DOI: 10.5176/ 2251-1865_CBP13.33
Authors: Lidia Suárez, Ismath Beevi, Jonathan J. H. Soh, Rachel P. L. Lim, and Sok Hui Teo
Abstract:
Previous studies have shown that bilinguals who use at least one logographic language show facilitation during the acquisition of a new logographic language, in comparison to bilinguals with two alphabetic languages [1,2]. In the current study, we invited biscriptal English-Chinese bilinguals and monoscriptal English-Malay bilinguals to learn new logographic words presented visually, and we replicated those findings. Importantly, we examined memory skills that could explain the learning advantage of logographic forms. To do so, participants were asked to perform several visuo-spatial and auditory memory tasks. The results showed that the biscriptal bilinguals outperformed the monoscriptal bilinguals in all tasks associated with logographic learning and visual memory. These findings suggest that literacy in logographic script may promote visuo-spatial memory skills, which facilitate the learning of new logographic forms.
Keywords: bilingualism; biscriptal bilingual; visual memory; spatial memory; auditory verbal memory; foreign language acquisition
LinkOut: James Cook University, AU
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