Abstract
This article reports on an investigation of the development of literacy, bilingualism, and metalinguistic awareness. The particular context of the study (high levels of bilingualism among school-age children) and the particular language contact situation (an indigenous language) offer a vantage point on the interaction between language learning and metalinguistic awareness and take into account the sociolinguistic imbalances that characterize bilingual communities of this type. The subjects who participated in the study were speakers of Spanish and Náhuatl from Central Mexico. Assessments of metalinguistic awareness related to different aspects of the children's consciousness of the languages they spoke or understood were compared to a series of assessments of reading comprehension, writing, and oral narrative in both languages. Findings suggest directions for further research along the following lines: metalinguistic awareness is related to different aspects of literacy development in different ways, the key variables being the degree of decontextualization and expressive versus receptive language tasks.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 533-561 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Applied Psycholinguistics |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| State | Published - 1999 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Psychology(all)
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics and Language
Cite this
Bilingualism, writing, and metalinguistic awareness : Oral-literate interactions between first and second languages. / Francis, Norbert.
In: Applied Psycholinguistics, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1999, p. 533-561.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Bilingualism, writing, and metalinguistic awareness
T2 - Oral-literate interactions between first and second languages
AU - Francis, Norbert
PY - 1999
Y1 - 1999
N2 - This article reports on an investigation of the development of literacy, bilingualism, and metalinguistic awareness. The particular context of the study (high levels of bilingualism among school-age children) and the particular language contact situation (an indigenous language) offer a vantage point on the interaction between language learning and metalinguistic awareness and take into account the sociolinguistic imbalances that characterize bilingual communities of this type. The subjects who participated in the study were speakers of Spanish and Náhuatl from Central Mexico. Assessments of metalinguistic awareness related to different aspects of the children's consciousness of the languages they spoke or understood were compared to a series of assessments of reading comprehension, writing, and oral narrative in both languages. Findings suggest directions for further research along the following lines: metalinguistic awareness is related to different aspects of literacy development in different ways, the key variables being the degree of decontextualization and expressive versus receptive language tasks.
AB - This article reports on an investigation of the development of literacy, bilingualism, and metalinguistic awareness. The particular context of the study (high levels of bilingualism among school-age children) and the particular language contact situation (an indigenous language) offer a vantage point on the interaction between language learning and metalinguistic awareness and take into account the sociolinguistic imbalances that characterize bilingual communities of this type. The subjects who participated in the study were speakers of Spanish and Náhuatl from Central Mexico. Assessments of metalinguistic awareness related to different aspects of the children's consciousness of the languages they spoke or understood were compared to a series of assessments of reading comprehension, writing, and oral narrative in both languages. Findings suggest directions for further research along the following lines: metalinguistic awareness is related to different aspects of literacy development in different ways, the key variables being the degree of decontextualization and expressive versus receptive language tasks.
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M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0033264431
VL - 20
SP - 533
EP - 561
JO - Applied Psycholinguistics
JF - Applied Psycholinguistics
SN - 0142-7164
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