Studies with bilingual and multilingual subjects suggest that bilingualism and multilingualism foster the development of certain aspects of children’s metalinguistic skills. The purpose of the present study was to find out if learning foreign languages facilitates children’s metalinguistic ability to define words. It compared Bulgarian monolingual, bilingual and trilingual subjects on their word-definition performance in the L1. The relationship between L1 definition performance, L2/L3 proficiency, and L2/L3 definition performance within the bilingual and trilingual groups was also investigated.
The study found that early foreign language education has a positive effect on the quality of children’s definitions in their L1. The bilingual and trilingual children performed significantly better than the monolingual children. The results specific to the bilingual and trilingual groups showed that second/third language proficiency was a significant and powerful predictor of the performance of the bilingual and trilingual subjects on the word-definition tasks in their second/third language. L1 word-definition ability was a weaker predictor of the subjects’ performance on the word-definition task in their second or third language. However, in the case of genetically closely related languages (Bulgarian and Russian) the transfer was easier as compared to genetically more distanced languages (Bulgarian and English).
2019. Comparing the Word Definition Skill between Children with Cochlear Implant and Normal Children. Pajouhan Scientific Journal 18:1 ► pp. 7 ff.
De Angelis, Gessica
2015. English L3 learning in a multilingual context: the role of parental education and L2 exposure within the living community. International Journal of Multilingualism 12:4 ► pp. 435 ff.
To, Carol Kit Sum, Stephanie Stokes, Yonnie Man & Benjamin T’sou
2013. An Analysis of Noun Definition in Cantonese. Language and Speech 56:1 ► pp. 105 ff.
Lasch, Sabrina Schützenhofer, Helena Bolli Mota & Carla Aparecida Cielo
2009. Consciência fonológica: o desempenho de meninos e meninas bilíngues e monolíngues. Revista CEFAC 12:2 ► pp. 202 ff.
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