Social perspective taking: a benefit of bilingualism in academic writing

In this study we examine the incidence of social perspective-taking acts in the argumentative essays of language-minority and English-only students in Grades 4–6 and find that language-minority students match or surpass the English-only students on two critical measures of persp ective taking (perspective acknowledgment and perspective articulation). We also explore possible links between students’ use of perspective taking in their argumentative essays and a validated formal measure of the same skill, uncovering different relationships between them in the two language gr oups. Links to previously attested bilingual advantages and to the development of argumentation are discussed.
Source: Reading and Writing - Category: Child Development Source Type: research