Task Specificity in the Use of Words in Mathematics: Evidence from Bilingual Problem Solvers

Abstract

Mathematics is often said to be a different language in itself. Three experiments were conducted to show some evidence for this common notion. It was hypothesized that in math word problem solving, people interpret words like “more” and “less” in specialized ways that are specific to the task of math word problem solving. Subjects were given texts with quantitative information, but the texts were framed either as math problems or as stories, and were written either in English or Filipino. Subjects were then asked to verify statements that describe quantitative relations given in the text; these relations either stated an exact or an inexact quantitative difference. The verification responses and verification times in three experiments show that subjects more often accepted the inexact difference as true when the text was framed as a story compared to when framed as a problem. These results support the hypothesis that the use of the specialized meaning is specific to the task of solving word problems in math. The data were equivocal about the role of the language used in the operation of this knowledge. The results were discussed in terms of the implications of specificity of knowledge, context sensitivity, and the possible role of language use in the process of learning and developing mathematical knowledge.