Antonella Sorace · 47 min
A world-leading linguist and mother of bilingual children dismantles decades of myth to reveal why every migrant's home language is a hidden superpower.
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Professor Antonella Sorace has spent her career dismantling one myth after another about bilingualism. The most damaging one is still the oldest: that bilingual children get confused, that they should learn one language first, that mixing languages means they do not know either one properly. She explains that when children mix languages, they are following grammatical rules and demonstrating knowledge of both. Mixing is not confusion. It is competence.
What Antonella has discovered through her research and lived experience raising bilingual children is that being bilingual rewires how you think. All your languages stay active in your mind at once, and managing them requires constant cognitive work. You cannot switch off a language. That effort carries into everyday life, shaping your ability to shift attention, adapt to change, and understand that other people see the world differently than you do. A bilingual child often grasps this perspective-taking earlier than a monolingual child, and that advantage stays with them for life.
But Antonella is also clear: these benefits are not automatic. They depend on exposure, on attitudes toward both languages, on whether the languages are similar to each other, and on context. Being bilingual means different things for different people. And she is frank about the scale of the challenge ahead. Without deliberate effort to maintain minority languages, without the right information reaching families and communities, about half the world's languages may be dead by the end of the century. The loss would be enormous. Language is not just words. It is culture, perspective, and a way of understanding what it means to be human.
“An adventure.”
“your native language is not lost. Depending on the circumstances, it may become less accessible temporarily as we said, but it doesn't mean that the language is lost.”
“people like myself who does research in this field, well, we have a special responsibility to make sure that research reaches people.”
The hero, today
Bilingual children who mix languages are showing knowledge of both languages, not confusion; mixing follows grammatical rules and is a sign of linguistic competence. Bilingual competence is not fixed; your access to each language depends on where you are, how often you use it, and the contexts in which you operate, and can shift even within a single day. A less-used language does not disappear; it becomes less accessible but can be reactivated through re-exposure to speakers and communities, and any changes made during your time away are often temporary. The benefits of bilingualism, such as better attention control and the ability to understand different perspectives earlier, are not automatic and depend on factors including exposure levels, attitudes toward both languages, and how similar the languages are to each other. Maintaining a home language is valuable regardless of its economic or political prestige, because it offers access to cultural diversity, cognitive flexibility, and the ability to see the world from multiple viewpoints, benefits that last throughout life.
Yes. Antonella Sorace is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Bilingual children who mix languages are showing knowledge of both languages, not confusion; mixing follows grammatical rules and is a sign of linguistic competence.
Bilingual competence is not fixed; your access to each language depends on where you are, how often you use it, and the contexts in which you operate, and can shift even within a single day.
A less-used language does not disappear; it becomes less accessible but can be reactivated through re-exposure to speakers and communities, and any changes made during your time away are often temporary.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 00:16
Hello and welcome to From There to Here, the podcast where we get real about what it takes to build a new life far from home. I'm your host, Emma Bellamy, and today I'm thrilled to present you with an episode centered around the fascinating and often misunderstood world of bilingualism. My guest is Professor Antonella Sorace, who's not just a world expert in the field, but also the founder of Bilingualism Matters at the University of Edinburgh. And what I love about Antonella is that she doesn't just focus on research and complex science. She has this amazing way of making her knowledge actually useful for parents, teachers, multilingual students, and anyone who's ever wondered how our brains handle more than one language. Okay, let's get into it and hear what our guest has to say. Antonella Sorrace. Welcome to the podcast From There to Here. I'm really excited to have a conversation with you about bilingualism, what it does to us, how it shapes the way we think, the way we express ourselves and connect to others. I have many questions, but the one I'd like to start with is slightly personal. You are the director of a network of language experts called Bilingualism Matters. But what I want to know is why does bilingualism matter to you? What's the personal story behind your life's work?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 02:00
