How Arabic diglossia affects the performances on phonological working memory tasks: Research evidence among first graders

Abstract

The effect of bilingualism on verbal learning and memory was explored in different studies. Different researchers assume that the Arabic diglossia, represents a case of bilingualism in the lingual context. Hence, the current study aimed to investigate the impact of diglossia in Arabic on the phonological working memory among beginner readers. Forty-one Arabic first graders (M = 7.13, SD = .73) were administered three tasks of phonological working memory in two versions (i.e., spoken and standard language); Two tasks were designed to test verbal retrieval and one task was designed to test remembering of instructions. The participants showed significant diglossic differences between spoken and standard stimuli in verbal retrieval tasks while no such significant differences appeared in remembering of instructions’ task, especially, when the processing demands increased. In addition, the findings may shed light on the importance of developing research tools and tasks with a higher level of sensitivity in order to examine the diglossic effect on memory functions in general and verbal working memory in particular. The results were discussed considering the impact of the Arabic diglossia on cognitive and memory processing skills.