language minority children's linguistic and cognitive creativity

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Language minority children's linguistic and cognitivecreativityCarolyn Kessler a & Mary Ellen Quinn ba University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, 78285, U.S.A.b Alamo Heights School District, San Antonio, TX, 78209, U.S.A.Published online: 14 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Carolyn Kessler & Mary Ellen Quinn (1987): Language minority children's linguistic and cognitive creativity,Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 8:1-2, 173-186

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LANGUAGE MINORITY CHILDREN'SLINGUISTIC AND COGNITIVE

CREATIVITY

Carolyn Kessler

University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78285,

U.S.A.

Mary Ellen Quinn

Alamo Heights School District, San Antonio, TX 78209,U.S.A.

Abstract. In the southwestern United States thousands of childrenenter the schooling process as language minority speakers of Spanish.This paper discusses findings from an empirical investigation of theeffects of bilingualism on the linguistic and cognitive creativity of lan-guage minority children proficiently bilingual in Spanish and English.Specifically, it addresses the cognitive processes of divergent and con-vergent thinking and the linguistic process of metaphorising in the 'context of formulating scientific hypotheses. Together the linguistic andcognitive processes are viewed as manifesting aspects of a commonunderlying creativity. Subjects were sixth-grade students, age 11, intwo intact classrooms, one with monolingual English-speaking majoritychildren and the other with Spanish-English bilingual minority children.Both groups participated in an inquiry-based science programme duringwhich they learned to formulate scientific hypotheses in a problem-solving setting. Written hypotheses generated by the children providedthe data-base. On measures of hypothesis quality, syntactic and semanticlinguistic variables, bilinguals outperformed monolinguals. The quali-tatively high scientific hypotheses expressed by the language minoritychildren using complex metaphoric language in their second language,English, indicate that linguistic and cognitive creativity is enhanced bybilingual language proficiency.

In the southwestern United States thousands of children enter school aslanguage minority speakers of Spanish. In Texas alone, more than 260,000children are classified as limited English proficient or LEP (Texas EducationAgency, 1986). These language minority children are, consequently, in needof special educational services to develop the majority language, English,

0143-4632/87/01/0173-14$02.50/0 © 1987 C. KESSLER & M.E. QUINNJOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT Vol. 8, Nos. 1 & 2, 1987

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174 MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

necessary for school success. Although it is not feasible to provide a bilingualprogramme for all LEP children (Perez, 1980), state-mandated bilingualeducation programmes serve large numbers of Spanish-dominant LEP chil-dren. Those who enter bilingual programmes in the early school years havethe opportunity to gradually become bilingual in Spanish and English duringthe five or six years of the elementary school.

This paper discusses findings from an empirical investigation of the effectsof bilingualism on the linguistic and cognitive creativity of language minoritychildren after six years of schooling. Specifically, it addresses the cognitiveprocesses of divergent and convergent thinking and the linguistic process ofmetaphorising in the context of formulating scientific hypotheses. Takentogether, these linguistic and cognitive processes are viewed as manifestingaspects of a common underlying creativity.

The study discussed examines findings in measuring the ability of languageminority bilingual children to formulate scientific hypotheses and to expressthem in written discourse. This ability is then contrasted with that oflanguage majority monolingual children matched for age and grade levels.Specifically, contrasts between language minority children using English,their second language, and language majority English-speaking children areexamined for quality of hypotheses generated, syntactic complexity of thewritten hypotheses, and utilisation of metaphoric language in expressingscientific hypotheses.

Background of Language Minority Population StudiedBecause portions of the American southwest from California to Texas

were settled at different periods, attracting different Hispanic groups, eachhas its own dialect of Spanish and distinctive subculture. Focus here is onthe Mexican-American population of San Antonio, the major urban area ofSouth Texas. The language minority children in this study are from one ofthe barrio areas of San Antonio where Spanish functions as the language ofthe home and community.

