Grup de Recerca per a l'Estudi del Repertori Lingüístic (GRERLI) Grup consolidat reconegut i finançat per la Generalitat de Catalunya (2005-2008)

Català - English

<Presentation>

The Research Group for the Study of Linguistic Repertoire (GRERLI) has received recognition and financial support from the Generalitat of Catalonia as a Consolidated Group from 2005 (2005SGR-00637) until 2014.

Since its constitution, the group has worked on two central themes:

•  linguistic variety
•  processes of language learning and instruction , spoke and written language

Although each of these themes has its own specific objectives and has obtained funding for its own development, they mutually sustain each other. In both fields, we are developing basic research that provides a situated picture of the phenomena under scrutiny. Research findings are used for the design of educational interventions which take into account specific learners' characteristics in multilingual contexts.

The group aligns its activity with the objectives of the European Union, which has pronounced itself in favor of the promotion of linguistic diversity. It adheres to the directions of the Research and Innovation plan of Catalonia, that insist on the necessity of prioritizing research oriented towards solving social problems. In this sentiment, the group focuses its research on multilingual classroom situations, which are viewed not as a transitory problem but as a consistent feature of current european societies. The group aims to contribute to a deeper understanding and more efficient management of multilingualism in its wider sense.

 <Prioritized Lines of Research>

• Bilingualism and multilingualism
• Linguistic and didactic aspects of language contact
• Studies concerning the development of linguistic repertoire
• Reading and writing acquisition
• Linguistic developmental disorders

Key Words (classification based on UNESCO codes):

570103 Bilingualism (and multilingualism)
570599 Discourse analysis (oral and written)
570111 Language instruction
570507 Psycholinguistics
570110 Language pathology and correction
570599 Linguistic repertoire
580203 Subject development
580302 Teacher in-service training

< Objectives and general program of activities >

The research group has the following general objectives:

1. Deepen/broaden the understanding of multilingual development
2. Provide educational tools to overcome possible obstacles to the sustainability of classsroom multilingualism at various educational levels.
3. Initiate a new line of research in linguistic developmental disorders

 

Objective 1: Deepen/broaden the understanding of multilingual development

The studies realized concerning relationships between linguistic knowledge and reading and writing acquisition in recently arrived foreign students (5-7 year old native speakers of Chinese, Arabic and non-peninsular Spanish) (BSO2003-06020) have allowed us to understand how previous literacy experiences influence students´conceptions about the relationship between oral and written language. In addition, these studies allow us to discover the particular difficulties of Catalan morphology and to see how the language of origin modulates the learning of Catalan (Tolchinsky, Salas, Perera, 2007). We have also analysed the second language discourse of Chinese, Moroccan, and Korean children studying in Catalonia (For the corpus in Catalan) and in diverse areas of the Spanish state (For the corpus in Spanish), to determine the standard of knowledge of Catalan as L2 and of Spanish as L2 (SEJ2006-11083). Analysis of children´s production showed dissociated results at each linguistic level, for example a good discourse and syntactic output, but with errors of agreement and verbal conjugation. The study is in the final elaboration phase and we envisage completing it as well as a new project in the period 2009-2012, when we will close the study on comparative development of the linguistic repertoire in L1 and L2 iniciated in the funded group projects.

Our plan from 2009-2012 is to continue to deepen this line of research. Thanks to our collaboration with the research group CLIC of the UB, we will have the possibility of certain automatic analyses and a more systematic review of the corpus. CLIC will provide the linguistic technology necessary to complete these analyses and with which we will complete the following tasks:

•  Create the first corpus of written Catalan throughout compulsory education (2006ARIE 10058 i 2007ARIE-00005), which has already been digitalized and lemmatized with organized information and easy access to the vocabularies and other types of text ( http://clic.ub.edu/cesca/ ). From this, we will obtain a picture of students´ written language knowledge in Catalonia and will study whether this knowledge relates to the language of origin and to the amount of time they have spoken Catalan.

•  Initiate the process of digitalizing all the corpora obtained in the group projects (DigitalCor-UB) for the purpose of automatic analysis and place them at the disposal of all interested researchers via the internet.

For the automatic analysis we will apply a series of complementary actions. Regarding research methodology, we expect to complement the qualitative analysis we have applied so far with this new orientation, in order to develop leading research in the processing of “authentic language.”

Finally, we have begun to explore the processes of maternal mediation in writing acquisition and development, comparing three writing systems: that of Chinese, Hebrew, and Spanish. The initial studies will be financed by the University of Hong Kong and serve a dual purpose: identifying the orthographic concepts of adults and determining the way in which adults interact with and mediate the knowledge of their own children (Lin, McBride-Chang, Aram, Levin, Cheung, Chow & Tolchinsky, 2008). In the coming months we will begin drafting a comparative research proposal to present to the Spencer Foundation (USA).

