Anusha EPQ

 As I have been researching the topic of "Bi/Multilingualism" more in depth, I realise how complex and unique this practice. There are many factors which contribute to this topic and there is a lot of peer-reviewed, academic research that I can use for my project. As I realised there are many sub-topics to my main topic, I decided to make a list of all the main concepts I want to research more and eventually include in my final dissertation. - general structure of the brain ( how it is divided, the role of the different areas ) - general development of the brain ( how age affects its structure ) - how the brain is affected by language in general and which parts of the brain contribute to language and speech - bi/multilingualism throughout history ( when it came first, how it developed, how it is contributing to society now ) - bi/multilingualism in children ( how it affects development of brain, is there a difference from the monolingual brain, good effects or bad ) - how it ...

  The first concrete proof of multilingual communication is linked back to Sumerians on clay tablets ( 2600 BC ) and Ancient Egypt with administrative documents in Demotic, Greek, Latin, Coptin and Arabic. We can see that talking in different languages wasn't just reserved for professional texts as there is a lot code switching in Cicero's personal letters ( 100 BC ). In the middle ages we can see the hand-on multilingualism, where people only knew the basics of different languages which helped with trading with different merchants. Only after the period of Renaissance ( 1300 ), society started to highlight rationality increasing grammar and structure for each language. After this period it was about perfecting the languages, both spoken and written, which privilege was reserved for the elite. This shows how before the Renaissance knowing different languages was quite common among working class people however perfecting them was never goal ; the focus was on efficient communic...

 In the last month, I tried to research about the multilingual/bilingual brain to come up with a rough title. As this is my first time researching about a topic in so much depth, I got overwhelmed with the amount of information online. This made me struggle with my EPQ and I started to think about other topics I could be interested in.  I started to brainstorm some ideas, such as brain tumours and brain related surgeries, but none of them convinced me. I believe this change of plans was caused by me focusing on adjusting to my other a level subjects and a lack of planning ahead.   This made me realise that I have to improve my organisation skills and have a platform for planning my EPQ.  I wrote down some other ideas I had, and my original topic, and I tried to come up with some rough title for each idea. At the end, I chose to stick with my original topic as I am most interested in this and my change of heart was caused by my poor research skills. To improve my...

My first aim is to :   develop my scientific knowledge on the structure of the brain As I plan to have a future career related to the human biology, I aim to learn more about this subject and specifically how the brain works generally and in relation to language. I also hope that the knowledge I gain from this project will help me in the future with my university studies. My second aim is to :  develop my reading and analysing skills by examining academic papers I believe this skill will be really useful at university as my course will be research oriented and it will help me get familiar with the different peer-reviewed websites and university websites.  My third aim is to :  understand primary research and develop the skill of organising and executing primary research I plan to organise and execute some primary research in which I can learn about personal experiences of being bilingual and multilingual. Also, as a multilingual myself, I would like to learn more abo...

I joined this course with the idea of researching about languages and how people can learn and process multiple languages. As a trilingual person, I was always curious about how the multilingual/bilingual brain worked so when I learnt about this course, I knew I wanted to pursue it and focus on this topic.  When I first started, I didn't know whether to focus on the social lifestyle of a multilingual person or the biological side of their brain. I made a couple of mind maps on both perspectives, which photos I will put down this post, and at the end I decided to focus on the biological side more but also include some social side of it if they are correlated. Of course, this decision could change in the future but for now my research is going to be focused on the multilingual brain's structure.