Biliteracy effects on phonological awareness, oral language proficiency and reading skills in Taiwanese Mandarin-English bilingual children

The present study examined the effect of learning to read a heritage language on Taiwanese Mandarin-English bilingual children’s Chinese and English phonological awareness, Chinese and English oral language proficiency, and English reading skills. Participants were 40 Taiwanese Mandarin-English bilingual children and 20 English monolingual children in the U.S. Based on their performance on a Chinese character reading test, the bilingual participants were divided into two groups: the Chinese Beginning Reader and Chinese Nonreader groups. A single child categorized as a Chinese Advanced Reader also participated. Children received phonological awareness tasks, produced oral narrative samples from a wordless picture book, and took standardized English reading subtests. The bilingual participants received measures in both English and Chinese, whereas English monolingual children received only English measures. Additional demographic information was collected from a language background survey filled out by parents. Results of two MANOVAs indicated that the Chinese Beginning Reader group outperformed the Chinese Nonreader and English Monolingual groups on some phonological awareness measures and the English nonword reading test. In an oral narrative production task in English, the English Monolingual group produced a greater total number of words (TNW) and more different words (NDW) than the Chinese Nonreader group. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine whether bilingual children’s Chinese character reading ability would still account for a unique amount of variance in certain outcome variables, independent of nonverbal IQ and other potential demographic or performance variables and to clarify the direction of causality for bilingual children’s performance in the three domains. These results suggested that learning to read in a heritage language directly or indirectly enhances bilingual children’s ability in phonological awareness and certain English reading skills. It also appears that greater oral language proficiency in Chinese promotes early reading in the heritage language. Advanced heritage reading may produce even larger gains. Practical implications of learning a heritage language in the U.S. are discussed.

Seeing Turkish state formation processes: Mapping language and education census data

Language provides an interesting lens to look at state-building processes because of its cross-cutting nature. For example, in addition to its symbolic value and appeal, a national language has other roles in the process, including: (a) becoming the primary medium of communication which permits the nation to function efficiently in its political and economic life, (b) promoting social cohesion, allowing the nation to develop a common culture, and (c) forming a primordial basis for self-determination. Moreover, because of its cross-cutting nature, language interventions are rarely isolated activities. Languages are adopted by speakers, taking root in and spreading between communities because they are legitimated by legislation, and then reproduced through institutions like the education and military systems. Pádraig Ó’ Riagáin (1997) makes a case for this observing that “Language policy is formulated, implemented, and accomplishes its results within a complex interrelated set of economic, social, and political processes which include, inter alia, the operation of other non-language state policies” (p. 45). In the Turkish case, its foundational role in the formation of the Turkish nation-state but its linkages to human rights issues raises interesting issues about how socio-cultural practices become reproduced through institutional infrastructure formation. This dissertation is a country-level case study looking at Turkey’s nation-state building process through the lens of its language and education policy development processes with a focus on the early years of the Republic between 1927 and 1970. This project examines how different groups self-identified or were self-identified (as the case may be) in official Turkish statistical publications (e.g., the Turkish annual statistical yearbooks and the population censuses) during that time period when language and ethnicity data was made publicly available. The overarching questions this dissertation explores include: 1.What were the geo-political conditions surrounding the development and influencing the Turkish government’s language and education policies? 2.Are there any observable patterns in the geo-spatial distribution of language, literacy, and education participation rates over time? In what ways, are these traditionally linked variables (language, literacy, education participation) problematic? 3.What do changes in population identifiers, e.g., language and ethnicity, suggest about the government’s approach towards nation-state building through the construction of a civic Turkish identity and institution building? Archival secondary source data was digitized, aggregated by categories relevant to this project at national and provincial levels and over the course of time (primarily between 1927 and 2000). The data was then re-aggregated into values that could be longitudinally compared and then layered on aspatial administrative maps. This dissertation contributes to existing body of social policy literature by taking an interdisciplinary approach in looking at the larger socio-economic contexts in which language and education policies are produced.