Allardt (1984: 199) defines a language minority as 'any group in whichthe members emphasise language as a crucial group characteristic and expressa certain degree of solidarity for the group so delineated'. Based on the fourbasic criteria Allardt gives for the identification of a language minority,Mexican-Americans of San Antonio and South Texas meet requirements for(1) self-categorisation, (2) common descent, (3) distinctive linguistic, culturaland historical features related to their Spanish language, (4) social organ-isation that places Mexican-Americans in a minority position in relationshipto the dominant culture and English language. Mexican Americans in SouthTexas and San Antonio have a highly developed sense of awareness ofthemselves as an ethnic group sharing a long history that spans severalcenturies. They are extremely attached to their language and culture and

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MINORITY CHILDREN'S CREATIVITY 175

have no problems in retaining them (Grosjean, 1982). The region they livein once belonged to them, as the numerous Spanish place names in thearea indicate. Founded in 1722 by Spanish-speaking Canary Islanders, SanAntonio holds in its history rule by Spain and Mexico. Although Texasgained independence from Mexico in 1836 and later was annexed to theUnited States in 1845, it was through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in1848, ending the Mexican-American War, that 75,000 Mexicans came underAmerican rule. Although guaranteed civil and religious rights, these Mex-ican-Americans were treated as a conquered people. Not only did they losetheir land, but they experienced strong prejudice and discrimination thatcontinues today. Later, as a result of the Mexican Revolution, approximatelyone million Mexican immigrants came to the United States between 1910and 1920. By 1930, when the Depression cut off employment possibilities,nearly 15% of the population of Mexico had immigrated to the U . S .(Grosjean, 1982). Thousands of others continue to come today. In oppositionto the stereotype of Mexican-Americans, or Chícanos, as farm labourers ormigrant workers, the majority live in urban areas throughout the southwest.San Antonio, an urban area with a population of nearly one million, is 53%Mexican-American. In tracing a common descent for today's Mexican-Americans, most are 'mestizo', Hispanics of mixed Spanish and nativeAmerican heritage (Conklin & Lourie, 1983).

Mexican Americans in South Texas share a non-standard variety of Span-ish reflecting the impact of extensive contact with English. T h e communityfrom which the bilingual children for this study come is regularly receivingnew immigrants from Mexico. This significantly contributes to maintenanceof the Spanish language. Most of the other members of the community arefirst or second generation who continue to make regular trips to Mexico tovisit relatives. As the major urban area of South Texas, which shares hun-dreds of miles of border with Mexico, San Antonino reflects extensiveinteraction with its neighbour to the south. San Antonio is a major des-tination region, receiving documented and undocumented migrants fromspecific regions in Mexico. A common destination for migrants from Mexicois the barrio area of San Antonio. Migrants choose Texas because it isgeographically close, transport costs are low and jobs are available. SanAntonio receives a stongly channelised migration stream from the north-western part of Mexico, particularly from the state of Coahuila (Jones,1981). Migrant channelisation is defined as a disproportionately large flow ofmigrants between an essentially rural origin and an essentially urban des-tination. Although the patterns of Mexican migration to the U .S . havebecome more dispersed in recent years, Texas continues to receive sub-stantial numbers , and San Antonio in particular.

The Mexican American children in this study live in the lowest socio-economic barrio of San Antonio. This area is served by one of the poorestof the nearly 1,100 school districts in the state of Texas. Although MexicanAmericans constitute more than half the population of San Antonio, politi-

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cally, socially, economically and educationally those living in the povertyareas of the barrios continue to hold a subordinate position to the dominantAnglo majority. For many members of these communities, interactionswith the English-speaking population are extremely limited or even non-existent.The barrios are large-size communities where it is possible to func-tion in daily life using Spanish almost exclusively and to observe the uniquecultural patterns of Mexican-Americans. Children, however, must acquireEnglish to prbceed successfully through the schooling process. The realityis, however, that the drop-out rate is excessively high, with almost 50%discontinuing their schooling before the completion of high school. Veryfew enter colleges and universities. Patterns of prejudice and discriminationagainst Mexican-Americans continue to exist in spite of mandatory changesresulting from the civil rights movement in the United States.

