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DOI: 10.1177/026765838700300205 1987 3: 154Second Language
Research
Ellen BialystokInfluences of bilingualism on metalinguistic
development
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Influences of bilingualism onmetalinguistic developmentEllen
Bialystok York University, Ontario
Address for correspondence: Ellen Bialystok, Department of
Psychology, York University,Downsview, Ontario, Canada.
The relationship between metalinguistic awareness and
bilingualism is inter-preted in terms of a framework which defines
metalinguistic awareness asconsisting of two processing components:
analysis of linguistic knowledge, andcontrol of linguistic
processes. It is argued that bilingualism enhances only thelatter
of these processing components, so global assessments of
metalinguisticability by bilingual subjects are bound to lead to
inconsistent results. Somestudies are reported in which these two
processing components are separated.Bilingual children are shown to
be superior to monolingual children onmeasures of control of
linguistic processes.
The search for a relationship between metalinguistic development
andbilingualism has produced a variety of findings. Evidence has
beenpresented in support of the argument that bilingualism
facilitatesmetalinguistic development (as well as other language
and academicdevelopments) (Ben-Zeev, 1977; Cummins, 1978;
lanco-Worrall,1972); that it is unrelated to metalinguistic
development (Ben-Zeev,1977; de Avila and Duncan, 1981; Rosenblum
and Pinker, 1983) andthat it impedes progress in metalinguistic
achievement (Macnamara,1967; Palmer, 1972). Two possible
interpretations of this lack of con-sistency are: (1) that the
facilitating effects of bilingualism areconfined to certain types
of metalinguistic problems; and (2) that thefacilitating effects of
metalinguistic performance are confined tocertain types of
bilingualism. An evaluation of these possible inter-pretations of
the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguisticdevelopment
requires a more precise definition for metalinguistic skillthat can
be related to bilingualism in specific ways.
Consistent with current notions of intellectual functioning in
whichminimally two components relating to executive processing
anddeclarative knowledge are identified (Brown, Bransford, Ferrara,
andCampione, 1983; Sternberg and Powell, 1983), metalinguistic
ability
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has been defined in terms of two underlying skill
components(Bialystok and Ryan, 1985). These skill components refer
to separableaspects of language processing which, we claim, are
involved in allaspects of language use. Different uses, however,
depend on each skillcomponent to various extents. Metalinguistic
problems are languagetasks expressly designed so that their
solution depends upon relativelyhigh levels of one or the other of
these skill components.The two skill components are analysis of
knowledge, which is the
ability to construct explicit representations of linguistic
knowledge,and control of processes, which is the ability to control
linguisticprocesses by intentionally selecting and applying
knowledge to arriveat a solution. The development of each is
considered to be gradual andcan be characterized by values on a
continuum. Moreover, the deve-lopment of each is assumed to advance
in response to different experi-ences. Bilingual children, it is
argued, have an advantage only in thesecond of these and should
therefore demonstrate superior perform-ance only on those
metalinguistic tasks specifically designed to requirehigh levels of
control.
Analysis of knowledge is the skill component responsible
formaking explicit those representations that had previously
beenimplicit or intuitive. In cognitive development,
Karmiloff-Smith(1986) describes the childs development of a skill
as being based onthree ordered phases of representation: implicit;
explicit 1, in whichthe implicit knowledge is structured but not
accessible to con-sciousness ; and explicit 2, in which conscious
access becomes possible.During the process of language acquisition,
children are constantlyanalysing and structuring knowledge, moving
it, in Karmiloff-Smithsterms, through the three phases of
representation. At any point intime, different aspects of the
childs linguistic knowledge will be repre-sented in each of the
three phases. The result is the appearance of acontinuum, with
representations of linguistic knowledge occupyingall points. The
reason for that continuum, however, is that discreteaspects of
linguistic knowledge are subjected to continual structuringand
analysis. It is the process responsible for this structuring that
isindicated by the skill component of analysis of knowledge.The
language uses encountered by children during various stages of
language acquisition require different levels of analysis of
theirlinguistic knowledge. To participate in conversations,
children easilyproduce and understand sentences for which they have
no explicitknowledge of structure (Bowerman, 1982). Explication of
thatstructure has been shown to be a necessary, but not sufficient,
condi-tion for writing coherent texts (Scardamalia and Paris, 1985)
and forthe elaboration of new categories of knowledge required for
learningto read (Menyuk, 1981). Metalinguistic tasks are usually
contrived so
