Effect of Bilingualism on Creativity–An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Bilingualism is the process of knowing or using two languages with equal or nearly equal fluency. Research evidences have suggested that cognition specifically creativity is affected by the process of learning one or more languages. In this context, the current study was aimed to investigate the creative abilities of bilingual and monolingual adolescents. A total of 24 participants (12 monolinguals and 12 bilinguals) were considered for the study. Four verbal subtests from the Passi test of creativity and two nonverbal subtests of creativity developed by Veena and Bhavani (2002) were administered on the selected participants. The responses obtained from both the groups were scored as per the instructions provided in the manual of the tests. The scores were averaged across participants of both the groups and were subjected to statistical analysis. The results of the present study revealed that bilinguals outperformed the monolinguals in all the subtests of creativity which indicated that the bilinguals were more creative than monolinguals. There was a definite advantage of bilingualism on the creative abilities of the individuals considered in the study. The results of this study helps us to refine our understanding of the thought process in bilingual individuals and may contribute towards reframing the notion in people’s mind that bilingualism hampers the development of the child. Further research is warranted considering a large sample of subjects, in different languages, in different age groups and in different types of bilinguals to discover the exact relationship between bilingualism and creativity