The Mexican-American 11-year-old sixth grade children in this study wereproficient in Spanish and English. All had participated in a bilingual edu-cation programme from the beginning of their schooling in the primarygrades. By grade 6 all formal schooling was in English but Spanish continuedto function in peer interactions, in the home, in the community, and insome school activities. In Lambert's (1977) term, these Mexican-Americanswere additive bilinguals for whom the second language, English, developedwithout loss to the first language, Spanish,

Background of the Majority Population

The monolingual English-speaking children contrasted with the bilingualchildren in this study are members of an upper socio-economic suburbanarea in the eastern part of the United States. Educated in a private school,they are children of professional people such as lawyers, doctors, professors,civic and business leaders. As such, they represent that segment of themajority population in the United States that holds leadership positions andreflects the social strata holding the most dominant relationship to theminority Mexican-American population.

Prior Studies

The framework for the analysis of linguistic and cognitive creativity oflanguage minority bilingual children rests on the evaluation of a method forteaching hypothesis formation to English monolingual grade 6 children intwo different socio-economic settings set forth by Quinn & George (1975).Under the conditions described in that study, they concluded that hypothesisformation can be taught, that the quality of hypotheses elicited can bemeasured, that there is a significant difference (p<0.001) between thequality of hypotheses generated by students who received instruction informulating scientific hypotheses and those who did not, and that the

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cognitive ability to generate increasingly better hypotheses qualitativelyfunctions independently of socio-economic level. In a subsequent study,Kessler & Quinn (1977) found a significant positive correlation (p <0.001)between the results of direct instruction in hypothesis formation and writtenlanguage complexity for both upper and lower socio-economic groups.

With socio-economic level identified as a non-significant variable in abilityto generate increasingly complex scientific hypotheses, Kessler & Quinn(1982) conducted a pilot study comparing the effects of nonbalancedbilingualism and monolingualism on the ability to formulate scientifichypotheses and to write them in increasingly complex syntactic construc-tions. Holding the socio-economic status of the students constant, the sameteacher using the same experimental treatment obtained results from 28sixth-grade 11-year-olds indicating that the ability to generate hypothesesfavours bilinguals even when they are not fully proficient in their twolanguages. The children were matched for IQ, grade-point average, andreading ability. Of the group, 14 were English monolinguals and the other14 Italian-English bilinguals dominant in English. They had received noformal schooling in Italian. Use of this first language was confined to thehome and neighbourhood in a section of south Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,with a large Italian immigrant population. They were subtractive bilingualsin Lambert's (1977) terms.

In view of the positive effects of bilingualism observed for children notfully proficient in both languages, Kessler & Quinn (1980, 1985) hypoth-esised that proficient bilinguals taught how to approach the discrepantsituations presented in science problems would experience greater gains intheir hypothesis quality and linguistic complexity scores than theirmonolingual peers. In an experimental study of the effects of bilingualismand bilingual instruction on the development of academic skills, bilingualstudents were compared with monolinguals on ability to solve scienceproblems and to write scientific hypotheses. Subjects were from four intactgrade 6 classrooms. Two classes were upper socio-economic Englishmonolingual children from the language majority population. The other twowere very low socio-economic Spanish-English bilinguals. There were alsotwo control classes of monolingual English speakers. The experimentalgroups were given a 5-week science inquiry programme which included 12film presentations of a science problem and 6 follow-up discussion sessions.Following the film presentation and lesson, students were required to writeas many hypotheses as possible in a controlled period of time. These writtenhypotheses were rated both for scientific quality and for syntactic complexity.Findings showed that bilinguals consistently outperformed monolinguals onboth measures, the quality and linguistic complexity of their hypotheses.Furthermore, a positive correlation between the quality of the students'hypotheses and the complexity of the language they used was found forboth groups. This suggests that the two kinds of abilities, scientifichypothesising and verbal expression of those hypotheses involve similarcognitive mechanisms.

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Study of Bilingual Children's Creativity

Extending the previous studies, Quinn & Kessler (1986) contrasted theability of monolinguals and bilinguals not only in the formulation of scientifichypotheses and their expression in syntactically complex language but inthe semantic ability to generate multiple metaphors. This on-going study isanalysed and discussed here in terms of the focus on interactions of divergentand convergent cognitive processes reflected in verbalisation of scientifichypotheses.

Subjects

Subjects for this study were sixth-grade students, age 11, in two intactclassrooms, one with monolingual English-speaking majority children andthe other with Spanish-English bilingual minority children from the minoritypopulations described above.