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156
that the solution is achieved only if the relevant structure is
knownexplicitly. Some aspects of structure which emerge are
knowledge ofthe units of speech (words, syllables, phonemes; see
Ehri, 1979),understanding of the relationship between forms and
meanings (e.g.the sun-moon problem studied by Piaget, 1929;
Scribner and Cole,1981; Vygotsky, 1962), and awareness of syntax
(e.g. grammaticalityjudgement and correction problems, de Villiers
& de Villiers, 1974).Accordingly, although children appear to
possess a relatively sophis-ticated command of linguistic concepts,
their explicit knowledge ofthese concepts is inadequate for solving
most metalinguistic tasks.High levels of analysis of knowledge are
associated with constructssuch as conscious or explicit
knowledge.The development of control of linguistic processes
reflects the
childs ability to apply operations intentionally in the solution
to aproblem. Solving a conservation of liquid problem, for
example,requires that the child directs attention to both the
height and width ofthe beaker, in spite of the compelling
perceptual impression that onlythe height is relevant. In language
use, attention is usually focussed onthe meanings, a strategy that
is effective for ordinary conversation(Hakes, 1980). But certain
uses of language require control over thatattention so that it can
be directed to specific aspects of the language.The ability to
switch back and forth between forms and meanings,between graphemes
and phonemes, between words and intentions, forexample, is a
crucial part of fluent reading (Lesgold and Perfetti,1981).
Metalinguistic tasks typically require children to focus on formand
sometimes ignore or suppress meaning. Deliberately
controllingattention in this way requires control of processing.
Just as childrengradually acquire this skill in other cognitive
domains, so do theyacquire it in using language. The knowledge of
procedures for solvinga variety of language problems and the
ability to execute thosesolutions through appropriate attentional
focus is the function ofcontrol of linguistic processing. High
levels of control of processingare associated with constructs such
as intentionality.
It is the development of this second skill component that seems
to bemost affected by bilingualism. Vygotsky (1962) suggested
thatbilingual children should be more advanced than
monolingualchildren in solving Piagets (1929) sun-moon problem.
Becausebilingual children have the experience of two linguistic
systemslabelling the same conceptual system, the arbitrary
connectionbetween forms and meanings is more readily apparent.
Moreover,these children have more experience attending to formal
linguisticfeatures that may change even though meanings are
constant, as indeciding between languages, attending to different
phonologicalsystems and choosing the correct label for an object.
In addition, their
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clearer representation of linguistic and conceptual information
asseparate structures makes problems involving selective attention
tolinguistic features less difficult for bilingual children. It is
the clearconcepts of word meaning and word form and their relation
thatenable the child to solve metalinguistic problems based on the
separa-tion of forms and meanings. And it is these problems for
whichbilingual children are claimed to be advantaged.The general
hypothesis, then, is that bilingual children should be
more advanced in solving metalinguistic problems requiring
highlevels of control of processes than are monolingual children,
butequivalent to monolingual children in solving metalinguistic
problemsrequiring high levels of analysis of linguistic knowledge.
Comparisonsare difficult, however, because many factors conspire to
make subjectgroups unequal in any global comparison. Social class
and languagebackground are known to be relevant in determining
performance onmetalinguistic tasks, irrespective of differences in
bilingualism (e.g.Cummins, 1976). The more important factor,
however, may be levelsand types of literacy. Our claim is that
literacy is a significant factor inthe growth of analysis of
linguistic knowledge (Bialystok and Ryan,1985; Ehri, 1979).
Accordingly, different experiences with literacymay influence
childrens levels of analysis of knowledge, thus inter-vening in a
simple comparison of the way in which children withdifferent
bilingual experiences solve metalinguistic problems (since inspite
of efforts to control for differences, metalinguistic problems
arecertain to involve analysis of knowledge as well as control
ofprocessing). Nonetheless, the assumption underlying this research
hasbeen that attention to experimental controls and cautious
interpreta-tion of findings reveals important patterns that
contribute to anunderstanding of the relation between bilingualism
and metalinguisticawareness.
A variety of evidence has shown a bilingual superiority on
metalin-guistic problems demanding high levels of control of
processes.Vygotskys prediction, for example, that a bilingual
advantage wouldappear for the sun-moon problem has been
demonstrated by Scribnerand Cole (1981) and lanco-Worrall (1972).
Further, lanco-Worrall(1972) found that bilingual children were
more sensitive than mono-lingual children to semantic relations
between words when the mean-ings competed with phonetic similarity.
