Living in Simultaneous Worlds: Difference and Integration in Bilingual Script-learning
Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7 (1):
43-61 (2004)Abstract
This paper proposes that young children who are growing up in a bilingual and
biliterate environment may, at a fundamental level, experience their worlds not as
separate linguistic and cultural entities but as ‘simultaneous’. The data comes from
a study of 6-year-olds in London who were learning to write in Chinese, Arabic or
Spanish as well as English. Whilst being able to differentiate between their two
writing systems, the children also sought connections between multiple systems of
representation. They saw graphic symbols as ‘signier material’ which could transform
in meaning across systems. When making a text, the children had an expanded
range of semiotic resources from which they could choose in order to represent and
construct their identities as writers. The paper discusses how children’s use of
graphic representation showed that they were able both to maintain difference and
to achieve integration.