Abstract
This paper examines the construct of bilingual phonemic awareness in Irish-English bilinguals. Though traditionally viewed as a skill or ability which transfers across languages, recent accounts have considered whether phonemic awareness has a language-specific component. This study used a cross-sectional design to examine this question. A total of 345 students in Irish immersion schools and in schools in Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) areas took part in the study and were administered Phoneme Deletion and Phoneme Matching in both Irish and English. Results demonstrate (i) a low correlation between Phoneme Matching and Phoneme Deletion scores within each language (ii) a significant difference between Phoneme Matching scores in Irish and English, but no significant difference in Phoneme Deletion scores in each language (iii) that orthographic representations influence performance on Phoneme Matching tasks in both Irish and English, and (iv) that participants demonstrate a low level of accuracy on velarised-palatalised phonemic contrasts, which are specific to Irish. Overall, this paper concludes that bilingual phonemic awareness is a multidimensional – rather than a unitary – construct. It has both a metalinguistic and epilinguistic component, and is likely influenced by linguistic, sociolinguistic and educational factors. The practical implications for dual-language education are discussed.
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Notes
While recognising that the interpretation of correlation coefficients varies depending on context, we use the following as a guide following Hinkle et al. (2003): 0.00-0.03 – negligible; 0.30-0.50 – low; 0.50-0.70 – moderate; 0.70-0.90 – high; 0.90-0.1.00 – very high.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to extend our gratitude to the children who participated in this study, as well as the teachers, principles and administrative staff of the participating schools. We would also like to thank the Irish Research Council for funding this research.
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This work was funded by an Irish Research Council grant to the first author (GOIPG/2018/2425).
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Study conception and design is the work of EB, NNC and ANC. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by eb and reviewed by ANC. Manuscript was written by EB and reviewed by NNC and ANC. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Barnes, E., Chiaráin, N.N. & Chasaide, A.N. Bilingual (Irish-English) phonemic awareness: language-specific and universal contributions. Read Writ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-023-10498-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-023-10498-0