First of all, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm very pleased to be here and have the opportunity to answer your questions. As for your first question, there are several reasons why bilingualism and language learning are important, have been very important in my life. One is personal reasons. I'm the mother of two bilingual children. My husband is American, and so we raised our children with Italian, which is my native language, and English, which is his language. And our children were born in Edinburgh, in Scotland. So I have some personal experience of all the joys and challenges of raising bilingual children. Also, I grew up in a heritage language environment. So my mother was from Sardinia. I wasn't born in Sardinia, but she spoke Sardinian with other people, not to me. Sardinian is another language, but she decided not to speak it to me because she didn't think it would be useful. But I heard enough of it that I can understand it, but I can't speak it. And this is typical of what happens in many minority languages. And the third reason, I do research on bilingualism and language learning. So I started from adult second language learning. But then I expanded my research to child bilingualism. So children learning languages either together, you know, as bilingualism from birth, but also later. So they start with one language and then they learn another at different stages of childhood. And in Edinburgh, we have a very good research group that does research on bilingualism over the lifespan. So from babies to older children, young adults, and much older adults. So all of these reasons motivated me to do something about society because as a mother, I realized how little people know. I knew already, but as a mother, I had the personal experience of dealing with misconceptions, people misunderstanding, people giving me the wrong kind of advice. And so I decided that People like myself who does research in this field, well, we have a special responsibility to make sure that research reaches people and research, you know, enables people to make informed decisions about their children, their students, their patients, their policies, you name it. Bilingualism is everywhere and people have to make decisions possibly not based on misconceptions. So that's where Bilingualism Matters started from.
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The benefits of bilingualism, such as better attention control and the ability to understand different perspectives earlier, are not automatic and depend on factors including exposure levels, attitudes toward both languages, and how similar the languages are to each other.
This conversation includes why bilingualism matters to her, the confusion myth, how mixing actually works, adaptability as a lived skill, why you can't switch off a language and a bilingual is not two monolinguals.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 04:48
Well, speaking of misconceptions, let's dive right into this because I know that bilingualism is grossly misunderstood or oversimplified. So would you mind telling us about the most common misconceptions that there are out there about bilingualism?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 05:08
I'll start from children. There are many misconceptions about children. And one of them is that a bilingual child is confused. So they hear more than one language and they don't learn any language properly. So many people think that it would be better to learn one language first and then introduce another one. So this is a very, very common misconception. Another misconception is that bilingualism might cause delays in other areas of development. So cognitive development and so on. So these are the most common misconceptions about children. About adults, many people think that if you're an adult, you can't learn a language well because your brain can't make it anymore. You have to be a child to learn a language very well. If you're an adult, you can't. So this is a very common misconception. I can say a little bit more about this if you want.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 06:07
Yeah, go on.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 06:09
So why are we talking about misconceptions? The idea of confusion is really wrong. So a child, even a very young baby, is very sensitive to some of the differences between the two languages. Long before they learn vocabulary, long before they learn grammar, they're sensitive to some sound distinctions between the two languages. They also become sensitive to different ways of moving your mouth, you know, different facial expressions that go together with speaking one language or speaking another language. And when they, mix language, but this is what worries many people. Oh, my child mixes languages and doesn't make any sense. Actually, mixing has rules. Mixing has a grammar. So it's not just taking a little bit of this language, a little bit of that language, and putting them together randomly. There are rules that show pretty good knowledge of both languages. And again, I learned this in research, but I also learned this through my own experience as a mother. When I saw, you know, the kind of words and the kind of sentences that my children started producing when they started using language, you know, and being able to produce. And it's really amazing. And it's the opposite of what people think. Mixing is a sign of confusion. It really isn't.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 07:37
Do you see them having a different behavior when they speak in Italian versus when they speak in English?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 07:44
