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Children's Metalinguistic Awareness in L1 and L2: a Sociocognitive Perspective

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Children's Metalinguistic Awareness in L1 and L2: a Sociocognitive Perspective 222 Pietilä, P. & O-P. Salo (eds.) 1999. Multiple Languages – Multiple Perspectives. AFinLA Yearbook 1999. Publications de l’Association Finlandaise de Linguistique Appliquée 57. pp. 218–227. CHILDREN’S METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS IN L1 AND L2: A SOCIOCOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE Kari Sajavaara, Riikka Alanen, Hannele Dufva, Katja Mäntylä, Merja Pääkkönen & Soile Saarela University of Jyväskylä The relationship of metalinguistic awareness and learning of foreign languages, in this case English, by monolinguals in a formal school context has received very little attention. The project seeks answers to questions such as: (1) What is the nature of metalinguistic awareness in general? (2) What are the specific metalinguistic knowledge and skills learners develop during the first school years and how does developing literacy influence them? (3) What is the relationship between particular (socio)cognitive constructs and skills (eg. reading skill, verbal working memory, foreign language aptitude) and metalinguistic awareness? (4) How do metalinguistic knowledge and skills affect foreign language learning? and (5) To what extent are metalinguistic knowledge and skills socially constructed? An attempt is made to integrate both cognitive and social viewpoints in the study of metalinguistic awareness to obtain a comprehensive understanding of language learners’ metalinguistic awareness. The project focuses on a group of learners (N=20) in one school class who will be examined from the beginning of their comprehensive school career through grades 1–6. Keywords: metalinguistic awareness, second/foreign language learning, mother tongue, consciousness 1 INTRODUCTION In the past few years, different aspects of human consciousness have been studied extensively within eg. philosophy, cognitive science and neuro-sciences. Furthermore, the relationship between language and consciousness has also been widely studied, the role of consciousness and/or awareness in first language acquisition and L2 language learning in particular. The present research project focuses on the issue of Finnish 223 children’s metalinguistic awareness and its role in the foreign language learning process. The six-year project was launched in autumn 1998. The definitions of what is linguistic or metalinguistic awareness differ. According to Bowey (1988: 3), linguistic awareness has been defined as "accessible knowledge concerning the structure and function of language". She constrasts this "explicit accessible knowledge" with the "implicit or tacit knowledge that is used to comprehend and produce language, knowledge that Chomsky (1965) termed linguistic competence." This tacit knowledge must be inferred from performance data that are not always direct reflections of linguistic competence. As Bowey (1988: 3) notes, just as it is not possible to study linguistic competence directly, it is not possible to study linguistic awareness (accessible linguistic knowledge) directly. Bowey operationally defines linguistic awareness, or metalinguistic functioning as the ability to reflect on and manipulate the structural features of language. Metalinguistic performance thus requires the language system (rather than intended meaning) to be treated as an object of thought. Bowey (1988: 3) sees an attention shift from content to form as the basic feature of metalinguistic functioning, similar in her view to Cazden's (1974) notion of the ability to make language froms and functions ‘opaque'. "Any activity in which attention is focused on language structure, rather than upon meaning, may thus be considered metalinguistic in nature" (Bowey 1988: 3). Gombert (1992: 4) points out the difference between the linguists’ and psychologists’ definition of metalinguistic. According to him, the psycholinguistic, or psychologist’s meaning of the term 'metalinguistic' is broader and refers to the conscious management (reflection on or intentional control over) of the language objects, either as objects per se or in terms of the use to which they are put. Thus metalanguage or metalin- guistic activities are a subfield of metacognition concerned with language and its use – in other words comprising: (1) activities of reflection on language and its use; (2) subjects' ability intentionally to monitor and plan their own methods of linguistic processing (in both comprehension and production). These activities and abilities may concern any aspect of language, whether phonological (in which case we speak of metaphonolo- gical activities), syntactic (metasyntactic activities), semantic (meta- semantic activities) or pragmatic (metapragmatic activities). Following French research tradition, Gombert (1992: 13) makes a distinction between metalinguistic and epilinguistic activities. Epilinguistic activities are types of behaviour manifested from an early age which are related to metalinguistic behaviour but are not consciously monitored by 224 the subject. Such activities in the subject's behaviour are, in fact, “explicit manifestations of a functional awareness of the rules of the organisation or use of language" (Gombert 1992: 13). How to distinguish between epilinguistic activities on one hand, and metalinguistic activities on the other hand, is one of the intriguing questions in this field of study. Gombert (1992: 8) argues that metalinguistic reflection may result in cognitive products, or symbolic objects which are easily perceived and frequently manipulated by the child and which are important for the general development of thought and, more specifically, for metacognitive development. According to our working definition, metalinguistic awareness refers to children’s knowledge of language structure and language use, as apparent in their verbal behaviour and/or as indicated by their test achievement. Following Gombert, we aim to focus on metalinguistic activities as defined by, firstly, the conscious reflections of children on language, and secondly, children’s' ability intentionally to monitor their own linguistic processing. By metatheoretical discussion and interpretation of our data, we aim at a theoretical clarification of various concepts (consciousness, awareness, explicit vs. implicit knowledge etc.) around the issue of what individuals (here: children) know about their language. 2 GOALS The overall goal of the project is to examine the nature of Finnish children’s metalinguistic awareness in L1 and L2 by using 1) tests developed to measure different aspects of metalinguistic awareness and 2) children’s and teachers’ interviews, classroom observations and 3) other data (such as children’s verbal performance, teaching materials, evaluation etc.). Second, we aim at studying the relationship between metalinguistic awareness and some cognitive (eg. intelligence, working memory) and socioeconomic factors. Third, we will investigate the relationship between cognitive factors and the language behaviour and language proficiency of the children participating in the study. The theoretical background aims at combining the recent developments within the psychologically and linguistically oriented research on children’s L1 (Gombert 1992) and foreign language learners’ L2 (Alanen 1995, 1997) metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness to the sociocognitive view on language, as expressed, for example, in Vygotskyan and Bakhtinian (Dufva et al. 1996, Dufva 1998) approaches. 225 As Wertsch (1991: 2) notes, in psychological research there has been a tendency to investigate human functioning as if it existed in a cultural, institutional, and historical vacuum. It is often assumed that it is possible, or desirable, to study the individual, or specific areas of mental functioning in the individual, in isolation. According to Wertsch (1991: 3), this has had the consequence of cutting psychological research off from other academic disciplines. As a remedy, Wertsch (1991: 4) advocates conducting research into "concrete empirical problems but in such a way that it always remains anchored in some more general picture". Thus the overall aim of the project is the integration of the cognitive and social perspectives in the study of metalinguistic awareness. Special emphasis will hence be placed on studying the different environments of metalinguistic and metacognitive development, ie. the child’s linguistic affordances1 (see eg. van Lier 1996) in and out classroom. The research project aims at increasing knowledge about how the language knowledge and language skills of school age children develop, a goal particularly important since the data at this stage of language development is still scarce if compared to the early (pre-school) years of language acquisition. At a national level, it is of particular significance to examine the relationship between mother tongue and foreign language knowledge for the purpose of language education and language planning in questions like immersion or teaching content in a foreign language. 3 DESIGN AND METHODS Methodologically, the study is a combination of longitudinal and cross- sectional studies. The participants are pupils at two different school grades. The project focuses on the pupils in one first grade class, who are examined from the beginning of their comprehensive school career through grades 1–6. At this point, the children of this class (N = 20) have been interviewed and the first tests of metalinguistic awareness are being carried out. Their classroom work has been observed for a week and a part of their written productions (such their first written words) have been collected and will
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