Heritage and School Language Literacy Development in Migrant Children: Interdependence or Independence?

This book discusses literacy development in heritage language speakers and presents the results of four different quantitative studies that investigate the transfer of literacy skills in bi- and multilingual language development. The empirical studies focus on different populations of pupils, most of them located in various parts of Switzerland, and emphasise the potential residing in shared or transferred resources between their heritage languages and the languages spoken in the region to which their family has immigrated. The goal of all studies was to gain an understanding of the factors, both linguistic and non-linguistic in nature, that contribute to the development of language skills in both the heritage and school languages. Theoretical assumptions are put to the test via hypothesis testing and the generally shared assumptions on bilingual education are questioned based on the data. Furthermore, methodological problems in the investigation of linguistic interdependence are discussed. This book contributes to the scholarly investigation of potential beneficial effects in academic proficiency across languages in migrant children.

Raphael Berthele is Professor of Multilingualism at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He directs the MA programme in multilingualism studies and co-founded the Fribourg Institute of Multilingualism in 2008. His wide-ranging research interests include both cognitive and social aspects of multilingualism.

Amelia Lambelet is Senior Researcher at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Her research interests include individual differences in foreign language learning, receptive multilingualism and heritage speakers’ language development.