Bilingualism and Creativity

Throughout the history of human civilization, numerous attempts to understand human creativity have been made. Interest in human creative capacity has never ceased, and contemporary creativity researchers are still debating the nature of creativity. One of the mainstream research paradigms, the creative cognition approach, asserts that geniuses use the processes of normative human cognition. Mundane cognitive functioning goes beyond everyday human capacity and satisfies criteria of creative products: novelty and utility. Yet there is no doubt about the existence of individual differences in creativity. Some individuals produce more creative outcomes than others, and a limited few achieve extreme levels of accomplishment. Although the creative cognition approach admits these differences, they can be understood as variations in the use of specifiable processes and of the richness and flexibility of stored cognitive structures to which the processes are applied. Thus, creativity is perceived as a complex and versatile construct that may be effectively studied by examining the variety of processes and functions involved in a creative work. The methodological application of this paradigm constitutes a psychometric approach in which creativity can be studied using the conventional tools of experimental psychology.

The creative cognition approach postulates that there are cognitive functions employed in everyday problem solving that facilitate creative thinking. There is a meaningful argument in literature that bilingualism may encourage the use of certain functions and processes that subsequently have an influence on creativity. Therefore, a particular interest of the researchers investigating the problem of creativity is devoted to the possible contribution of bilingualism to creative thought. Although there is an apparent theoretical controversy in defining the term bilingualism, bilinguals are generally perceived as individuals who are fluent in two languages, and individuals who actively use, or attempt to use, more than one language, even if they have not achieved fluency in their second language. Contemporary research shows a tendency for bilinguals to outperform their monolingual counterparts on various tests of creative thinking. This entry discusses the relationship between bilingualism and creativity in children and adults. Following the creative cognition approach, it looks at the specific factors in bilingual development that facilitate particular processes and the functioning underlying creative thinking. Further, it discusses the methodological problems in bilingualism and creativity research. It ends with a discussion of the contribution of this research to education.