They certainly adapt. And, you know, my children are not are not children anymore, so they are adults and they lived in the United States. They were born in Britain, but one of them lives in Italy, for example, and he can tell you the way he adapts to Italian behavior, Italian culture, Italian expectation. He's now aware of doing this. Obviously a younger child is not necessarily aware of doing it, but he became aware growing up with two languages. About these facts, about this adaptability. So I think that's very good because it really opens the mind in many ways. And this is one of the advantages that research has found, right? The ability to adapt to changes, the ability to control attention, for example, you know, paying attention to what matters and disregarding what doesn't matter. And then if you change task, if you switch from one task to the other, you have to be able to refocus attention. And this is something that bilinguals have been found by some studies to do better than monolinguals. And this is something that we use in our everyday life. We have to pay attention to what we do and we have to do it in an effective way. So this is one of the effects of bilingualism, potential effects of bilingualism, I should say. For our everyday life, whatever we do in life, we can benefit from this.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 09:19
Is it because we shift from one language to the other in our brain constantly, so we become more adaptable at shifting between frameworks or between other things, I guess?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 09:30
Yes. I mean, all languages are active in the bilingual's mind. Again, I'm using the term bilingual to mean more than one, because it could be 3 and 4, but let's use this simplified term. So all languages are active and you can't switch off a language in the morning because you don't need it. So every time you use one language, you have to push the other languages aside so that they don't interfere. And you'd have to do this to different extents. So if I'm speaking to my own sons, for example, I don't need to separate, you know, I speak Italian, but I can also, you know, switch, put an English word in the sentence because I know that they understand and speak both languages. So depending on the situation, you have to exclude, push away the languages you're not using. And this kind of linguistic behaviour is reflected in many tasks of our everyday life.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 10:31
That makes me think of something I struggle with. It's more about the social script. So in terms of vocabulary and grammar, I'm doing fine in English, but I still struggle with finding the right tone, finding the right level of casualness and warmth. For instance, in email, like, it's really hard for me to know whether I'm being too formal or too informal, and I wonder whether there is a scientific explanation behind that, or, you know, whether it's a common experience or whether it's just a bit weird?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 11:09
I would say it's a common experience also in our native language, right? I mean, you know, in our native language, we have to learn different registers. So depending on the person you're speaking to, you use different terms. You speak in a more formal or less formal way. If you learn to write, obviously you learn the modality of the written language and so on. So this is something that we normally do in our native language. Now, can you do it to the same extent in a non-native language? The short answer is yes, but potentially you have less experience of doing this in the non-native language, depending on, you know, where you are. Now, I think I can write better in English than in Italian because I have much more experience of writing in English. I learned to write in Italian, but I have much more experience now over the years of writing in English. And so I would say that I feel more confident in writing in English than writing in Italian. And this leads to another very important point, that bilingual is not the sum of two monolinguals. The different levels of competence and use of the two languages can change. It changes not only over time, depending on where you are, where you live, what you use your languages for, but also in our everyday life. I mean, it depends on who we are talking to, what we're talking about, where we are. So the different levels of knowledge, of competence of our languages can change, can change actually quite often, even during the day. We shouldn't expect a bilingual to behave like two monolinguals in one. This is another big misconception.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 13:00
I like that. So it's not really about the knowledge of the language, but it's about the social use of the language, how much knowledge you have about using that language in a specific context. So I guess that the difficulty is coming from my lack of exposure to different social situations.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 13:20
Exactly. I mean, it depends on your life circumstances, obviously. If we grew up with the language, we have more experiences of dealing with a range of situations, but then if you move to a different environment, like myself, for example, you get used to slightly different ways of behaving, of talking about things, of interacting among people. And being bilingual also involves, again, adaptability, the ability to adapt to different circumstances, both within the same day, but also over time.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 13:55
And something you said that I thought was interesting is that you can't really deactivate a language in your brain. But at the same time, I feel that now that English is my dominant language and I don't use French as much, that I'm completely forgetting my French. Whenever I send a vocal message to a friend, I can't find my words. I'm using some weird sentences. It's just off, you know? So what causes that? What is the explanation behind it?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 14:25
