Category Archives: Humanities and Social Sciences

Bilingualism and cognition: Myths, mysteries and methodological nightmares

This post was contributed by Ariadni Loutrari, a NewRoute PhD Student in the Department of Applied Linguistics

Birkbeck’s Department of Applied Linguistics celebrated its 50^th Anniversary by hosting a talk by Dr Thomas Bak on the cognitive benefits of bilingualism and relevant methodological issues.

Dr Bak studied medicine in Germany and Switzerland, obtaining his medical doctorate with a thesis on acute aphasias at the University of Freiburg. Apart from his clinical experience, he has conducted research on embodied cognition and the relationship between language and movement in neurodegenerative diseases.

More recently, his research has been focusing on the influence of bilingualism on cognitive functions across the lifespan and in dementia. He has been the president of the World Federation of Neurology Research group on aphasia, dementia, and cognitive disorders since 2010. Dr Bak shed some light on critique on bilingualism research and gave us an insight into the cognitive benefits of bilingualism.

Starting from a historical overview, our guest speaker referred to the fact that it was only after the ‘80s that more positive views on bilingualism were expressed. In the past, bilinguals were thought to have a disadvantage due to conflict and confusion between language brain areas and those linked to other cognitive functions.

The talk addressed a number of critiques against bilingualism research. For instance, lack of theoretical underpinnings has been considered one of the weaknesses of research on bilingualism. However, Dr Bak reminded us of the fact that scientific breakthroughs of the past with significant benefits for humanity lacked a theory.

Fierce criticism against bilingualism research also comes from the hypothesis that confounding variables can influence the interpretation of its cognitive effect. Immigration has been thought to be such a case, as cognitive benefits of bilingualism can be alternatively attributed to factors related to immigration.

The work of Dr Bak and his colleagues in places where bilingualism is not the result of immigration shows that this variable does not seem to be a confounding variable in bilingualism research.

When it comes to research on bilingualism and cognition the question inevitably arises as to whether bilingualism leads to better cognition or better cognition leads to bilingualism. Dr Bak touched on this reverse causality issue by presenting data from one of his recent studies in which he and his colleagues managed to control for childhood intelligence.

An intelligence test that English native speakers living in and around Edinburgh took in 1947 was repeated in 2008-2010. Results pointed to a positive effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition. This conclusion had to do both with early bilinguals and those who acquired a second language in adulthood.

Dr Bak also referred to transfer-generalisation of knowledge emerging as a result of bilingualism, as bilingualism can have a positive effect, for example, on the auditory domain in general. That is, being bilingual can help an individual perform better on tasks that are not language-specific, leading to the conclusion that by learning a language, one learns more than they actually think they learn.

Being multilingual with teaching experience in seven languages, Dr Bak delivered an enlightening talk on the benefits of bilingualism, presenting robust research findings and methodological innovations that overcame hurdles of previous research in the field.

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Further reading:

Bak, T. H., Nissan, J. J., Allerhand, M. M., & Deary, I. J. (2014). Does bilingualism influence cognitive aging? Annals of Neurology, 75, 959-963.

Bak, T. H., Vega-Mendoza, M. & Sorace, A. (2014). Never too late? An advantage on tests of auditory attention extends to late bilinguals. Language Sciences, 5, 1–6

Mortimer, J. A., Alladi, S., Bak, T. H., Russ, T. C., Shailaja, M. & Duggirala, V. (2014).Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status, Neurology, 82, 1938–1944.

Arts Week 2015: Scribblers

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This post was contributed by Steve Waters, playwright for stage, radio and screen, and also senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

A script-in-hand performance of his new radio play, Scribblers, will be performed during Birkbeck Arts Week 2015 at 43 Gordon Square on Monday, May 18 at 7.30pm. The play charts the stormy relationship between two real life characters: young playwright Henry Fielding and the First Minister Robert Walpole.

Ahead of the sneak-preview performance on May 18, Steve offers some insights into the creative spark behind his latest theatrical work.

Scribblers’ developed out of a mystery. I was looking into the notorious Theatre Licensing Act of 1737 with which in effect Robert Walpole used to extinguish an increasingly virulent culture of theatrical satire and noticed in Hansard, published a century later, there was mention of a particular play which provoked Walpole to use the power of the law against playwrights.

This play, ‘The Vision of the Golden Rump’, was apparently brought to Walpole by theatre manager Henry Giffard; yet despite Horace Walpole’s assertion that he saw it amongst his father’s papers, no trace of it has ever been found, nor has it authorship been established.

Yet the target of the law was clear – Henry Fielding, who we now know as a great novelist, but who then was famous for his amazingly bold and inventive satirical plays which were staged outside of the safe circuit of the licensed stage, in the semi-legal world of theatres such as the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.

But on closer inspection Fielding’s reputation as arch critic of Walpole’s tired Whig government was also more complicated. Wasn’t this the playwright who’d written a sycophantic preface to his innovative drama ‘The Modern Husband’, lavishing praise on Walpole who elsewhere he sent up as a dodgy butler (in ‘The Grub Street Opera’) or as the source of all political corruption in ‘The Historical Register of 1736’?

In pondering these mysteries, and looking closer at the fascinating interplay between stage and state in the 1730s, the play emerged as a tale of patronage and revenge. It begins with Fielding thrown on the mercy of Walpole as the Great Man fears he is about to lose his position under the new king; and we see Fielding attempt to bend his wild talents to please power – but in his failure, we see the birth of a radical stage where the truth is voiced whatever the consequences.

Yet whilst my heart is with Fielding I was also compelled by the figure of Walpole, Britain’s first ‘Prime Minister’, who lived and died a political animal and presided over the gradual throttling of the bold ideas of 1688. Walpole shaped a world of politics which resembles our own in its fast-track between money and influence, its paranoia and defensiveness.

