Investigating how number-word formation rule in mother tongue impacts numerical processing in a newly acquired language
(2019) IPSY Day - Sharing our research in IPSY — Location: Louvain-la-Neuve
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- Current models of numerical cognition acknowledge that humans possess non-verbal basic numerical abilities, but it is also clear that language plays a critical role in the development of numerical and arithmetical thinking. Learning number words allows the understanding of arithmetical principles and the precise manipulation of large numerical quantities. In our modern multicultural world, most individuals are confronted with languages that are not their mother tongues. Understanding how individuals learn the number words of a new language is thus crucial. This project aims at investigating the influence of number word formation in the mother tongue (hereafter L1) on numerical processing in a newly acquired language (hereafter L2) that has a similar or dissimilar number-word formation rule. In some languages the order of tens and units follows the sequence of their corresponding digits in digital notation, first tens and then units (e.g., 47: quarante-sept in French) while this order is inverted in others (e.g., siebenundvierzig in German). Surveys indicate that students with an immigrant background perform worse in mathematics than others in most European countries, including Germany (e.g., OECD, 2015). Previous studies highlighted better performance of participants for solving arithmetic problems in L1 (or in the language in which arithmetic is taught first) than in L2 but the compatibility between the structure of the languages (i.e., inversion) has not been considered. Our analyses of PISA surveys allowed us to unveil difficulties in mathematics for immigrants especially when they established in a country with a number-word formation rule that differs from those used in their home countries. We suggest that the problems exhibited by immigrants might go beyond the simple need to learn new vocabulary for numbers. Our projects aim at identifying the precise numerical processes that are affected by the incongruence between the number-word formation rule in L1 and L2.
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Masson, N., Cipora, K., Schiltz, C., Soltanlou, M., & Nuerk, H.-C. (2019). Investigating how number-word formation rule in mother tongue impacts numerical processing in a newly acquired language. IPSY Day - Sharing our research in IPSY, Louvain-la-Neuve. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/91901