Speaker: Iris Shijun Yu, University of Birmingham

Title: The Effect of Metalinguistic Awareness on Theory of Mind

Abstract:

Bilingual children have precocious Theory of Mind skills, that is skills to distinguish between one’s own and other’s knowledge, desires and intentions. It has been argued that this is due to enhanced metalinguistic awareness, that is bilinguals’ experience to link two representations for the same referent (two names for the same object). This study will examine the effect of metalinguistic awareness on ToM through a four-week intervention with three to four-year-old monolingual children recruited from nurseries in the United Kingdom. Participants will first complete some baseline measures (vocabulary assessment, executive function etc.) in the pre-test. Then, they will be randomly assigned to a metalinguistic training group (alternative name training) and a numerical cognition training group, with the latter serving as the control group. After the intervention, a post-test will determine whether training will have improved ToM skills. The results are expected to outline the relationship between metalinguistic awareness and ToM, with executive functions and vocabulary knowledge as potential moderators. The findings have the potential to explain bilingual precocious ToM development. Furthermore, metalinguistic training could be used to minimize the disparity between monolingual and bilingual social development and to maximize the benefits of the bilingual advantage without having the language experience.

Short Bio:

Shijun Yu (Iris) is a 4th year PhD student who is interested in exploring the perspective-taking ability in bilingual children. Metalinguistic skill is believed to be one of the contributing factors. Her current research focuses on training monolingual children on metalinguistic skills to see whether this could help them to reach a similar level of perspective-taking skills as bilinguals. Additionally, she also investigates how lexical alignment in children could be related to ToM abilities.

Email Kirsty Green for a Teams Link.