Abstract
Bi- and multilingualism has been shown to have positive effects on the attainment of third and additional languages. These effects, however, depend on the type of bi- and multilingualism and the status of the languages involved (Cenoz, 2003; Jessner, 2006). In this exploratory trend study, we revisit Cummins' Threshold Hypothesis (1979), claiming that bilingual children must reach certain levels of attainment in order to (a) avoid academic deficits and (b) allow bilingualism to have a positive effect on their cognitive development and academic attainment. To this end, we examine the attainment of English as an academic language of 16-years-old school children from Hamburg (n = 52). Our findings support the existence of thresholds for literacy attainment. We argue that language external factors may override positive effects of bilingualism. In addition, these factors may compensate negative effects attributable to low literacy attainment in German and the heritage languages. We also show that low attainment levels in migrant children's heritage languages preempt high literacy attainment in additional languages.
Highlights
In Germany and elsewhere, it remains highly debated if bilingualism has a positive impact on cognitive development or academic attainment (Gogolin and Neumann, 2009), especially in subtractive bilingual situations (Cenoz, 2003, pp 74–80)
While we do find tendencies supporting Cummins’ Threshold Hypothesis, the highly heterogeneous nature of the investigated data has to be kept in mind
High literacy achievement in German coincided more often with high literacy achievement in English than high literacy achievement in informants’ heritage languages. We argue that this is due to both the typologies of the languages involved and the task at hand, which tested for academic language and the production of instructive text types
Summary
In Germany and elsewhere, it remains highly debated if bilingualism has a positive impact on cognitive development or academic attainment (Gogolin and Neumann, 2009), especially in subtractive bilingual situations (Cenoz, 2003, pp 74–80). Several studies have shown that bilinguals have cognitive advantages compared to their monolingual peers (Bialystok, 2009, pp 97–98), in tasks that require cognitive flexibility and selective attention Regarding the attainment of additional languages, positive effects have been identified for bilingual learners in comparison to their monolingual peers 73) claim that bilingual literacy development is especially important in this respect. Language external variables seem to play an important role (De Angelis, 2007, p. 12)
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