Finally, middle class bilingualchildren were more successful in
solving a metalinguistic problem inwhich words needed to be
substituted into a sentence creating non-sense, requiring that the
child ignore the meaning (Ben-Zeev, 1977).Working class children
showed no advantage relative to their mono-lingual peers on the
same problem.The tasks used in these studies all depend on levels
of control to a
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greater extent than they do on levels of analysis. Comparisons
aredifficult, however, because the tasks are still different from
eachother, so it is difficult to interpret results in terms of
these skill com-ponents. Our approach has been to construct
versions of a meta-linguistic problem so that each version (task)
differentially requiresgreater levels of analysis of linguistic
knowledge or control of linguis-tic processes for its solution. It
is no doubt the case that each tasksomehow requires both skill
components; the argument is simply thatthe primary component can be
determined. Comparisons can then bemade among the tasks both in
terms of their relative difficulty for aspecific group of children
and for the relative difficulty of a singleversion by different
groups of children.Judgement of sentence acceptability is one
problem that we have
adapted in this manner (Bialystok, 1986a). Judging
grammaticalityhas often been reported to be easier than correcting
deviant sentences(de Villiers and de Villiers, 1972; Gleitman,
Gleitman and Shipley,1972; Hakes, 1980; Scribner and Cole, 1981).
This difference weattribute to the greater demands for analysis of
knowledge given bythe correction task. Similarly, manipulating the
formal structure ofsentences that contain semantic anomaly has been
shown to be moredifficult than applying similar manipulations to
meaningful sentences(e.g. Ben-Zeev, 1977). The anomalous sentences,
in our terms,distract the child from attending to form.
Three studies, each involving about 120 children, were
conducted.In Studies 1 and 2, children were in Junior Kindergarten
(5 years old),Grade 1 (7 years old), and Grade 3 (9 years old). In
addition,approximately half of the children in each grade were
bilingual. InStudy 1, the bilingual children came from homes in
which English wasnot spoken at all; in Study 2, the bilingual
children were English-speaking students enrolled in French
immersion programmes. InStudy 3, children were in Grade 2 and Grade
3, and half the children ineach grade were bilingual in that they
spoke a language other thanEnglish at home (c.f. Study 1). In all
cases, testing was conducted inEnglish.
Children were asked to judge or correct sentences for their
syntacticacceptability, irrespective of meaningfulness. This
instruction wasexplained to the children through a series of
example sentences whichvaried in their grammaticality and
meaningfulness. A puppetcharacter was used to present each sentence
and children were told totell the puppet if he said the sentence
the right way and that it wasfun to be silly, so only
grammaticality was to be judged. A highdemand for analysis of
knowledge was operationalized in terms ofcorrecting, as opposed to
judging, grammatical structure and ofdetecting ungrammatical, as
opposed to grammatical, sentences
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(Bialystok, 1979). A high demand for control of processing was
opera-tionalized in terms of solving the problem under conflicting
condi-tions, namely when the value of the grammaticality was
incongruentwith the value of the meaningfulness. There were four
types ofjudgment tasks. Meaningful sentences could be grammatical
(Why isthe dog barking so loudly?) (GM) or not (Why the dog is
barking soloudly?) (gM); and anomalous sentences could be
grammatical(Why is the cat barking so loudly?) (Gm) or not (Why the
cat isbarking so loudly?) (gm). The two conflicting sentences
(gM,Gm) arenot equivalent in their demands. For gM, the intact
meaning does notcreate much distraction, and so the problem is to
have sufficientlyanalysed knowledge to recognize the grammatical
error. Thus, thesesentences test the level of analysis of
linguistic knowledge. For Gm,the anomalous meaning is a compelling
distraction, and the instruc-tion to focus only on form requires
intentional effort to separate theform and meaning, ignoring the
latter. Once this separation isachieved, there is little burden on
analysed knowledge, since thesentence is grammatical. Thus, these
sentences test the level of controlof processing.
Across the three studies, the manipulation of the control
andanalysis requirements in the different versions of the
grammaticalityjudgement task was reflected in problem difficulty.