In this first sphere, we will continue the mobilizing activities and educational training which for years have motivated the group: the organization of an international biennial congress (Languages and Education Seminar), teaching the the Postgraduate Course on Plurilingual Education (9th edition course 2010-2011) and creating forums for debate and discussion among researchers and education professionals (web An open door to languages ; EDULING - Journal-Forum on Plurilingualism and Education: http://www.ub.es/ice/portaling/; LLENCAT – Forum on Language and Literature: http://161.116.7.109/~llencat/ ). Besides this, we are going to organize new activities in the context of the COST Action, of which this group is a member.

Objective 2: Provide educational tools to overcome possible obstacles to the sustainability of classroom multilingualism at various educational levels.

•  Build tools which serve to observe and measure prior knowledge of recently arrived foreign students in relation to written language;

•  Design specific activities for language learning in multilingual classrooms

•  Detect classroom practices which most effectively approach the learning processes of reading and writing for plurilingual students throughout their elementary education.

In the first of these interventions (projects 2004ARIE-00011 and 2005ARIE-10029), inicial evaluatory instruments were designed as a group of activities to work on morphological processes in classroom play contexts, to stimulate the understanding of the relationship between oral and written language and to facilitate the knowledge of real-life texts, in the context of classrooms in the first cycle of elementary education. Similarly, in a later project (2006-ARIE-10059) tools were designed specifically for linguistic learning across other areas of the curriculum; in particular, we have devised a group of activities for language learning during the middle cycle of elementary education, in which literacy activities are integrated with content from other areas of the curriculum (e.g., physical education). In each case the production of these tools has entailed a research process and initial production, piloting and validation of materials, and a final production. The final production includes a guide explaining the results of the research process and instructions for application in the classroom. Currently, we are gathering and organizing all the materials produced with the help of the three ARIE projects for dissemination in educational centers.

The research group aims to deepen the understanding of language learning processes of recently arrived foreign children and to provide tools and resources which facilitate these processes. These aims are consistent with the new guidelines of the ARIE projects, which propose to devote efforts for facilitating student integration at different stages of the educational system. In relation to the secondary level, the research group is developing collaboration with middle school teaching staff. In particular, those teachers that are enjoying a study leave supervised by research group members.

In terms of detecting current classroom practices, the ongoing project (SEJ2006-05292 ) has been initiated in different Spanish communities and has allowed the identification of different profiles of initial reading and writing teaching practices. At the same time, we have evaluated initial knowledge of preschoolers in several domains considered fundamental to learning reading and writing (e.g. lexical knowledge, phonological awareness). As a result, we will be able to detect the optimal conditions for written language learning. The detailed caracterization of teachers' practices constitutes an essential step towards determining the most appropriate conditions for learning reading and writing.

In the coming years we will dedicate ourselves to one of the most complex aspects of this research: the study of reading comprehension with the support of a new I+D project from the Spanish Ministry of Education . We will apply a paradigm similar to the one used previously, which will give a panorama of teaching practices and children's knowledge in order to determine the importance of these two factors in reading comprehension. In addition, we will realize a longitudinal tracking of the same group of students who participated in the previous project. We will verify the predictive value of the initally evaluated factors and the growth curve in relation to reading comprehension using our evaluation at the start of the second cycle of elementary education.

The corpus of written Catalan (CESCA) is a research tool which serves the education community, as well as the editorial, linguistic and sociolinguistic worlds, providing information on key aspects of students' written language throughout compulsory education in Catalonia. We will begin a line of didactic exploitation of the corpus obtained from the group projects. Analyses will focus on discourse analysis and textual organization, morphosyntactic and lexical devices, and orthography. This project is in the initial execution phase (2008ARIE-00053).

Also in this sphere we will continue the mobilization actions of the group, which consist of training activities (assessment courses and seminars for teachers and professors).

Objective 3: Iniciate a new line of research in linguistic developmental disorders

Until now, the activities developed by the group regarding this objective have consisted of mobilization and training actions. Between 01/05/2005 and 31/07/2005 and upon invitation from the group, Dr. Celia Jakubowicz from the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology (CNRS, UMR-8581, Paris University 5) gave a course in Barcelona on Language syntax and pathologies and realized a doctoral tutoring program (PIV programme). In December 2006, Judy Reilly from the University of San Diego (USA), was the invited professor and gave a course in the Doctoral Program on Language and Communication with the UB Linguistic Department, on language development in typical and atypical populations. Previously, Liliana Tolchinsky traveled, as a guest of Prof. Reilly, to the laboratory of Language and Cognition at the University of San Diego to initiate studies on the work of children with specific language disorders. As a result of these contacts and initial research, we have presented communications in two recent Workshops (Lund and Edinburg, 2008).

Currently, one of the group interns –Milagros Albert– has started her thesis on the theme of language development disorders (SLI), in order to analyze the work already available (SEJ2006-05292 and CESCA) and to identify elements for diagnosing learning difficulties, particularly the characteristics of defining terms. Another group collaborator–Naymé Salas– has obtained a Marie Curie International Fellowship with the research group at Bangor University, to participate in a project on reading in children with learning difficulties. We foresee requesting new projects I+D with special reference to written language so as to support this new line of research.