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Effect of Early Bilingualism on Metalinguistic Development and Language Processing: Evidence from Chinese-Speaking Bilingual Children

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Reading Development and Difficulties in Monolingual and Bilingual Chinese Children

Part of the book series: Literacy Studies ((LITS,volume 8))

Abstract

Psychologists have long been interested in the impact of early bilingualism on children’s cognitive development. However, despite vigorous investigation into the topic, research on the effect of bilingualism on metalinguistic awareness and language processing has remained largely unexplored, either producing mixed findings or revealing advantages that cannot be ascribed solely to bilingualism per se. Many Chinese-speaking children around the world speak a second language, usually one that is typologically distant from Chinese, which affords an opportunity for isolating extraneous factors and identifying effect of bilingualism per se and provides a fertile ground for studying theories of early bilingualism in a broader cross-linguistic context. The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, it provides a critical review of the conceptual and methodological challenges in conducting research on the metalinguistic development and language processing of bilingual children. Second, it reports two empirical studies with Chinese-speaking bilingual children that were designed to investigate structural sensitivity theory Kuo & Anderson (Scientific Studies of Reading, 14, 365–385, 2010), an augmented theoretical framework to examine bilingual cognitive advantage in the verbal domain.

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Acknowledgement

 This research was supported by a Summer Research and Artistry Grant and a College of Education Deans’ grant from Northern Illinois University awarded to Li-Jen Kuo.

We are grateful to Chih-Ping Lo, Elena Lyutykh and Fred Lu for their assistance with data collection. We also thank the students, teachers, and administrators who so graciously participated in or facilitated this research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teaching, Learning & Culture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Li-Jen Kuo

  2. Department of Educational Psychology, Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language & Literacy, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

    Tae-Jin Kim

Authors
  1. Li-Jen Kuo
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  2. Tae-Jin Kim
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Correspondence to Li-Jen Kuo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Applied Psych & Human Dev, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Xi Chen

  2. School of Teaching & Curric Leadership, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA

    Qiuying Wang

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Yang Cathy Luo

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Kuo, LJ., Kim, TJ. (2014). Effect of Early Bilingualism on Metalinguistic Development and Language Processing: Evidence from Chinese-Speaking Bilingual Children. In: Chen, X., Wang, Q., Luo, Y. (eds) Reading Development and Difficulties in Monolingual and Bilingual Chinese Children. Literacy Studies, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7380-6_9

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