Bilingualism and Cognition

Based on the reading, intelligence is either an innate or acquired ability that an individual needs in order to accomplish something desired that influences their ability to learn, reason and understand. There are many factors that influence the intelligence of individuals that make it inaccurate to find one specific way of measurement. Baker and Wright mention how “the construct of intelligence and the use of intelligence test are controversial” (pg.134).  “A challenge to the construct of a single intelligence quotient is H. Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory, which includes eight different types of intelligence”(pg.134). Baker and Wright (2011) state that the IQ test correlates to middle class, white, Western views of intelligence and is culturally limited. I believe that there are many others researchers who demonstrate that measuring intelligence involves numerous factors that might affect an individual IQ test. It is, therefore, questionable to measure intelligence with a simple test.   I found two sample questions at http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-iq-questions.html  where I see how difficult this type of test can be for a person who speaks a different language. These are the following samples:

Sample 1- Find two words, one from each group, that are the closest in meaning:

Group A

talkative, job, ecstatic

Group B

angry, wind, loquacious

a. talkative and wind

b. job and angry

c. talkative and loquacious

d. ecstatic and angry

Answer: c. Talkative and Loquacious

Sample 2- Which of the following can be arranged into a 5-letter English word?

a. H R G S T

b. R I L S A 

c. T O O M T

d. W Q R G S

Answer: b. rails and c. motto

These kinds of questions are not accurate to use as a form of measurement among bilingual individuals because they use words that are not commonly used. For example, “loquacious” is not a commonly used word, but “talkative” or “chatty” are. As a bilingual, if I encounter a word I don’t know I would look for the root of the word to find its meaning, but this word is a word that implies research of the meaning. In the second sample, the same confusion arises just by looking at the amount of letters. It didn’t occur to me until much later that answers A and D could never be rearranged to spell a word in English because there are no vowels, and you need vowels and consonants together to create English words. I might come up with good answers, but we have to take into consideration the way other bilinguals perceive these types of questions.  To calculate the Intellectual Quotient in a bilingual person, I would be sensitive and consider many factors such as the level of bilingualism and the cognitive functioning as suggested in this chapter.