Effect of Growing Up in a Bilingual Household
#The cognitive process of learning language is complex. A main part of learning spoken and written language is something called phonological awareness (Chen, 2004) (Chiappe, 2007) which describes the individual 's cognition of the fact that words are made up of multiple sound units. Another large part of language learning is orthographic awareness the understanding of language based on its written construction (Liow, 2006). This applies to both spelling and syntax.
There is debate over whether growing up in a bilingual environment has positive or negative effects on children 's phonological and orthographic awareness, and thus their ability to learn to read and speak fluently. There is much evidence that metalinguistic awareness, that is understanding of the overarching syntactic principles of language, is greater in children who are bilingual (Chen, 2004). Hammer and Miccio point out that the process of learning to read begins long before the commencement of formal instruction in school. This is due to the "language and literacy events" that children are exposed to at home and in the environment (Hammer, 2006). Being exposed to an environment with multiple languages would certainly have an influence on one 's phonological development. However, there is also evidence that lower socioeconomic status has a significant impact on this process as well, and can negate the positive effects of growing up in a bilingual environment (Hammer, 2006; Liow, 2006).
A study by Chen et al. that found that phonological awareness was greater in children who spoke Cantonese Chinese at home and later learned Mandarin Chinese in school as opposed to those children who spoke Mandarin both at home and in school. Chinese is a distinct language in that two words whose pronunciation is identical can have two different meanings because of differences in the cadence of spoken tones. While Mandarin Chinese has four types of tones, Cantonese has as many as nine (Chen, 2004).
There is debate over whether growing up in a bilingual environment has positive or negative effects on children 's phonological and orthographic awareness, and thus their ability to learn to read and speak fluently. There is much evidence that metalinguistic awareness, that is understanding of the overarching syntactic principles of language, is greater in children who are bilingual (Chen, 2004). Hammer and Miccio point out that the process of learning to read begins long before the commencement of formal instruction in school. This is due to the "language and literacy events" that children are exposed to at home and in the environment (Hammer, 2006). Being exposed to an environment with multiple languages would certainly have an influence on one 's phonological development. However, there is also evidence that lower socioeconomic status has a significant impact on this process as well, and can negate the positive effects of growing up in a bilingual environment (Hammer, 2006; Liow, 2006).
A study by Chen et al. that found that phonological awareness was greater in children who spoke Cantonese Chinese at home and later learned Mandarin Chinese in school as opposed to those children who spoke Mandarin both at home and in school. Chinese is a distinct language in that two words whose pronunciation is identical can have two different meanings because of differences in the cadence of spoken tones. While Mandarin Chinese has four types of tones, Cantonese has as many as nine (Chen, 2004).
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