The correctiontask was more difficult than the judgement task and
the incongruentitems in the judgement task were more difficult than
their congruentcounterparts. Similarly, ignoring the anomalous
meanings in the cor-rection task according to the instructions, in
order to receive the scorefor meaning corrections, was more
difficult than repairing thegrammar. The interpretation is that
these two factors, analysis ofknowledge and control of processes,
constitute an important aspect ofthe structure of this
metalinguistic task, and ability in these two skillcomponents is
prerequisite to solving the problems.The effects of bilingualism in
the solution to these problems are
evidenced as interactions between language and the ability to
solvecertain of the items. Changes in control demands were studied
indifferences among the four types of sentences in the judgement
task asa function of the different language groups. The data
obtained fromStudies 1 and 2 are shown in Figure 1; Study 3
replicated the patternsin Study 1.The sentence judgements requiring
the greatest levels of control are
the Gm items in which the meaning is made salient by means
ofanomaly, but the task requires attending to the intact
grammaticality.The bilingual children in all three studies
consistently judged these Gmitems more accurately than did
monolingual children, at all ages testedand for all types of
bilingualism.
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Figure 1 Mean number correct judgements out of six for judgement
task by group
The difference between monolingual and bilingual children for
thegM items is a measure of analysis of linguistic knowledge. Here
thedifference depended on the childs type of bilingual experience.
InStudies 1 and 3, the monolingual children judged these items
betterthan did bilingual children. These were the studies in which
childrenwere bilingual by speaking one language at home while being
educated(and socialized) in English. These children were weaker
thanmonolingual children for problems requiring richer levels of
analysisof linguistic knowledge. The children who were bilingual
throughFrench immersion programmes performed equivalently to
theirmonolingual peers on these gM items, indicating no relative
weaknessin their level of analysis of linguistic knowledge.
In general, the bilingual children in Study 2 performed
moreimpressively than did the bilingual children in Studies 1 and
3. Thereare two differences between the bilingual groups in these
studies. Thefirst, and most salient, is that the bilingual children
in Studies 1 and 3were being tested in their second language, while
the monolingualchildren in those studies and the bilingual children
in Study 2, were
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tested in their native language. While this is no doubt a
relevant differ-ence, it must be noted that it did not serve
uniformly to suppress thescores of these children relative to their
monolingual peers; thebilingual children scored higher than the
others on the tasks con-sidered to involve control of
processing.The second difference between the groups is that the
children in
Study 2 were also biliterate, reading in both English and
French. Thisbiliteracy, coupled with the fact of being native
speakers of English,would have the effect of increasing their level
of analysis of knowledgeof English relative to the bilingual
children in Studies 1 and 3. Thustheir advantage is specific: these
bilingual children perform betterthan the other two groups of
bilingual children (and possibly betterthan some monolingual
children) on tasks demanding high levels ofanalysis of knowledge.
But children who were bilingual in any sense,uniformly performed
better than monolingual children on tasksdemanding high levels of
control of processing. Thus a facilitatingeffect of bilingualism
may be mediated by specific levels of mastery ofanalysis of
knowledge achieved through other means. For this reasonit appears
that on some tasks, e.g. high control tasks, bilingualismexerted a
facilitating effect while on other tasks, e.g. high analysis
ofknowledge tasks, bilingualism created some disadvantage.Another
problem examined in this paradigm is counting or
segmenting words in sentences (Bialystok, 1986b). Childrens
failureon these problems has been interpreted as evidence of their
lack ofunderstanding the concept of word (Ehri, 1979; Fox and
Routh, 1980;Papandropoulou and Sinclair, 1974). Such a concept,
however, iscritical to metalinguistic notions of language
structure. In terms of thecurrent conception of metalinguistic
ability, the difficulty with theseword concept tasks can be traced
to the two skill components ofanalysis and control. Thus, removing
the barriers imposed on theproblem by excessive levels of analysis
and control should allow accessto the solution by younger children
who, in more holistic definitionsof metalinguistic ability, would
be excluded. Moreover, those aspectsof the solution most governed
by control of processing should besolved more readily by bilingual
children than by monolingual ones.Four versions of a word concept
task were constructed which varied
in their demands on the two skill components. A more
analysedconcept of word is one in which the boundaries that isolate
words areclear. In a less analysed concept of word, the child may
realize that aword is some unit of language but be uncertain as to
the definingproperties. Hence one difficulty in counting the number
of words in asentence is in deciding on the appropriate boundaries:
is a syllable aword; is a morpheme a word? Mehler (1982) has shown
that a strategyof syllabic segmentation is primary, even among
infants, so an early
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and relatively unanalysed concept of word may tie the boundaries
