Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neuroscience of multilingualism


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. (non-admin closure) Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 01:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Neuroscience of multilingualism

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I AfD'ed this over two years ago (Articles for deletion/Bilingualism (Brain)) and, there was no consensus to keep, but no consensus to delete either. Since then no substantive improvements have been made (even though the only argument to keep was 'maybe it can be fixed'), and it still has all the same problems. While WP has no deadline, it is also clear that this article is not going to get improved unless someone who knows WP's guidelines rewrites it from scratch. Since this article is still an essay, like it was last time, I again suggest that it be deleted. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep – A well-referenced article which will get attention from someone, I guess. Zia Khan 06:09, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Please note that I didn't nominate this because I thought it didn't have enough references. Number of references is a different issue than content. Having a pile of references doesn't change the essay nature of the article. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 10:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep, but rename (again):
 * (1) "Multilingual" occurs only twice in the body of the text. Most of the article and almost all of the references discuss the neuroscience of bilingualism. Since one can't assume that whatever holds of bilingualism also holds of n-lingualism, the juxtaposition of these two domains creates the impression of original research. Renaming the article "Neuroscience of bilingualism" and purging the article of references to multilingualism would be a simple way to solve the problem.
 * (2) The neuroscience of bilingualism seems to be a discrete field of research, as borne out by the ample references; it certainly passes the WP:GNG.
 * (3) The article's fundamental problem is the absence of organic continuity: it seems to be an "everything I've read about the subject" article, which is an organizational problem, rather than an OR problem. Ruthless cutting may be required.
 * (4) There seem to be a few isolated pockets of synthesis, e. g., in the section on "structural plasticity": these can be tagged or removed. Alexrexpvt (talk) 07:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Alex: I don't agree with changing from "multilingualism". Multilingualism and bilingualism are nearly interchangeable terms in this field, they are both used to describe research on mostly the same phenomenon. (There is some research specifically on e.g. trilingualism, but this is very little in comparison to most of what's out there.) To make a long story short, multilingualism means able to speak two or more languages, not three or more. In recent years there's been a shift towards talking about "multilingualism" rather than "bilingualism" because the term "bilingualism" kind of implies the U.S. perspective that the 'default' is to have one native language and if you're special you have a second language, whereas the reality is that many people acquire multiple languages early on and then learn additional non-native languages later, and they are not excluded from inquiry on "bilingualism". More broadly speaking, there is not a lot of evidence that learning a third or fourth or fifth language is much different than learning a second, whereas they are all different than learning a first; and likewise, there is not a lot of evidence that knowing three or four languages is a lot different than knowing two (but they're all different than knowing just one), so it's becoming more and more common to use "multilingualism" as a more inclusive term than "bilingualism". r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 10:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the crux of the matter is the ambiguity of "multilingualism": it's used both to denote both the class, i. e., speakers of 2+ languages, and as a synonym for a member of the class, bilingualism. The problem is that to get from research specifically focused on the latter to claims about the former requires either equivocation between the two senses of "multilingualism", or a synthetic leap, e. g., arguing that the scarcity of evidence that 3+-lingualism differs from 2-lingualism is proof (or tantamount to proof) that no such difference exists: the very leap you had to make in your argument. Such a leap might indeed be warranted for other reasons, but it has to be substantiated using reliable sources. The article as it stands moves from multilingualism in the lede and title to bilingualism everywhere else, with one exception, without clarifying the scope of multilingualism, and giving rise to an impression of original synthesis. My proposal then was merely the most expedient way to remove this ambiguity. It could also be removed by adding evidence that whatever applies to bilingualism also applies to 3+-lingualisms. Alexrexpvt (talk) 12:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, as I just said, bilingualism is multilingualism [being able to speak two or more languages]. So you can't say that a claim about bilingualism doesn't apply to multilingualism, because (once more for good measure) bilingualism is multilingualism. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 14:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I should make it clear that I didn't deny that bilingualism is a type of multilingualism in any of my posts. Perhaps my point was too obscure. Bilingualism, strictly speaking, is the ability to speak two languages. Multilingualism is the ability to speak two or more languages, that is to say, it includes bilingualism, trilingualism, quadrilingualism, etc. What's true of bilingualism is true of multilingualism only when multilingualism is used as an exact synonym for bilingualism; when used to denote the genus, rather than the species, i. e., to denote bilingualism and trilingualism and quadrilingualism and so on, then what's true of bilingualism is not necessarily true of multilingualism. To argue otherwise is either equivocation or a fallacy of composition. A chain of intermediate reasoning is necessary, which the article, and your argument, conspicuously omits. (Of course it's possible that you're reversing the order of the argument, and using bilingualism as a misleading synonym of multilingualism in the broad sense, but I see no evidence that this is characteristic of the way the word is used in the field).
 * At any rate, I think this debate is in danger of derailing the thread. I'm not wedded to the idea that the name must change. If anyone else thinks the name should stay as it is, I'll happily defer to their better judgement. Alexrexpvt (talk) 14:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep This is a well-written review article on the neuroscience of multilingualism (where, pragmatically, bilingualism is a subset of multilingualism), well cited, and with plenty of references. The references alone show this topic to be highly notable. Converting this to a more encyclopedic style will be a bit of work, but AfD is not for cleanup (see WP:NOTFORCLEANUP for details). The fact that there has been little work on the article recently is not relevant for AfD; there is no time limit for article improvement (see WP:NOTIMELIMIT for details). Mark viking (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see an over-reliance on primary sources and I think the article is slightly too technical, but I don't think this is a reason for outright deletion. A better option would be to give the article a good copy edit and to prune some of the content sourced to primary sources. If someone wants to rewrite this from the ground up that would be great, but they can always do that in a userspace sandbox - it doesn't follow that the article must be deleted first. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 14:33, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep. Very interesting subject and way too specialized to let (parts of) the content merge with other multilangualism articles.  Lova Falk     talk   08:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.