Umbrellas and angels standing straight – a social semiotic perspective on multilingual children's literacy

Abstract

In a Danish context, the acquisition of literacy by the ‘bilingual student’ is embedded in an education policy discourse in which literacy is seen as a cognitive competence that can be quantified by measuring a number of specific skills in a defined language and in a defined written language. On the basis of empirical data from the research project Signs of Language, in this article I will focus on how a social semiotic perspective on literacy can contribute to adding new dimensions to research in literacy acquisition by bilingual students. I will do this by focusing on how the interpretation and interaction processes of the child affect the child's meaning-making, and by focusing on the discursive macro-histories in which this meaning-making is embedded.

Keywords:

• social semiotics
• biliteracy
• bilingual students
• literacy acquisition
• PISA
• OECD

Acknowledgements

The research project Signs of language is a collaboration between the Department of Education, Aarhus University, University College UCC, University College VIA, University College Nordjylland, University College Lillebælt, the City of Copenhagen, and the Municipalities of Aarhus, Aalborg, Vejle and Odense, and has been funded by the municipalities and university colleges mentioned, as well as the Department of Education, Aarhus University. The study has also received funding from the Ministry of Children and Education and the former Ministry of Refugees, Immigration and Integration Affairs.

I would like to thank research assistant, Line Møller Daugaard, for providing me with the data I have used here and for helpful discussions. I would also like to thank research assistant, Liv Fabrin, for valuable discussions about this article.

Notes

1. From 1998 to 2003 the Organizations for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducted the project Definition and Selection of Competences (DeSeCo) with the aim of ‘providing a sound conceptual framework to inform the identification of key competencies and strengthen international surveys measuring the competence level of young people and adults’ (OECD 2005). The DeSeCo project is linked to PISA by setting the conceptual context for international assessments such as the PISA, the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) (OECD 2003).

2. The quotation is translated from Danish: ‘Tosprogede ligger 61 PISA-point under dansksprogede elever i læsning, og 37,6% af de tosprogede elever mangler funktionelle læsefærdigheder, mens tallet for elever, der taler dansk i hjemmet, er 12,6%’ (Egelund 2010, 9).

3. The quotation is translated from Danish:

‘Modersmål og læsefærdigheder

I denne analyse er eleverne opdelt efter modersmål: elever, der taler dansk i hjemmet, og elever, som taler et andet sprog end dansk hjemme. Denne elevgruppe kaldes i det følgende for tosprogede elever. Såvel nationale som internationale læseundersøgelser har dokumenteret, at tosprogede elever har ringere læsefærdigheder end elever, der er vokset op med landets modersmål og taler dette i hjemmet. Disse resultater er fundet blandt elever i grundskolen, blandt unge og voksne’ (Egelund 2010, 47).