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Chapter 2. The Literacy Enhancement Hypothesis in bilingual language development

  • Silvina Montrul and Andrew Armstrong
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Multilingual Acquisition and Learning
This chapter is in the book Multilingual Acquisition and Learning

Abstract

The Literacy Enhancement Hypothesis states that the development of literacy skills and exposure to textual input during the school-age period leads to more robust linguistic representations of morphosyntactic structures that strengthen psycholinguistic processing mechanisms such as working memory. This chapter reviews general psycholinguistic findings that support the impact of written language on language development and entrenchment in different grammatical areas and discusses results of current studies of morphosyntactic aspects of Spanish designed to test the literacy enhancement hypothesis with bilingual school-aged children. The findings suggest that print exposure in the heritage language contributes to strengthen and maintain early acquired linguistic structures that form the basis for the development of more complex syntax in Spanish. These results have implications for effective assessment, instruction, and intervention strategies to promote robust language and literacy skills and academic success in bilingual children.

Abstract

The Literacy Enhancement Hypothesis states that the development of literacy skills and exposure to textual input during the school-age period leads to more robust linguistic representations of morphosyntactic structures that strengthen psycholinguistic processing mechanisms such as working memory. This chapter reviews general psycholinguistic findings that support the impact of written language on language development and entrenchment in different grammatical areas and discusses results of current studies of morphosyntactic aspects of Spanish designed to test the literacy enhancement hypothesis with bilingual school-aged children. The findings suggest that print exposure in the heritage language contributes to strengthen and maintain early acquired linguistic structures that form the basis for the development of more complex syntax in Spanish. These results have implications for effective assessment, instruction, and intervention strategies to promote robust language and literacy skills and academic success in bilingual children.

Chapters in this book

  1. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Section 1. General topics
  6. Chapter 1. Multilingualism, creativity, and problem-solving 36
  7. Chapter 2. The Literacy Enhancement Hypothesis in bilingual language development 60
  8. Chapter 3. How does dyslexia impact second language acquisition? 90
  9. Chapter 4. Approaching Developmental Language Disorder from a Disorder within Dialects framework 116
  10. Chapter 5. Stuttering in two languages 143
  11. Chapter 6. Multilingual data coding and analysis within Phon 169
  12. Section 2. Child speech
  13. Chapter 7. Early phonological acquisition in multi-accent contexts 194
  14. Chapter 8. Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children 217
  15. Chapter 9. Towards an ecosystemic view of bilingual phonological development 246
  16. Chapter 10. Speech and language assessment of multilingual children in Hungary 272
  17. Chapter 11. Dynamic assessment in phonology 295
  18. Chapter 12. Variation in phonological and morphosyntactic development in multilingual pre-schoolers 324
  19. Section 3. Adult speech
  20. Chapter 13. Phonological features and phonetic variation in multilingual grammars 348
  21. Chapter 14. Acoustic properties of word-final vowels and the acquisition of gender in Spanish-English heritage speakers 380
  22. Chapter 15. Production of Spanish laterals in early sequential Spanish-English bilinguals 403
  23. Chapter 16. A revised Natural Growth Theory of Acquisition 426
  24. Section 4. Lexicon & grammar
  25. Chapter 17. Bilinguals’ lexical choice in storytelling 452
  26. Chapter 18. Lexical development of French-Portuguese simultaneous bilinguals 473
  27. Chapter 19. Morphological awareness in L2 Italian children with a migrant background 500
  28. Chapter 20. On the nature of operators in the grammar of L1 Chinese learners of L2 Japanese 529
  29. Chapter 21. Prosody and head directionality 556
  30. Section 5. Orthography
  31. Chapter 22. More than spelling accuracy 586
  32. Chapter 23. Phonological transfer in oral and written production among adult L2 learners of Swedish 613
  33. Language index 637
  34. Subject index 639
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.67.02mon

Chapters in this book

  1. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Section 1. General topics
  6. Chapter 1. Multilingualism, creativity, and problem-solving 36
  7. Chapter 2. The Literacy Enhancement Hypothesis in bilingual language development 60
  8. Chapter 3. How does dyslexia impact second language acquisition? 90
  9. Chapter 4. Approaching Developmental Language Disorder from a Disorder within Dialects framework 116
  10. Chapter 5. Stuttering in two languages 143
  11. Chapter 6. Multilingual data coding and analysis within Phon 169
  12. Section 2. Child speech
  13. Chapter 7. Early phonological acquisition in multi-accent contexts 194
  14. Chapter 8. Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children 217
  15. Chapter 9. Towards an ecosystemic view of bilingual phonological development 246
  16. Chapter 10. Speech and language assessment of multilingual children in Hungary 272
  17. Chapter 11. Dynamic assessment in phonology 295
  18. Chapter 12. Variation in phonological and morphosyntactic development in multilingual pre-schoolers 324
  19. Section 3. Adult speech
  20. Chapter 13. Phonological features and phonetic variation in multilingual grammars 348
  21. Chapter 14. Acoustic properties of word-final vowels and the acquisition of gender in Spanish-English heritage speakers 380
  22. Chapter 15. Production of Spanish laterals in early sequential Spanish-English bilinguals 403
  23. Chapter 16. A revised Natural Growth Theory of Acquisition 426
  24. Section 4. Lexicon & grammar
  25. Chapter 17. Bilinguals’ lexical choice in storytelling 452
  26. Chapter 18. Lexical development of French-Portuguese simultaneous bilinguals 473
  27. Chapter 19. Morphological awareness in L2 Italian children with a migrant background 500
  28. Chapter 20. On the nature of operators in the grammar of L1 Chinese learners of L2 Japanese 529
  29. Chapter 21. Prosody and head directionality 556
  30. Section 5. Orthography
  31. Chapter 22. More than spelling accuracy 586
  32. Chapter 23. Phonological transfer in oral and written production among adult L2 learners of Swedish 613
  33. Language index 637
  34. Subject index 639
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