Charlotte Kemp

Multiliteracy: a study of multilinguals' ability to translate a passage from Middle Egyptian

Multilinguals who are multiliterate (people with a basic competence in three or more languages and their literacies (Kemp 1996)) are very capable language learners. This may in part be due to their highly developed metalinguistic skills (Klein 1995; Stevick 1989; Ramsay 1980); i.e., their ability to focus on and manipulate language form - including written form.

Multilinguals' translations of a passage of Middle Egyptian will be analysed for their ability to translate phonetic and concept-based signs and for general coherence.

All subjects are native English-speaking literate multilingual adults who differ with regard to the number of languages and literacies they know. I have hypothesised that multilinguals will be better at translating from a previously unknown script:

1. the more literacies,
2. the more different scripts,
3. the more languages, and
4. the more typologically different languages
they use.

This is based on the theory that they will be able to transfer their literacy skills from languages they already know to the new one because of their metalinguistic abilities, and that the more cognitive effort individuals have expended on learning to be literate in a language the better they will be able to cope with further demands.

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