Well, the explanation is that, you know, access to each of your languages depends on again, where you are, how often you're using it, and so on. So if you're fully immersed in a second language environment, you know, like yourself, for example, myself, then the second language becomes more accessible. It doesn't mean that the first language is inaccessible for good. If I move back to an Italian environment, my Italian is reactivated. It comes to the surface. And so I quickly readjust to the Italian language and ways of dealing with people, expectations and things like that.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 15:07
Yeah. So it's not lost.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 15:09
No, your native language is not lost. Depending on the circumstances, it may become less accessible temporarily, as we said, but it doesn't mean that the language is lost. In fact, we study what happens in First-generation speakers, you know, like ourselves. So people who were born and raised with one language, then they move to another environment. So what happens to the native language? The native language starts changing in the first generation in very specific ways. So it's not that, you know, it changes randomly. There are certain aspects of grammar that are more likely to change. And then these changes are temporary because if the person moves back to the original environment, these changes are reversed. Now, what's very interesting is that these changes may have an effect on second-generation people. So the Italian that my sons heard from me is not exactly the same Italian that I heard when I was growing up in Italy. Precisely because of these changes. So what we're interested in is what happens across generations. If a language is spoken across generations—many languages are not anymore, we can come back to this—but if a language is spoken to the next generation, then that language is likely to change. Maybe not very visibly, very noticeably at the beginning, but these changes can accumulate over time. And this could be one of the reasons why languages change over time. If a language is alive, it changes. If a language doesn't change anymore, it's dead. So this is another very interesting aspect of bilingualism, of research. It tends to be misinterpreted, like many others. You lose your native language if you learn another language. No, you don't lose it. And in fact, you know, it can be reactivated. By re-exposure to the original community.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 17:13
But you know, the fact that it changes, it makes me think that as a migrant, when you come back to your country of origin and the language changes, it's like there is a sense of unfamiliarity that comes with it. You may express yourself in a way that is outdated.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 17:31
It could, you know, but you readjust very quickly. This is part of adaptability to change. This is part of the, you know, the ability to quickly adjust to wherever you are, to the environments where you are. Okay.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 17:45
So this seems to be the biggest benefit for bilinguals. Do you have any other benefits that we can talk about?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 17:55
First of all, I'd like to say that these benefits are not automatic and they're not found in every single study. I think this has to be clear that until recently, research was based on comparisons between bilinguals and monolinguals. And we researchers increasingly think that this is not the right thing to do. First of all, being bilingual can mean many different things because there are many different ways of being bilingual, many different kinds of bilingual experience. And so depending on the kind of bilingual experience that someone has, they may be more or less likely to experience these beneficial effects and so on. That's one thing. And the other thing is the comparison with the monolingual, it's becoming more and more unrealistic. First of all, because there are fewer and fewer monolinguals. When I say this to people, they say, "Oh no, I know many people who don't speak any languages at all." But we are surrounded by languages. You know, people move around, you know, there's much more mobility, globalization, and so on. So there are some studies that show that even being exposed to language variation in languages that you don't understand can have an effect on the brain that we still don't understand very well. We need much more research. On this, but bilingual communities, multilingual communities, growing up in a community where you constantly see people speaking other languages, even if you don't understand them, that makes you less monolingual, right? So being in a classroom, I remember we did a study years ago on more multilingual classrooms with children who were aged about 10 and less multilingual classrooms, and we gave tests, you know, linguistic and cognitive tests, and we discovered that monolingual children in more multilingual classrooms were actually learning languages better, and they showed differences compared to monolingual children in less multilingual classrooms. So again, that means passive exposure. So we should really give up the idea of a monolingual, you know, as the point of reference. We should compare different kinds of bilingual experience, different ways of being bilingual or multilingual. And that, you know, will tell us when these beneficial effects that we were talking about are more likely to appear. We need a lot more research on understanding how these different factors influence the possibility of having these beneficial effects. And we shouldn't expect these benefits to be automatic. They can be there, but we can work to create contexts that are more likely to lead to these beneficial effects.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 20:59