tosyllables. The simplest problem, then, would be to count the
numberof words in a sentence in which all the words were
monosyllabic. Herea correct solution could be achieved through the
application of avague and possibly slightly incorrect hypothesis of
word boundaries.Counting tasks can be made progressively more
difficulty for thechilds analysis of knowledge by gradually
including sentences thatcontain polysyllabic words (alligator) for
which a syllable hypothesismust be abandoned, and double morpheme
words (rainbow,sunshine) for which a meaning unit hypothesis must
be abandoned.The difficulty for control of processing in the word
count problems
is again in keeping attention fixed on forms, in spite of the
temptationto examine meanings. It is difficult to see the formal
constituent struc-ture of a sentence when there is an integrating
and overridingmeaning. Problems could be made simpler for their
control demands,then, by removing the meaning, removing therefore
the linguisticfeature competing for the childs attention. This was
achieved byscrambling the words in the sentences produced in the
various analysisof knowledge conditions. If children could
successfully count thevarious kinds of words in the different
analysis of knowledge condi-tions when the sentence had been
scrambled, then their failure on themore traditional sentence
conditions could not be attributed to theirlack of (analysed)
knowledge of words. If children could count thewords equally in
both sentence and scrambled conditions, then themeanings were not
presenting an inordinate challenge to their capaci-ties for
selective attention.A study was conducted with 62 children in
Junior Kindergarten and
Grade 1, the latter group being divided between English
programmeand French immersion and, therefore, somewhat bilingual.
Childrenwere individually tested and orally presented with a series
of eightsentences and eight scrambled strings. Following each
sentence orstring, they were asked how many words it contained.
(Children had aset of markers to help them count while they
listened to the sentence orstring.) The results in Figure 2 are
collapsed across the differentanalysis of knowledge conditions and
show the effects of the controlmanipulation of sentence versus
string on the three groups. Thebilingual children could count the
words with equivalent accuracywhether they were in real sentences
or in scrambled strings. Themonolingual children, even in Grade 1,
counted better when the wordswere arranged in strings. Their
performance in the high controlsentence condition was inferior to
that of their bilingual peers in theFrench immersion programme.
These two problems, grammaticality judgment and word concept,are
examples of the way in which metalinguistic tasks can be made
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Figure 2 Mean number correct judgements out of eight for
sentences and strings by group
more precise to examine separable components of
metalinguisticability. The results obtained from these and other
tasks permit anumber of generalizations about the relationship
between linguisticawareness and bilingualism. The tasks themselves
were madesystematically more difficult by the experimental
manipulations.These manipulations have been interpreted as
increasing the demandson control and analysis. Metalinguistic
problems are difficult, then,because they demand particularly high
levels of mastery of these skillcomponents.The effect of
bilingualism was seen primarily on the development of
control of processes. This effect, however, was mediated by a
numberof factors, possibly including biliteracy. In this sense, it
may be thatthe additional boost to analysis of knowledge offered by
biliteracy iseither a catalyst or even a precondition for the
potentially facilitatingeffects of bilingualism to be
demonstrated.The relation between metalinguistic ability and
bilingualism, then,
is construed as a set of conditions that hold between the
childsmastery of the skill components of analysis of knowledge and
controlof processes and the demands posed by specific
metalinguistic tasks.
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These skill components are considered to be the basis of
language pro-ficiency, and it is through mastery of these
components that advancedforms of language use become possible.
Through their commonreliance upon this underlying set of skill
components, differentaspects of language proficiency have important
relationships to eachother. Thus literacy, with its special
connection to analysis ofknowledge, is an important constraint on
the relationship betweenbilingualism and metalinguistic
development. Learning to read in twolanguages has often been shown
to be easy for children who haveadvanced (in our terms, analysed),
conceptions of language. This rela-tion, too, may be interpreted in
terms of the way in which individualchildren recruit their ability
to analyse linguistic knowledge andcontrol attentional processes to
master new problems that imposespecific demands on these abilities.
These relationships are examinedin other studies in this research
programme using different meta-linguistic tasks, different
operationalizations of the constructs anddifferent subject samples.
It is in the synthesis of all these studies that,it is hoped, a
clearer understanding of the cognitive basis of languageproficiency
and its reflection in special language skills will
bediscovered.
Acknowledgement t .This article is based on a paper presented at
the Language AcquisitionResearch Seminar, Utrecht, The Netherlands,
in September 1985. Theresearch reported in this paper was funded by
Grant A2559 from theNatural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada.
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