So out of these mysteries emerged SCRIBBLERS, a vivid and all too familiar world of writers, theatres and politicians….it’s a comedy that gets darker as it proceeds; and a fable about art and power that I hope illuminates our times as well as revealing this fascinating moment in our past.

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Arts Week 2015: ‘Invisible’ philosopher Zambrano brought into focus

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The work and legacy of Spanish philosopher and essayist, Maria Zambrano, will be explored in a two-day conference at Birkbeck, University of London, next week.

Her philosophical standpoints and impactful writing will be discussed during Birkbeck Arts Week at a conference – Maria Zambrano amongst the Philosophers: A Reconsideration – held in Birkbeck’s School of Arts, Gordon Square, on Thursday 21 and Friday 22 May. Places at the free-to-attend conference are still available.

Zambrano (1904-1991), who was associated with the Generation of ’36 movement of artists, poets and playwrights who worked at the time of the Spanish Civil War, wrote extensively on the theme of what she called “poetic reasoning”.

Influenced by philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, Zambrano’s work often reflected on hope and the importance of the divine in human life. She was exiled from her motherland by dictator Francisco Franco during the Civil War, but eventually returned to Madrid in 1984.

While considered by many to constitute one of the most original contributions to 20th Century thought, Zambrano’s work remains largely unknown to Anglo-Saxon academia – a factor which the conference seeks to highlight.

During the conference, five panels of scholars will discuss different aspects of Zambrano’s philosophical connections to 20th Century thought. Keynote speeches opening and closing the event will be delivered by Professors Roberta Johnson (University of Kansas) and Ricardo Tejada (Université du Maine, Le Mans).

Scholars attending the event will hail from France, USA, Belgium, UK, Spain and Sweden. During the conference there will also be a book launch of Zambrano’s Complete Works in Spanish, presented by its editor.

Dr Mari Paz Balibrea Enriquez, senior lecturer in Modern Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, who is coordinating the conference, said:

“This conference aims to spark interest in an intellectual who remains largely invisible to the Anglo-Saxon academia. Zambrano has a lot to offer to scholars, not only in philosophy, but in the Humanities as a whole.

“Her work speaks to a wide range of intellectual fields. She produced the kind of seminal work that can productively illuminate fields and approaches of enquiry ranging from democracy, totalitarianism, feminism, exile and diaspora or memory. And yet, her voice is oddly absent from most of those discussions as they take place in the English-speaking world.”

Maria Zambrano amongst the Philosophers: A Reconsideration runs at the Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square on Thursday, May 21, and Room GORB04 on Friday, May 22. Both days run from 8.30am to 5.15pm

The conference is part of Birkbeck Arts Week, which runs in and around Bloomsbury from Monday 18 to Saturday 23 May. To book a free place at the event, and to view the full programme of Arts events, visit www.bbk.ac.uk/artsweek.

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Arts Week 2015: Precariousness in Latin American Cinema

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Radical approaches to precariousness and violence in Latin American Cinema will be showcased in a stunning quartet of contemporary films from Brazil and Colombia which will be screened at Birkbeck, University of London.

Realisms of Precariousness, a three-day series of free-to-attend screenings which push the boundaries between fiction and documentary, will run from Monday 18 to Wednesday 20 May at the School of Arts (43-47 Gordon Square) in the heart of Bloomsbury.

The screenings form part of Birkbeck Arts Week – the College’s annual arts and culture showcase. This year’s programme boasts more than 40 lectures, performances, workshops and discussions.

Realisms of Precariousness will feature the following cinematic works:

Exilados do Vulcão by Paula Gaitan (Brazil). A reflection on veiled time and emotions, on memory finding its path. (Monday 18 May, 6pm-9pm, Birkbeck Cinema)

Otto by Cao Guimaraes (Brazil). A film about about alterity, the intimate, the portrait, the image as devotion. (Tuesday, 19 May, 2pm-5pm, Keynes Library)

Colombian double feature (Wednesday, May 20, 6pm-9pm, Room B04, 43 Gordon Square):

Señoritas by Lina Rodriguez (Colombia). The picture goes up in flames when the girl performing at Señoritas walks on the streets. A certain fragility of the everyday is broken.
Mambo Cool by Chris Gude (Colombia). We are in a land of images and ‘exile´ where swing and sabor are well known. Something drowns at the same time that flashes like lightning – and emerges as a source of life.

The Realisms of Precariousness series – which comes as a result of collaboration between Hambre and Colombian Film Panorama with the support of the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS) at Birkbeck – will also feature Q&A opportunities via Skype with the film makers, and an opportunity for attendees to discuss the status of current Latin American filmmaking.

Sebastian Wiedemann, Florencia Incarbone and Geraldine S. Kobilanski from Hambre, who have curated the screening series said Realisms of Precariousness aims to show a hidden reality, without excluding the absurd seriousness of violence or the essential poetics of precariousness.

Paula Bohórquez from Colombian Film Panorama said: “The series deals with the question of identity and gathers alternative views of some Latin American realities. Each work, in its own way, breaks the canon expected from films of certain geographies, by separating its stories from stereotypes and socio-political contexts.”

Realisms of Precariousness is part of Birkbeck Arts Week, which runs in and around Bloomsbury from Monday 18 to Saturday 23 May. To book a free place at the screenings, and to view the full programme of Arts events, visit www.bbk.ac.uk/artsweek.

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Birkbeck Arts Week

School of Arts

CILAVS

Realisms of Precariousness

Notes

Hambre is an observatory and laboratory dedicated to research, discussions and the production of critical and sensitive thought by contagion and through connections with experimental cinema(s).

Colombian Film Panorama showcases Colombian documentaries and fictional films and creates relevant film programmes for London audiences