ERIC Number: EJ1387427
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Sep
Pages: 40
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0023-8333
EISSN: EISSN-1467-9922
Boosting Bilingual Metalinguistic Awareness under Dual Language Activation: Some Implications for Bilingual Education
Torregrossa, Jacopo; Eisenbeiß, Sonja; Bongartz, Christiane
Language Learning, v73 n3 p683-722 Sep 2023
Most studies on bilingual children's metalinguistic awareness assess metalinguistic awareness using monolingual tasks. This may not reflect how a bilingual's languages dynamically interact with each other in creating metalinguistic representations. We tested 33 Greek-Italian bilingual children (8-11 years) for metalinguistic awareness using acceptability-rating tasks in which they had to judge and explain grammatical errors. The tasks were in monolingual and bilingual modes in order to show how far metalinguistic awareness in Italian benefited from the activation of Greek. The participants exhibited better metalinguistic awareness abilities in Italian in the bilingual acceptability-rating task in which Greek was activated. The benefits of the bilingual mode were visible in the judgment and explanation of errors and were modulated by syntactic processing abilities in Italian, length of exposure to Italian, type of structure, and age. The results show that metalinguistic awareness can be shared across languages. We discuss the pedagogical implications of our findings.
Descriptors: Bilingualism, Children, Preadolescents, Greek, Italian, Metalinguistics, Monolingualism, Language Usage, Error Patterns, Syntax, Age Differences, Bilingual Education
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://oasis-database.org