So currently we don't have enough research on the different groups of bilinguals. I guess it happens on the spectrum, right? It's not a binary either-or. Exactly, exactly. What are the other bilingual groups that you are referring to? So we have those who are passively exposed to bilingualism, and then what are the other groups?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 21:22
There are many factors that may affect you being bilingual, more or less bilingual, including how much exposure you have to both languages. Again, I'm simplifying to two languages, uh, it could be more. Attitudes. If you're surrounded by negative attitudes about one of your languages, about being bilingual, you're less likely to benefit from it because you're less likely to use it, you're less likely to feel confident about it, and so on. So this is definitely one factor. Another factor that we don't fully understand is whether you speak two similar languages or two very different languages. And so we know that these benefits can be found not only in prestigious languages, but also in minority languages, normally called dialects or varieties, you know, and so on. But the factor typological similarity, how similar the languages or the varieties are, this is not fully understood. So am I more likely to get these beneficial effects if I speak, say, Italian and Mandarin, or if I speak Italian and Spanish? So this is one of the many open questions questions that we need to address.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 22:40
I never thought about that. So there is one thing I want to cover as a person who lives in an English-speaking country. English is a dominant language, and so I think for many migrants who live in an English-speaking country, there is this idea that their native language is somehow not useful. It's really something to abandon rather than a strength. So what is for you the advantage to speaking a non-dominant language? Because I feel that often we equal the value of a language to its ability to compete, you know, to compete in a capitalistic world. And so what's the value of speaking a non-dominant language language beyond this capitalistic frame of, I need to compete in the world?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 23:34
Right. I'll try to be brief about this. I could go on for a long time. This is why we are doing public engagement with Bilingualism Matters, right? We try to reach people, making them more confident about using their home language, for example, their first language, you know, with their children. And there are many reasons for this. One is the potential benefits. That we mentioned, but also being bilingual means being bicultural. And so maintaining, you know, knowledge of cultural diversity is a good thing. And this applies to all languages regardless of their prestige, because what makes a language prestigious and desirable is the degree of political and economic power of the country that is associated with that language. So English wasn't the dominant language, the desirable language until 100 years ago because of the different political scenario in the world, right? Chinese Mandarin is becoming a very desirable language because of the prominence of China in international politics and so on. But that doesn't mean that minority languages are less important. Or less useful. So we tell people who have a home language different from the language of the environment that they are very lucky. They are very lucky and they should invest in maintaining their language because not everybody has another language. And so, you know, maintaining the language is an advantage for themselves, for their children if they have children, for the environment in general. Because of these potential benefits, but also because having more than one language opens the mind in particular ways, and that can only be positive. So it's about the culture, really.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 25:29
It's about the ability to understand another cultural world. Yes.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 25:36
I was going to say one of the potential benefits that has been found in research is also the ability to, in children in particular, the child needs to understand that it is possible to have a different point of view, a different perspective on things. This is something that all children have to get, whether they are bilingual, monolingual, and so on. They all get there because a young, very young child, the baby is very egocentric in a way because they are unable to see that people can't share the same perspective. Both visually but also more generally. So they have to get there, but a bilingual child tends to get there earlier because they understand that not everybody's bilingual. They have to choose the right language depending on who they're talking to. And so this linguistic experience is then expanded outside the linguistic domain and leads to a better ability, an earlier ability to understand that other people can have a different perspective, other people can have a different point of view. And that is something that stays with you for life in adults and obviously can be an advantage in many ways for many kinds of jobs. And we often talk to business people, right? Business tends to be done in English. I mean, English is the international, the global language, but we also say if there are other languages in the background, Well, you may actually understand where a proposal comes from. You may be able to negotiate around the table more effectively because you have a better understanding of what lies behind a particular proposal. So this is one of the many reasons to maintain a home language and obviously maintaining bicultural attitudes, you know, maintaining cultural differences is very important.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 28:46
