A Comparison of Monolingual and Sequential Bilingual Tertiary Level Students on the Relationship Between Analytic Language Knowledge and Metalinguistic Awareness
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/vestnik.14.147-176Keywords:
metalinguistic awareness, sequential bilinguals, analytic language knowledgeAbstract
Analytic language knowledge has often been highlighted among experts in the field, and its potential effects on metalinguistic awareness have been of great interest to researchers. This study aims to find the relationship between analytic language knowledge and its potential effect on metalinguistic awareness. A total of 210 tertiary level students from three different public universities in Turkey participated the study. The subjects were studying in three different departments: History and Philosophy (i.e., with no analytic language abilities and monolinguals), Turkish Language and Literature (i.e., studying Turkish, their mother tongue, analytically and monolinguals), and English Language Teaching and English Language and Literature (i.e., studying English, their second language, analytically and sequential bilinguals). The participants were asked to complete a demographic questionnaire and a test (adapted from Ter Kuile et al., 2011) written in Indonesian in order to evaluate their metalinguistic awareness, and the results were compared among the departments. The data gathered through the questionnaires were analysed using IBM SPSS 22. The results show that the participants from English Language Teaching and English Language and Literature performed significantly better than the other two groups. No significant difference was found between the History, Philosophy and Turkish Language and Literature departments. The present findings empirically revealed that sequential bilinguals have a greater degree of metalinguistic awareness, and thus alternative curricula for different departments may be adopted in terms of supplementary language courses, and this is one of the implications of this study for future research. Students who have a background in multiple languages, for instance, may be able to enrol in additional language lessons under a plan that is developed by taking metalinguistic abilities into account.
Downloads
References
ATILGAN, Hakan/Adnan KAN/Nuri DOĞAN (2007) Eğitimde Ölçme ve Değerlendirme. (H. Atılgan, Ed.). Ankara, Turkey: Anı Yayıncılık.
BARAC, Raluca/Ellen BIALYSTOK (2011) Cognitive development of bilingual children. Language Teaching, 44(01), 36–54. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444810000339 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444810000339
BERKEN, Jonathan A./Vincent L. GRACCO/Denise KLEIN (2017) Early bilingualism, language attainment, and brain development. Neuropsychologia, 98, 220–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.031 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.031
BIALYSTOK, Ellen/Ellen B. RYAN (1985) Toward a definition of metalinguistic skill. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 31(3), 229–251.
BIALYSTOK, Ellen (2003) Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy,and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
BROWN, James D./Theodore S. RODGERS (2003) Doing Second Language Research. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
CENOZ, Jasone (2003) The additive effect of bilingualism on third language acquisition: A review. International Journal of Bilingualism, 7(1), 71–87. http://doi.org/10.1177/13670069030070010501 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069030070010501
CUMMINS, James (1976) The influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth: A synthesis of research findings and explanatory hypotheses. Working Papers on Bilingualism, (9), 121–129.
CUMMINS, James (1978) Bilingualism and the Development of Metalinguistic Awareness. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 9(2), 131–149. http://doi.org/10.1177/002202217892001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002202217892001
CUMMINS, James (1979) Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49(2), 222–251. http://doi.org/10.3102/00346543049002222 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543049002222
FALK, Ylva/Christina LINDQVIST/Camilla BARDEL (2013) The role of L1 explicit metalinguistic knowledge in L3 oral production at the initial state. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(2), 1–9. http://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728913000552 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728913000552
GONZALVES, Lisa (2020) Development and demonstration of metalinguistic awareness in adult ESL learners with emergent literacy. Language Awareness, 30(2), 134-151. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2020.1776721 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2020.1776721
HAKUTA, Kenji/Judith SUBEN (1985) Bilingualism and cognitive development. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 6, 35–45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190500003044
HAKUTA, Kenji (1986) Bilingualism and intelligence. In MIRROR OF LANGUAGE The Debate on Bilingualism (pp. 14–44). New York: Basic Books.
HAKUTA, Kenji (1987) Degree of bilingualism and cognitive ability in mainland Puerto Rican children. Child Development, 58(5), 1372–1388. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.ep8591435 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1130628
HAKUTA, Kenji/Eugene E. GARCIA (1989) Bilingualism and education. American Psychologist, 44(2), 374–379. http://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066X.44.2.374 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.2.374
HU, Guangwei (2011) Metalinguistic knowledge, metalanguage, and their relationship in L2 learners. System, 39(1), 63–77. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2011.01.011 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2011.01.011
KOPEČKOVÁ, Romana (2018) Exploring metalinguistic awareness in L3 phonological acquisition: the case of young instructed learners of Spanish in Germany. Language Awareness, 27(1-2), 153-166. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2018.1432629. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2018.1432629
LAUCHLAN, Fraser/Marinella PARISI/Roberta FADDA (2012) Bilingualism in Sardinia and Scotland: Exploring the cognitive benefits of speaking a “minority” language. International Journal of Bilingualism, 17(1), 43–56. http://doi.org/10.1177/1367006911429622 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006911429622
MACKEY, Alison/Susan M. GASS (2005) Second Language Research: Methodology and Design. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
MERTZ, Elizabeth/Jonathan YOVEL (2009) Metalinguistic Awareness. In Cognition and Pragmatics (pp. 250–271). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/hoph.3.13mer
PARADIS, Michel (2004) A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. http://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.18 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.18
RICCIARDELLI, Lina A. (1992) Bilingualism and cognitive development in relation to threshold theory. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 21(4), 301–316. http://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067515 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067515
ROEHR, Karen (2007) Metalinguistic knowledge and language ability in university-level L2 learners. Applied Linguistics, 29(2), 173–199. http://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amm037 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amm037
ROMAINE, Suzanne (2013) The bilingual and multilingual community. In Bhatia, T. K./W. C. Ritchie (Eds.), The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism (2nd ed., pp. 445–465). Wiley-Blackwell. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118332382.ch18
TER KUILE, Hagar/Michiel VELDHUIS/Suzanne C. VAN VEEN/Jelte M. WICHERTS (2011) Bilingual education, metalinguistic awareness, and the understanding of an unknown language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(02), 233–242. http://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728910000258 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728910000258
WOLL, Nina (2019) How French speakers reflect on their language: A critical look at the concept of metalinguistic awareness. Language Awareness, 28(1), 49-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2019.1567743 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2019.1567743
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Birtan Baytar, İsmail Çakır

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in journal Journal for Foreign Languages by Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia). Author’s name will be evident in the article in journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the publisher right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.