Table Of ContentBilingual Competence and Bilingual Profi ciency in
Child Development
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Bilingual Competence and Bilingual Profi ciency in
Child Development
Norbert Francis
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or
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This book was set in Sabon by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Francis, Norbert.
Bilingual competence and bilingual profi ciency in child development / Norbert Francis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01639-1 (alk. paper)
1. Bilingualism in children. 2. Language acquisition. 3. Competence and performance (Linguistics)
I. Title.
P115.2.F73 2012
404 ′ .2083 — dc22
2011010003
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
1 Introduction: The Problem of Language Acquisition When There Are Two 1
1.1 Bilingual Profi ciency and Bilingual Competence 3
1.2 Knowledge That Outstrips Experience 10
1.3 Modularity 11
1.4 A Study of Indigenous-Language Bilingualism in Mexico 16
1.5 Looking Ahead: Overview of the Chapters 20
2 Bilingualism in School 25
2.1 When Second Language Learning Is Not Optional 27
2.2 Bilingualism, Diglossia, and Literacy 29
2.3 A Componential Approach to Language Ability Solves a Practical
Problem in Second Language Learning 33
2.4 New Democracy in South Africa: The Challenge of a Multilingual
Language Policy 35
2.5 A Possible Counterexample from North Africa 38
2.6 Program Design Based on a Concept from Sociolinguistics 44
3 The Debate on the Nature of Bilingual Profi ciency: Distinguishing between
Different Kinds of Language Ability 49
3.1 First Language and Second Language in Literacy Learning 51
3.2 Concepts of Bilingual Profi ciency: Background to the Debate 53
3.3 A Proposed Modifi cation of Cummins’ s Model 56
3.4 Literacy Learning at the San Isidro Bilingual School: A Follow-Up
Study 61
3.5 Comparing Results from Both Languages 63
vi Contents
3.6 Using the New Model to Describe Different Kinds of
Interdependence 68
3.7 Components and Connections 76
4 Componential Approaches to the Study of Language Profi ciency 79
4.1 Vygotsky and Luria: The Concept of “ Inner Speech” 81
4.2 Metacognition: Language at the Service of Higher-Order Thinking 85
4.3 Compartmentalization of the Bilingual Mind 88
4.4 Bilingualism as a Showcase for the Internal Diversity of Language
Profi ciency 94
4.5 Advancing the Research Program on Bilingualism: The Need for Clarity
and Refl ection 101
5 Research on the Components of Bilingual Profi ciency 107
5.1 Maximum Imbalance in Bilingualism 109
5.2 Separation of the Linguistic Subsystems 115
5.3 How Bilingual Speech Constitutes Evidence of Language
Separation 118
5.4 Contradictions of an Integrativist Approach 124
5.5 A Bilingual Version of the Tripartite Parallel Architecture 125
5.6 More Opportunities for Research on Uneven Development 132
6 The Critical Period, Access to Universal Grammar in First and Second
Language, and Language Attrition 141
6.1 Overview of the Chapter 142
6.2 The Concept of Language Attrition 144
6.3 What the Research Says about First Language Attrition 146
6.4 The Critical Period Hypothesis 151
6.5 Is Second Language Competence Universal Grammar –
Constrained? 159
6.6 Acquisition and Learning in the Second Language 166
6.7 A Wider Discussion: Applying Concepts to New Research 171
7 An Analysis of Academic Language Profi ciency 177
7.1 Secondary Discourse Ability + Metalinguistic Awareness 179
7.2 The Development of Narrativization and Levels of Narrative
Ability 183
7.3 Language Development— Grammar 187
7.4 Access to Shared Academic Profi ciencies in Biliteracy 192
7.5 Linking Secondary Discourse Ability and Metalinguistic Awareness at
the Discourse, Sentence, and Word Levels 197
Contents vii
8 Metalinguistic Awareness, Bilingualism, and Writing 203
8.1 Metalinguistic Development and Bilingualism 204
8.2 Metalinguistic Awareness in Literacy and Second Language Learning 206
8.3 A Study of Children ’ s Perceptions of Focus on Form 207
8.4 Children ’ s Development of a Refl ective Posture toward Writing: Results
from Spanish 210
8.5 Metalinguistic Awareness as a Component of Literacy Ability— Writing
in Particular 213
8.6 Possible Implications for Teaching Writing Skills 217
8.7 Children ’ s Development of a Refl ective Posture toward Writing: Results
from Nahuatl 218
8.8 The Revision/Correction Assessment in Nahuatl 220
8.9 A Comparison of Performance between the Languages 222
8.10 Internal Resources and External Factors 223
8.11 Applying Different Kinds of Knowledge in Literacy Development 227
9 Metalinguistic Awareness, Bilingualism, and Reading 231
9.1 Modular Approaches to the Study of Reading 232
9.2 A Study of Focus on Form in Reading 234
9.3 The Development of a Refl ective Posture toward Reading
Comprehension 237
9.4 One Way in Which Children Learn to Use Context Strategically 240
9.5 Future Research on Literacy Learning, Metalinguistic Awareness, and
Bilingualism 244
9.6 Does the Use of Context Contradict Modularity in Reading? 247
10 Conclusion: Results and Prospects 253
10.1 Parts to Whole: What ’ s Natural and What ’ s Unnatural in Language
Learning? 254
10.2 Versions of Modularity and Pending Questions in Bilingual Research 266
10.3 Language Diversity, Cognition, and Culture 275
Appendix 1 Assessment of Metalinguistic Awareness Related to
Bilingualism 281
Appendix 2 Indices of Additive Bilingualism 289
Appendix 3 Early Childhood Borrowing and Codeswitching 295
Appendix 4 Writing Samples, including the Assessment of Revision/
Correction 307
Glossary 313
Notes 325
References 343
Index 383
Preface
This book is about the development of bilingual profi ciency and the different kinds
of underlying competence that come together in making up its component parts.
When two or more languages are part of a child ’ s world, we have a rich opportunity
to learn something about language in general and about how the mind works. The
same is true (some opportunities richer, others less so) for bilingualism in adults.
This explains in part why recent years have seen such an upsurge of interest in this
area of research. We will barely lift the cover on this voluminous body of investiga-
tion. In fact, we will restrict ourselves mainly to problems of language ability (pro-
fi ciency) when children use two languages for tasks related to schooling, especially
in learning how to read and write.
Describing kinds of knowledge (competence) as “ underlying ” involves no idea
that there is anything deep or occult about them. Rather, it seems like a good way
to begin to frame some of the problems of language use— thinking about, for
example, what the component parts of bilingual profi ciency might be so as to
understand it better.
Our main concern in looking at the research discussed here will be the questions
that second language and bilingual educators ask. This includes research that
addresses issues of competence: how it develops, how knowledge is organized men-
tally, and how it is processed. As we get a better idea about the knowledge and
processing components that come together in performance, we should better under-
stand how two languages are used for different purposes. At the same time, fi ndings
from research specifi cally oriented toward aspects of learning and teaching pose
interesting problems for other applied subfi elds, and even for work on theoretical
models.
That language learning and literacy might be enriched by including second lan-
guages, alongside the use of fi rst languages, is one idea that we will explore. Another
research proposal that makes this idea somewhat more interesting (because as it
stands it ’ s rather unremarkable) is that this manner of language inclusion might
apply without exception, for example, in school. But not all languages (i.e., the
