Bilingualism and the Metaset

Abstract

This paper represents a theoretical integration of developmental psychology and learning set theory which attempts to provide an empirically testable model of bilingualism. It is presented in three sections. In the introductory section research bearing on the issue of bilingualism as it relates to the educational treatment of language minority children living in the United States is briefly reviewed. The second section, which constitutes the major focus of the paper, pre sents findings from a number of studies in terms of a theory which integrates the theoretical position of Piagetian developmental psychology with the concept of the learning set proposed by Har low. This integrated theory, called the metaset, is offered as a new approach to explaining the effects of childhood bilingualism. fn the final section, specific hypotheses with respect to the relationship between bilingualism and inteUectual/cognitive functioning are pre sented. Supportive data, which-compares the relative performance of the three monolingual and bilingual populations, are cited. Results are discussed in terms of the proposed theory and compared with other recent theories of bilingualism.

Using Two Languages When Learning Mathematics

“…While being bilingual in some languages and settings is a sign of education, "in other languages and other places (it) may be synonymous with poverty and supposed cultural deprivation" (De Avila and Duncan, 1981). For example, Latino bilinguals in the U.S. have a particular history as part of a language minority.…”

“…Definitions of bilingualism range from "native-like fluency in two languages," to "alternating use of two languages" (De Avila and Duncan, 1981), to "belonging to a bilingual community" (Valdés-Fallis, 1978). Contemporary scholars studying bilingualism view "native-like control of two or more languages" as an unrealistic definition.…”

Influences of bilingualism on metalinguistic development

“…Evidence has been presented in support of the argument that bilingualism facilitates metalinguistic development (as well as other language and academic developments) (Ben-Zeev, 1977; Cummins, 1978; lanco-Worrall, 1972); that it is unrelated to metalinguistic development (Ben-Zeev, 1977;de Avila and Duncan, 1981;Rosenblum and Pinker, 1983) and that it impedes progress in metalinguistic achievement (Macnamara, 1967;Palmer, 1972). Two possible interpretations of this lack of consistency are: (1) that the facilitating effects of bilingualism are confined to certain types of metalinguistic problems; and (2) that the facilitating effects of metalinguistic performance are confined to certain types of bilingualism.…”

Bilingualism and Cognition: Some Recent Findings

“…It is pre cisely their speculation on the relationship between bilingualism and information processing strategies which seems to hold the key to the issue of bilingualism. In fact, an integration of recent work drawn from such fields as linguistics (Menyuk, 1971), psycholinguistics (Miller, 1951;Kessler, 1971, cited in Tremaine, 1975, learning (Harlow, 1949;, developmental psychology (Hunt, 1961;Sinclair-de-Zwart, 1969;De Avila, Havassy & PascualLeone, 1976) and metacognition (Flavell et al, 1968;Cazden, 1972;De Avila & Duncan, 1979;Cummins & Gulutsan, 1974Cum mins, 1978) seem to suggest the possibility that the unique symbolic experiences of the bilingual child may have quite positive conse quences and that these children may be potentially intellectually advanced with respect to concept formation and general mental flexi bility.…”