That makes me think, what can we do as a society to better encourage linguistic diversity?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 28:55
It's interesting, I was at an international meeting yesterday where we were talking about this in many ways. From my point of view, information is essential. So making sure that people have the right kind of information about what it means to be bilingual, multilingual, and getting rid of these misconceptions the old misconceptions, some of the new misconceptions that I haven't mentioned so far, but some people now are thinking that, you know, yes, if you're bilingual, you don't get Alzheimer's, for example, you don't get dementia, which is not true, unfortunately. But research shows that there may be a delay in the first symptoms of dementia. If somebody is genetically predisposed to get this disease, they get it. But bilingualism may be one type of experience that delays the emergence of the first symptoms. Or a child is more intelligent if they have more than one language. This is also not true. We are not talking about intelligence. We are talking about adaptability to change. We're talking about the ability to understand other points of view, the ability to behave in a more effective way, you know, depending on where you are. But no, we're not talking about intelligence per se. So we have to work together to get rid of these misconceptions. And we think that information is essential. As an academic, we have responsibility. We have a special responsibility to make sure that research reaches people also because we benefit from this. Research benefits from this. We understand how bilingualism works much better by going to particular contexts, talking to different people. So it's not just them benefiting from interacting with us. It goes both ways. We do better research by doing public engagement. So information is essential. Another very big issue that is being discussed more and more is artificial intelligence, you know, and the existence of models and systems that can be very useful on the one on the one hand, right? They provide more sources of data or opportunities to hear the language, particularly minority languages. But there are lots of challenges, lots of challenges. And I don't do any work in this particular area, but I have colleagues who do. And benefiting from automatic speech recognition systems, for example, involves having lots of data. Lots and lots of data. Now, those data are there for majority languages, of course, you know, English is a good example, but they're not there for minority languages. And so many minority languages can't be represented that way, can't be helped yet by artificial intelligence because there aren't enough data to build these very large models. And so ultimately, can we stop the disappearance of minority languages? I think the most optimistic view that we can have now is that we can delay it. Whether we can stop the disappearance, I think more and more languages will die. I was at a meeting at UNESCO recently, and they said that by the end of this century, about half of the existing languages may be dead. Because they're not spoken anymore, because they're not transmitted from one generation to the other. And AI can't really help the vast majority of these languages. So the end of this century is 3 generations, 3 generations, and then half of the existing languages in the world will be dead. And that is a very big loss for humanity.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 38:21
And what's the thing that you could say to bilinguals or aspiring bilinguals to motivate them as much as possible to become more well-versed with different languages? Do you have something that they need to know in order to motivate them?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 38:38
Well, they need to know that if they have more than one language, they're very lucky and they should invest in maintaining this luck, this privilege. They should know that having more than one language opens the mind in many different ways. Regardless of the age. And so maintaining languages and maintaining active bilingualism in a realistic way, which means you don't need to be perfect in more than one language. You can live your life in a more positive way if you have more than one language.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 39:12
What's the book or the article or the content that you'd like to recommend today?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 39:17
There are several books, but it is possible to find references to books and other things on the Bilingualism Matters website. But otherwise, Bilingualism Matters, Cambridge University Press.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 39:30
Okay, so this is basically the science behind bilingualism?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 39:35
It's open to non-academics. It's a book for people who want to have an introduction into the research on bilingualism. But I think, you know, the Bilingualism Matters website is also a very good source of information.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 39:51
So is there a guest, perhaps a bilingual guest that you would like to hear on this podcast?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 39:58
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 27:33
Yeah, it's interesting what you say about the earlier empathy because you say it's about perspective, but empathy as well, right? So is it as well that you can have a deeper empathy as an adult, or it's only about the temporal element, having an earlier ability to put yourself in another person's perspective?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 27:54
