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Subject-specific and task-specific characteristics of metalinguistic awareness in bilingual children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sylvia Joseph Galambos  and
Kenji Hakuta
Sylvia Joseph Galambos*
Affiliation:
Yale University
Kenji Hakuta*
Affiliation:
Yale University
*
Board of Studies in Education, Merrill College, UCSC, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Board of Studies in Education, Merrill College, UCSC, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
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Abstract

The relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic awareness was explored in Puerto Rican Spanish- and English-speaking children. All subjects were from low-income backgrounds and were enrolled in a transitional bilingual education program in the United States. Two longitudinal studies were conducted. The first study examined the abilities to note and correct ungrammatical sentences in Spanish. Subjects were 104 children in first and second grade at the beginning of the study. They were followed over a period of 2 years. The second study looked at the ability to detect ambiguity in sentences, and to paraphrase the different meanings. There were 107 subjects who were in fourth and fifth grades, and were also followed over a 2-year period. The results from both studies indicated that native language proficiency as well as the degree of bilingualism affected metalinguistic awareness. The results also indicated that these effects interacted with the types of items in the metalinguistic tasks. This suggests that both subject-specific and task-specific factors are important in understanding the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic awareness.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 141 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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