Vocabulary development and biliteracy in Yorùbá and English among young bilinguals

Abstract

In Nigeria and other countries in West Africa, English, French, and Portuguese languages are acquired or learned and used alongside the indigenous languages for various communication purposes as applicable. Previous studies have noted that Yorùbá language does not have an equal usage as being critical for bilingual mastery attainment as the English language. This study examines literacy development patterns among typically developing Yorùbá-English bilingual children to further our understanding of oral and literacy proficiency. Based on qualitative methods, cross-sectional data were obtained. Oral and literacy data were acquired by interview, specialized wordlist, written texts, and pictorial objects. Children were purposively selected for a stratified assessment as representative of their literacy levels (3 aged 2-3, 4 aged 4-6, and 5 aged 7-10). All participants were ages 2 to 10 years and lived in Ilorin metropolis. Data were subjected to descriptive analysis. Based on experiments, for instance, if the stimulus are words, the results showed that the word frequencies in the two languages do not enjoy the same value outcome, English >> Yorùbá. Significant outcomes showed that literacy in English language is on the positive end of the spectrum while literacy in Yorùbá language is on the opposite end. Most of the children paid more attention to English tasks, hence performed above average. Using the different age groups and educational levels as a continuum, it was generally observed that literacy depends largely on a child’s cognitive alertness. The study concludes by linking the obvious gap in the initial observation to foundation lapses.