Well, there is a developmental aspect, right? As I said, in children, there are some studies that show that children get there earlier than monolingual children. But this is a potentially an ability that stays with you for life and can benefit adult behavior in many different contexts, in the family, work, professions, you name it. So this is one of the reasons that we tell people, yeah, you are very lucky. You should maintain your language. We tell that to children as well. We go to classrooms and we say, "How many of you speak another language?" And they raise their hands. And then we say, "I'm going to tell you how lucky you are." And we explain these things in a way that children can understand. And once you get them on board, they have all kinds of questions. It's really amazing.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 32:55
What do you think is going to be the consequence of linguistic homogenization?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 33:02
A big loss for humanity, right? The loss of cultural diversity, the loss of the opportunities also to benefit from switching from one language to the other that we were talking about before, a more homogeneous way of thinking, which can't be a very good thing. So when I say a loss for humanity, I really mean it. And is there anything that we can actively do? I think there's something that we can do to delay this process. Whether we can stop it, I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 33:37
You know, it's funny, when you were talking about AI, I would have thought that AI actually would enable to have more cross-cultural communication taking place. But by the sound of it, there is also the danger of it encouraging more linguistic homogenization. So which of the two do you think is more probable?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 34:03
Both of them are there at the moment. Well, one of the very common questions that we get asked by people is, "Can I learn a language through Duolingo?" Or "I'm trying to learn Japanese through Duolingo. Is that a good idea?" And of course, you know, we say yes, I mean, Duolingo can help, but what you also need ultimately is human interaction. So being able to communicate with real people, being able to have a real conversation where, you know, you can't predict what is coming next and they can't predict what is coming from you, and you can actually build a suitable conversational environment, and that helps, you know, acquisition, that helps language learning. These AI systems, they can't replace human interaction.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 34:54
But on that, actually, I don't know if you've seen, but there are these new apps where you have an AI that has a human appearance and you have a conversation with them that is also unpredictable. Like it can go in so many directions. So I feel that you can actually get the same thing that you would get from a human interaction.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 35:18
Yes, certainly there is a lot of progress going in that direction, particularly, as I said, with majority languages, not so much with minority languages for the reasons that I mentioned before. Idealistically, it would be nice to have AI that can provide some kind of an ideal environment for minority languages as well. But that is much more difficult to achieve for now. Then let's hope for the best, you know, science evolves all the time.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 35:50
So Antonella, do you have a final word of wisdom or an advice that you would like to give to migrants who don't perhaps perceive their bilingualism as a strength?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 36:04
Yes. First of all, I should say that we also encourage adults to learn languages. Many adults think that it's too late, they are not good enough, particularly in countries like Britain or the United States where there are majority languages. And so people tell you, "I'm terrible at languages. I can't learn languages." But in fact, we have to persuade them that first of all, yes, that there are individual differences, you know, like in many other subjects, but it is possible to learn a language well enough. To benefit from being bilinguals, acquiring bilingualism later in life. So it's a very good investment of time and it can be fun as well. So I think this is really very important. And also it would make migrant adults more confident in raising bilingual children, passing on their home language, but also being confident that they can learn the majority language and they can participate in their child's learning the new language. This applies to literacy, for example. This is another very big issue at the moment that UNESCO is dealing with. For example, literacy is important in both generations, parental generations and children's generations. But obviously being literate and introducing literacy in the home language is actually very positive, very important for family communication, but also because it introduces, it can be an advantage for the child before they go to school in the majority language. So this is another misconception. People think, oh, but if my child has to learn to read in English, how, if they learn to read in Italian, that's a disadvantage. No, it's not. Introduction to literacy in one language can benefit literacy in other languages as well. So I think we have to join forces to deal with these issues. I mean, this is my philosophy. The more of us who work together from different perspectives, different kinds of expertise, the more we can create an environment where something positive happens.