Procedure

The 5-week treatment given the experimental monolingual and bilingualgroups replicated that of the earlier studies. All lessons were taught by thesame teacher in English. Each film session, based on a 3-minute film loop,depicted a single physical science problem. The event presented is one whichsets up a discrepancy for the student. This leads to inquiry in seeking anexplanation to resolve the discrepancy. In serving as a resource in providingadditional data that may help solve the science problem presented, theteacher invites questions from the students to which the response is either'yes' or 'no'. The problem presentation sessions end with the studentswriting as many hypotheses as possible in a rigorously controlled 12-minuteperiod. The individual papers are then scored on three criteria: Quinn'sHypothesis Quality Scale (1972, 1974), the Syntactic Complexity Formuladeveloped by Botel, Dawkins & Granowsky (1973), and the Metaphor Index(Quinn & Kessler, 1986) developed for assessing semantic creativity.

Measures utilised

An hypothesis is defined as a testable explanation of an empirical relation-ship between at least two variables in a given problem situation. TheHypothesis Quality Scale (Quinn, 1974; Quinn & George, 1975) assigns anumerical value ranging from 0 to 5 for each hypothesis written. The highestscore, 5, is awarded for an explicit statement of a test of an hypothesis. A5-value hypothesis is of the type 'I could test my idea by putting severallittle bottles with different amounts of water in them in a tub and then seewhich ones would sink'. A score of 0 is given for no explanation of theproblem such as in the statement, 'Magic did it'.

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The Botel, Dawkins & Granowsky (1973) index of syntactic complexityderives from generative linguistic theory. It takes into account languagedevelopment and performance studies as well as experimental data on chil-dren's processing of syntactic structures. Syntactic structures are assignedweighted scores ranging from 0 for simple statements such as 'It is magic' to3 for complex, embedded structures deriving from various transformations.

The Metaphor Index adds a semantic dimension to the linguistic analysisof written hypotheses. Following Di Pietro (1976: 6), metaphor is definedas 'the relating of disparate objects and ideas to find a communality amongthem'. The.ability of a metaphor to point up a surprising similarity betweenapparently unlike things demonstrates creativity in language that extendsbeyond grammatical innovations observed in syntactic complexity. Aslinguists and philosophers alike aig-e, the nature of human thinking isessentially metaphoric and the metaphorising process is the primary meansfor creating and, especially, transferring meaning from one universe ofknowledge to another (Di Pietro, 1976; Kaput, 1979, Nietzsche, 1971).

To obtain a Metaphor Index for children's scientific hypotheses, wecalculated the ratio of metaphors expressed in the written statements ofscientific hypotheses to the total number of hypotheses generated. TheMetaphor Index for each group, monolingual and bilinguals, is then expre-ssed as a percentage.

In order to have a measure against which the variables in this study mightbe compared, standardised reading tests were administered to assess gradelevel equivalents of reading ability.

Results

The results present in Table 1 show mean scores for hypothesis qualityand syntactic complexity obtained by multivariate analysis of covariancealong with the grade level obtained by monolinguals and bilinguals on astandardised test of reading.

Table 1 Means for hypothesis quality and syntactic complexity

Monolinguals BilingualsVariable (N=32) (N=30)

Hypothesis quality 53.3 176.0Syntactic complexity 130.0 181.8Reading level 7.0 3.8

Even though the monolinguals were superior to bilinguals on a stan-dardised test of reading in English, bilingual children outperformed mon-olinguals in the generation of high quality scientific hypotheses and syn-

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Table 2

Variable

Metaphor

Means

Index

tor metaphor index

Monolingtials

19.3

(per cent)

Bilinguals(N=26)

26.1

tactically complex language forms. The actual number of hypothesesgenerated was 579 for monolinguals and 1,945 for bilinguals.

Table 2 gives the comparison for the Metaphor Index. The number ofmetaphors produced in expressing solutions to science problems was 112for monolinguals and 273 for bilinguals.

