Advantages of Bilinguals Over Monolinguals in Learning a Third Language
Abstract
The present study is an examination of the contribution of bilingualism to trilingualism, namely the influence of learning two different orthographies on learning a third. The participants were two groups of sixth graders from Israeli schools who were studying English as a foreign (second or third) language: Russian Israeli children for whom Russian was their native language and Hebrew was their second language and a control group of native Hebrew speakers. The participants were administered cognitive and metacognitive linguistic tests: IQ, reading strategies, syntactic judgment, orthographic choice, orthographic knowledge, and phonological awareness tests. In addition, language knowledge tests were also given: Vocabulary, word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension. The MANOVA procedures indicated stronger English skills among the native Russian speakers than the native Hebrew speakers on almost all measures. However, both groups showed similar proficiency on the Hebrew measures. Our findings give more support to the notion that knowledge of several different orthographies enhances rather than diminishes L1 and L2 proficiency. The results are discussed in light of across-language transfer, the orthographic depth hypothesis, and the psycholinguistic grain-size theory.
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Transfer of syntactic awareness skills from English L3 to both Arabic L1 and Hebrew L2 occurred.
“Overall, the findings prove in the clearest way possible that a transfer of syntactic awareness skills from English L3 to both Arabic L1 and Hebrew L2 did occur, which is identical to the findings of others”
From Cognitive Retroactive Transfer (CRT) of Language Skills among Trilingual Arabic-Hebrew and English Learners (2014) · cites this paper as Abu-Rabia & Sanitsky, 2010
Cites
Linguistic Interdependence and the Educational Development of Bilingual Children
Cummins, J. (1979) · Review of Educational Research · doi:10.2307/1169960 · Cited by 3,318 · see citing works
The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills
Wagner, R. K., & Torgesen, J. K. (1987) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.101.2.192 · Cited by 3,303 · cited 3× · see citing works
“Likewise, among the native Russian speakers, their English syntactic awareness was predicted by the Russian syntactic awareness, phonological awareness, and orthographic choices, which is consistent with previous results (Blackmore & Pratt, 1997; Lefrancois & Armand, 2003). Likewise, Nassaji (2003) found that syntacti…”
BackgroundResultGoswami, U., Gombert, J. E., & de Barrera, L. F. (1998) · Applied Psycholinguistics · doi:10.1017/s0142716400010560 · Cited by 330 · see citing works
MCLAUGHLIN, B. (1990) · Applied Linguistics · doi:10.1093/applin/11.2.113 · Cited by 303 · see citing works
Abu-Rabia, S., & Siegel, L. S. (2002) · Journal of Psycholinguistic Research · doi:10.1023/a:1021221206119 · Cited by 250 · see citing works
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Abu-Rabia, S., & Shakkour, W. (2014) · Open Journal of Modern Linguistics · doi:10.4236/ojml.2014.41001 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“Identical findings were shown between Circassian and English (Abu-Rabia, 1997b), Dutch and English (Morfidi et al., 2007), Persian and English (Arab-Moghaddam & Sénéchal, 2001), Korean and English (Wang, Ko, & Choi, 2009), Russian and English (Abu-Rabia, 2001a), and Chinese and English (Keung & Ho, 2009).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialSelf-citationde Klerk, E. D., Palmer, J. M., & Papashane, M. (2021) · South African Journal of Education · doi:10.15700/saje.v41ns1a2064 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
- Authors
- Abu-Rabia, S., & Sanitsky, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Haifa (IL)
- Venue
- Bilingual Research Journal
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2010-08-25
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 173-199
- ISSN
- 1523-5882 (ISSN-L)
- 1523-5890
- OpenAlex
- W2089722833
- Cited by
- 111
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 38 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 1.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Bilingual Research Journal (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Keywords
- bilingualism, trilingualism, third language acquisition, orthography, orthographic knowledge, orthographic choice, English as a foreign language, reading comprehension, spelling, phonological awareness, Russian-speaking children
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