That's not an easy question.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 40:02
Perhaps your colleague that does research that intersects bilingualism and AI.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 40:08
Yes. I have a colleague who works on the effects of AI on GALIC Gaelic is one of the minority languages spoken in Scotland. Yeah. And he's done a lot of research on that. His name is William Lamb, and I can put him in touch with you and he may be interested.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 40:29
Yeah. So he would be an expert at understanding the impact of AI on minority languages?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 40:35
Also majority languages, but he works in particular on maintaining Gaelic. Which is his minority language. He's actually American with a background in Gaelic, and now he lives here and he's very committed to working on Gaelic and maintaining Gaelic.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 40:53
Yeah, keeping it alive. So I have two questions that I usually ask my guests at the end of the interview, and I'm going to tweak them slightly for you. So the first one is when I say the word migrant, but in your case, bilingual migrant, what words instinctively come to mind?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 41:12
An adventure.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 41:15
I like that.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 41:16
Yeah, it's an adventure. It can be a positive adventure, but it can be a challenging adventure as well, both linguistically, culturally, and in many other ways. There are obviously different kinds of migrants from very different backgrounds, and with Bilingualism Matters, we try to reach Most of them in different ways, obviously, but you know, the idea is to enable them to understand their adventure, their situation, and enable them to make better decisions.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 41:52
Yeah. So an informed adventure is what you want to provide them.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 41:55
Yes. Yes. Yes. I like it.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 41:59
And the last question that I have is usually around identity and belonging, but In your case, what I'd like to ask is how does bilingualism impact a person's sense of identity and belonging?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 42:17
In many different ways, I guess, you know, because not everybody is the same. So we come from different backgrounds and we have different social backgrounds, the situations and so on. So again, I think that being bilingual contributes to the perception of being aware of differences, but also hopefully being able to adapt to differences in a constructive way. Not everybody's able to do that. And if you're not able to do that, you know, you might actually have a problem.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 42:54
But I think sometimes the need to adapt makes you feel a bit in between because you have access to two different worlds or more if you speak more languages. And so you never really completely feel like you are 100% like this group.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 43:13
Yeah, that's a common feeling as well, but there's a negative side and a positive side. You know, the negative side, you don't belong, you feel you don't have a place. On the other hand, you don't belong because you're not exactly like this or exactly like that, but you can adapt. Again, adaptability. If adaptability is perceived as the positive side, then it can only encourage people to continue to be bilingual and to understand the benefits of having more than one language, more than one culture in the background.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 43:48
And do you know what makes a person more or less adaptable to, you know, shift back and forth between two cultures, two languages? Are there personality traits or other factors that make a person more or less inclined to be adaptable in this way?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 44:07
Of course, there are many other factors. And as I said at the beginning, you know, we don't fully understand how these different factors interact. Interact. Of course, the kind of experiences one has up to a certain point play a role. If one has had bad experiences, then those experiences are likely to condition what comes in the future. So we can't generalize, but we can try to encourage people to think positively about their being bilingual, bicultural, and adaptable.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 44:39
Okay. So for people who want to get in touch, where can they contact you? Where can they follow your work?
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 44:45
They can contact me at the University of Edinburgh, but they can also contact me through Bilingualism Matters. Email is the easiest to get in touch with me, but also Bilingualism Matters, they can have a look at the website and fortunately I'm not the only person who works at Bilingualism Matters, so there will be others, you know, colleagues and people ready to help. But I'll be very, very pleased to hear from people. Because I said, you know, I'm very curious and very receptive to people's experiences. And as I said, we can learn a lot from each other just by communicating with each other.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 45:27
Yeah, they can give you some research ideas, actually. Absolutely. Yeah. Antonella, it was amazing to have a conversation with you and understand bilingualism better because, you know, it's something that even when you are a bilingual, it's so hard sometimes to make sense of your experience, why you are experiencing certain things. So I wish that I could have stayed with you for much longer because there are so many other things that I wish I could have explored with you, but everything that you said really really made me understand what it means to be bilingual much better than I had previously. So thank you for educating me and educating the audience that is listening to us today.
Antonella Sorace (Guest) · 46:09
Thank you for giving me this opportunity, and I hope that we'll continue to be in touch. We have to work together to make a change.
Emma Bellamy-Dodd (Host) · 46:23
Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Antonella and the insights she has shared. If you did and want to help us grow, make sure you follow us and show us some love with likes and stars in the ratings. Your support helps more than I can say. Next week, I will be interviewing Serena Low, a migrant from Singapore who has built a community around introverts and quiet achievers. She will be focusing on what it means to be an introverted migrant. I was your host, Emma Bellamy, and I cannot wait to bring you on another journey from there to here.
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