The Primacy of Bilinguals and Trilinguals College Students’ Views on Reading and Language Learning

Negmeldin Alsheikh

English Language Teaching, 2018, vol. 11, issue 1, 150

Abstract: This study aimed at understanding the essence of reading and language learning by bilinguals and trilinguals college students. The study is based on data from two separate yet related studies that were completed. The study used interviews as a qualitative means to glean the views of Arab bilinguals (n=10) and African trilinguals (n=3). The study is based on symbolic interactionism approach to incorporate a focus on intersubjective realities of bilinguals and trilinguals, openness to bilinguals and multilinguals’ experiences and a search for invariant indispensable meaning in their descriptions of their bilingualism and multilingualism. In a very important sense, this study attempted to get beyond the immediacy of an experienced world in order to articulate the pre-reflective level of lived-world of bilinguals and trilinguals. The preliminary results of this study revealed that both bilinguals and trilinguals viewed reading as an establish tool for gleaning meaning. On the other hand, trilinguals viewed language from a larger intersubjective scope where the shared common understandings through ongoing symbolic interaction with the others. The trilingual also assigned more spatial perspectives, more metalinguistic awareness of reading and languages learning than the bilinguals.

Date: 2018
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