bilingualism

Topic description and stories

Mixed early progress highlights need for sustained support for pupils with English as an additional language

16 Jul 2020

Newly-arrived pupils who speak English as an additional language (EAL) often make ‘mixed’ linguistic and academic progress during their first years...

Postgraduate Pioneers 2017 #3

27 Oct 2017

With our Postgraduate Open Day fast-approaching (3 Nov), we introduce five PhD students who are already making waves at Cambridge.

Opinion: Speaking dialects trains the brain as well as bilingualism does

23 May 2016

Napoleon Katsos (Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics) discusses why speakers of two dialects may share cognitive advantage with...

Conversations by Steve McClanahan via Flickr

Speakers of two dialects may share cognitive advantage with speakers of two languages

27 Apr 2016

The ability of children to speak any two dialects – two closely related varieties of the same language – may confer the same cognitive advantages as...

Bilingual street name sign in Bangor, North Wales

Opinion: There are also drawbacks to being bilingual

26 Apr 2016

Tomas Folke (Department of Psychology) and Julia Ouzia (Anglia Ruskin University) discuss the cognitive disadvantages that may be associated with...

Opinion: Speaking in tongues: the many benefits of bilingualism

04 Nov 2015

Dr Teresa Parodi (Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics) discusses the linguistic, social and cognitive advantages of speaking more than...

GCSE Bengali students, Credit: University of Cambridge

Your languages, your future

07 Nov 2014

Research shows that children who speak more than one language have an advantage over their monolingual playmates when it comes to communication...

Unconscious language learning

03 Nov 2011

Unconscious learning could be the secret to speeding up learning a second language.

Making sense of language: learning across the lifespan

02 Nov 2011

Henriëtte Hendriks, Head of Cambridge’s newly formed Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, explains why linguistics – the scientific...