Proceedings of The 6th World Conference on Research in Education
Year: 2023
DOI:
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Formulation and problem-solving formulation of biliterate writers: Effects of biliteracy
Elaine Ng
ABSTRACT:
This mixed-methods study examines the impact of biliteracy on the writing processes of Chinese-English biliterate bilinguals who are senior high school students in Sydney. Building on the author’s prior research on the writing processes of individuals who have mastered two languages, this study delves deeper into writers’ activities as they compose written works. In the author’s earlier study on the impact of bilingualism on writing, distinct writing features were observed for English mono-literate monolinguals (N = 10), such as the strategic use of vocabulary. Chinese-English mono-literate bilinguals (N = 10) and Chinese-English biliterate bilinguals (N = 10) exhibited prospective and retrospective writing behaviours when composing in English. The current study advances this research by examining the formulation processes of Chinese-English biliterate bilinguals (N = 10) and how they translate ideas into language and writing in both Chinese and English. The results show that biliterate bilinguals share similar formulation and problem-solving behaviours across two types of texts – narrative and argumentative – in both languages. The group spent comparable amounts of time formulating their texts in both languages, indicating their proficient use of both languages. They also demonstrated similar problem-solving formulation behaviours when faced with linguistic formulation problems (orthographical problems) and conceptual formulation problems (idea modification) when composing in both languages. These findings are discussed in light of previous studies on the writing process, the effects of biliteracy, and the author’s earlier investigations into the formulation processes and metacognition of monolingual, bilingual, and biliterate writers.
keywords: biliteracy, bilingualism, Chinese-English, formulation processes, writing processes