两种语言系统都很活跃，这可能会造成某一种语言系统阻碍另一种的情况。但研究者发现，这种干扰作用却并不是不利因素，反倒会使双语者因祸得福。这种干扰作用强迫大脑去解决内部矛盾，让思维得到更多的锻炼增强认知能力。
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.
例如，双语者在做益智游戏时就可能表现的单一语言者更熟练。约克大学的心理学家Ellen Bialystok和Michelle Martin-Rhee在2004年进行过一项研究，要求双语和单一语言的学龄前儿童将电脑屏幕上出现的蓝圈和红方块分别放置到是数字箱里：一个箱子上标记着蓝方块，另一个标记着红圈。
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.
第一个任务要求儿童根据颜色将形状分类：将蓝圈放到标记着蓝方块的箱子里，红方块放到红圈箱子里。两组儿童完成起来都相对比较轻松。下一步要求儿童根据形状将颜色分类，不过这个任务挑战性比较大，要求儿童将蓝圈和红方块分别放在标记着相反颜色的箱子里。双语儿童在完成这个任务时速度更快。
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.
许多类似的研究得到的证据足以证明，双语经历会提高大脑的所谓的“执行功能”：大脑的指挥系统，直接引导我们在计划、解决问题和完成其他各种思维任务时的注意力过程。这些过程包括忽略干扰集中注意力，有意识地在两件事情之间切换注意力，以及将信息储存在思维中。大脑的执行功能就像是在开车时记住一系列的方位。
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.
为什么两个同时活跃的语言系统间的角力会改善这些方面的认知能力呢?之前，研究者们一直认为双语的优势主要来自在压制一种语言系统的实战中得到强化的抑制能力：一般认为这种抑制力能够帮助训练双语思维来忽略其他环境的干扰。不过这种解释越发显得不够充分，因为有研究证实双语者在完成有些不需要压制功能的任务时表现得比单一语言者更出色，例如按照升序来将随意散落在纸上的数字串在一起。
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之间的关键差异可能要从更加基础的层面来分析：一种在监测环境中得到提升的能力。 “双语者需要频繁切换语言，可能跟爸爸交流的是一种语言，跟妈妈说话用的可能又是另一种。” 西班牙庞培法布拉大学的研究者Albert Costa这样表示。“这需要说话人不断追踪周围的变化，跟我们开车时时刻观察环境变化的道理一样。Albert Costa 和同事进行过一个关于德意双语者和意大利单语者在监测任务上的对比性研究，他们发现双语的受试者不仅表现得更出色，而且在进行监控任务时，大脑的活动行为更少，这表现双语者更有效率。
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).
从婴儿时期到老年，双语经历都会影响着我们大脑(不过我们有理由相信这也适用于那些后天发展出双语能力的语言者)。
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.
2009年在意大利的里雅斯特国际高等教育学院，研究者Agnes Kovacs进行了这样的研究：一组从出生就接触两种语言环境的7个月大的婴儿，与他们做对比的是另一组在单一语言环境中成长的宝宝。在实验的初期，研究者为婴儿提供一个音频提示，并在屏幕的一边展示一个布偶。两组婴儿都学会看着屏幕的一边期待木偶的出现。但在实验的后期，木偶开始出现在屏幕的另一边。双语环境中的宝宝们很快就学会将期待的目光转移到新的方向，而单一语言的宝宝们则不会。
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.
双语的影响会一直持续到晚年。圣地亚哥加州大学的神经心理学家近日组织44位西英双语的老年人进行研究，结果发现个体双语程度越高(通过对两种语言熟练度的对比性评估测算)，对痴呆和老年痴呆症的其他症状的抵抗能力就越强：双语程度越高，出现痴呆症的时间也越晚。
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?
没人会怀疑语言的力量。但谁又能想到，我们听到的单词、说出的句子会对我们有如何深刻的影响呢?
