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Metalinguistic awareness and its relationship with academic language proficiency: a comparative study of bilingual and monolingual children
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Type
Thesis
Abstract
This comparative study examines metalinguistic awareness and its relationship with academic language proficiency in Singaporean primary 3 English-Chinese bilingual children (n = 390) and monolingual Chinese-speaking children from mainland China (n = 190).
By investigating three components of metalinguistic awareness (i.e., phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and syntactic awareness), the present study seeks to extend current theoretical understanding of metalinguistic awareness in three directions. Firstly, the bilingual advantage proposed in Bialystok’s Analysis and Control framework is verified by comparing bilingual children who are learning two typologically distant languages (English and Chinese) in Singapore with monolingual Chinese-speaking children. Secondly, the concurrent involvement of different components of metalinguistic awareness in academic language proficiency is investigated in these two groups of children. Thirdly, the cross-linguistic relationship between metalinguistic awareness and academic language proficiency in Singaporean bilingual children is explored in light of Cummins’ Common Underlying Proficiency and Developmental Interdependence Hypotheses, in which he proposes that skills acquired in one language can be utilized in learning another language.
Comparable tasks in English and Chinese were administered to examine the children’s metalinguistic awareness as manifested in phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and syntactic awareness. Correspondingly, comparable tasks were used to measure the children’s academic language proficiency in the following areas: vocabulary, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and composition competence in English and/or Chinese. According to Bialystok’s Analysis and Control framework, bilingual children have more chances to develop higher levels of control of attention due to their access to two language systems, and consequently may outperform their monolingual peers on metalinguistic tasks that place a high demand on control of attention, but not necessarily on those requiring high levels of analysis of linguistic knowledge. However, the present study did not bear out this prediction, as the results support Bialystok’s claim about analysis of linguistic knowledge, but not her claim about control of attention. The bilingual children did not perform better than their monolingual peers on tasks that demanded high levels of analysed knowledge, which may be attributed to the influence of formal schooling and language exposure. For tasks that required high levels of control, no consistent superior performance was found in the bilingual children.
The present study also gives a more complete picture of the relationship between various components of metalinguistic awareness and academic language proficiency. For the Chinese-speaking monolingual children, all three components of Chinese metalinguistic awareness contributed significantly to Chinese vocabulary, among which Chinese morphological awareness and syntactic awareness accounted for much more variance than Chinese phonological awareness. For the other three Chinese academic language proficiency tasks (i.e., Chinese reading fluency, Chinese reading comprehension and Chinese composition competence), Chinese syntactic awareness was found to be the only significant predictor.
Concurring with the trends observed in the monolingual children, results showed that for the Singaporean bilingual children, Chinese phonological awareness contributed a small but significant variance only to Chinese vocabulary. In contrast, the bilingual children’s Chinese morphological awareness and syntactic awareness were good predictors not only for Chinese vocabulary, but also for the other three Chinese academic language proficiency measures. In terms of the within-language relationship between English metalinguistic awareness and English academic language proficiency in the bilingual children, all three components of English metalinguistic awareness concurrently predicted unique amounts of variance in all English academic language proficiency measures, with English morphological awareness and syntactic awareness accounted for the major share of the variance.
Furthermore, the results from SEMs lend strong support to Cummins’ Hypotheses by demonstrating a robust cross-linguistic association of metalinguistic awareness in the bilingual children. Metalinguistic awareness appeared to serve as a common underlying competence that supported academic language proficiency in both English and Chinese. In addition, home language use significantly predicted not only metalinguistic awareness in both languages but also Chinese academic language proficiency.
Taken together, these findings indicate that children’s performance on metalinguistic awareness tasks and the relationship between metalinguistic awareness and academic language proficiency are shaped and mediated by language experience and other factors such as formal instruction, language features, and language learning environment. Educational policies and pedagogical instruction should take these factors into consideration.
By investigating three components of metalinguistic awareness (i.e., phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and syntactic awareness), the present study seeks to extend current theoretical understanding of metalinguistic awareness in three directions. Firstly, the bilingual advantage proposed in Bialystok’s Analysis and Control framework is verified by comparing bilingual children who are learning two typologically distant languages (English and Chinese) in Singapore with monolingual Chinese-speaking children. Secondly, the concurrent involvement of different components of metalinguistic awareness in academic language proficiency is investigated in these two groups of children. Thirdly, the cross-linguistic relationship between metalinguistic awareness and academic language proficiency in Singaporean bilingual children is explored in light of Cummins’ Common Underlying Proficiency and Developmental Interdependence Hypotheses, in which he proposes that skills acquired in one language can be utilized in learning another language.
Comparable tasks in English and Chinese were administered to examine the children’s metalinguistic awareness as manifested in phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and syntactic awareness. Correspondingly, comparable tasks were used to measure the children’s academic language proficiency in the following areas: vocabulary, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and composition competence in English and/or Chinese. According to Bialystok’s Analysis and Control framework, bilingual children have more chances to develop higher levels of control of attention due to their access to two language systems, and consequently may outperform their monolingual peers on metalinguistic tasks that place a high demand on control of attention, but not necessarily on those requiring high levels of analysis of linguistic knowledge. However, the present study did not bear out this prediction, as the results support Bialystok’s claim about analysis of linguistic knowledge, but not her claim about control of attention. The bilingual children did not perform better than their monolingual peers on tasks that demanded high levels of analysed knowledge, which may be attributed to the influence of formal schooling and language exposure. For tasks that required high levels of control, no consistent superior performance was found in the bilingual children.
The present study also gives a more complete picture of the relationship between various components of metalinguistic awareness and academic language proficiency. For the Chinese-speaking monolingual children, all three components of Chinese metalinguistic awareness contributed significantly to Chinese vocabulary, among which Chinese morphological awareness and syntactic awareness accounted for much more variance than Chinese phonological awareness. For the other three Chinese academic language proficiency tasks (i.e., Chinese reading fluency, Chinese reading comprehension and Chinese composition competence), Chinese syntactic awareness was found to be the only significant predictor.
Concurring with the trends observed in the monolingual children, results showed that for the Singaporean bilingual children, Chinese phonological awareness contributed a small but significant variance only to Chinese vocabulary. In contrast, the bilingual children’s Chinese morphological awareness and syntactic awareness were good predictors not only for Chinese vocabulary, but also for the other three Chinese academic language proficiency measures. In terms of the within-language relationship between English metalinguistic awareness and English academic language proficiency in the bilingual children, all three components of English metalinguistic awareness concurrently predicted unique amounts of variance in all English academic language proficiency measures, with English morphological awareness and syntactic awareness accounted for the major share of the variance.
Furthermore, the results from SEMs lend strong support to Cummins’ Hypotheses by demonstrating a robust cross-linguistic association of metalinguistic awareness in the bilingual children. Metalinguistic awareness appeared to serve as a common underlying competence that supported academic language proficiency in both English and Chinese. In addition, home language use significantly predicted not only metalinguistic awareness in both languages but also Chinese academic language proficiency.
Taken together, these findings indicate that children’s performance on metalinguistic awareness tasks and the relationship between metalinguistic awareness and academic language proficiency are shaped and mediated by language experience and other factors such as formal instruction, language features, and language learning environment. Educational policies and pedagogical instruction should take these factors into consideration.
Date Issued
2015
Call Number
P118.3 Sun
Date Submitted
2015