Not only did the bilingual children generate more hypotheses using morecomplex language to do so than their monolingual peers, but they also drewmore extensively on the metaphorising process. Metaphors are taken hereas indicators of the semantic creativity of language use and hypothesesas indicators of the cognitively creative ability to utilise data in makinggeneralisations and manipulating variables. In both aspects of creativity,linguistic and cognitive, the bilinguals appear to excel.

Divergent and Convergent Thinking in FormulatingScientific Hypotheses

In its broad sense cognition refers to the act or process of perceiving orknowing. It is man's knowledge of the world (Gipper, 1982). Furthermore,cognition embraces processes which are more general than those strictlyassociated with linguistic functions. In his presentation of a taxonomy for astructure of the intellect, Guilford (1956) lists five basic cognitive processes:recognition, memory, evaluation, convergent thinking and divergent think-ing. It is these last two processes which appear to be of particular relevancein this study of the linguistic and cognitive effects of bilingualism forlanguage minority children.

That the generation of multiple solutions to science problems is anexpression of divergent thinking is well supported by Guilford. As heexplains, in divergent thinking there is much searching or going off invarious directions. Building upon Guilford's model, Meeker (1969) definesdivergent thinking production as the generation of information where theemphasis is upon variety and quality of output. Moreover, divergent pro-duction should show fluency, flexibility, originality, quality and discipline.Meeker, in other words, sees divergent production as an operational defi-nition of creativity, although clearly not a complete description of the totalrange of creative ability.

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When students are instructed to generate as many solutions to a scienceproblem as possible in a short period of time, as reported here, they arebeing encouraged to go off in various directions and to create a large varietyof hypotheses. If, as Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi (1967) state, divergentthinking is the production of new information that is minimally determinedby known information, then teaching students to generate multiple hypoth-eses of increasingly better quality is an expression of divergent thinking.Beyond that, it is to teach at least one way of being creative. According toTorrance (1965), creativity is the process of searching for solutions, for-mulating guesses or hypotheses, testing and retesting them, and finallycommunicating the results. In this view, the ability to generate multiplesolutions to science problems is an expression of divergent thinking and aform of creativity. As Torrance (1965: 35) observes, 'much of the essenceof creative scientific thinking is captured in the processes of asking andguessing'. It is these processes which functioned in children's ability togenerate multiple solutions to science problems presented as discrepantevents on film loops. Bilingual children generated a higher level of creativityin divergent thinking by generating many more solutions to problems thanthe monolinguals.

The contrast in creative dimensions between divergent and convergentthinking is the difference between expanding out and zeroing in. Presentingmultiple solutions to science problems is a case of expanding out. Utilisingmetaphors in verbalising those science solutions is a type of convergentthinking. It zeroes in on disparate objects and ideas, relating them to eachother to find a commonality. A metaphor points up a surprising similaritybetween apparently unlike things in the process of creating and transferringmeaning from one universe of knowledge to another. Bilingual childrenparticipating in the science programme described here generated more meta-phors than the monolingual children. In other words, they demonstrated ahigher level of convergent thinking than monolingual peers in terms of thelinguistic process of metaphorising.

Metaphor formation interacts with experience of the physical world andcultural dimensions of the environment in which language and cognitivecreativity function. The written hypotheses of the upper socio-economicEnglish-speaking monolinguals of this study evidence much greater concernabout precision than do those of the bilinguals. Their hypotheses show ahigh freqency of more exact, analytical references such as '.to the right','about two metres', 'the one on the left', 'the one filled with water', or the'pressure of the air'. In contrast, the bilinguals made extensive use ofmetaphors which zeroed in to point up surprising similarities betweendisparate elements. In doing this, they found commonalities to make gen-eralisations and to manipulate variables. Metaphors such as 'the same thingwould happen if I used drano or cough medicine', 'I could use a tennisshoe, a patrol boat, a trash can, a flower pot or a barrel', 'the same thingwould happen if I used beer, milk, soda, punch, vodka' or 'it would happen

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the same if I use a skinnier container, a gold fish bowl, the skin of ananimal, a plastic container' illustrate these surprising similarities in makingrelationships of convergent thinking. In formulating high quality testablehypotheses, bilinguals illustrate the metaphorising process in writing, 'Iwould try it in my house with malt, with mud, with dirty water, with clearerwater' and 'a test for this is when you get poisoned, you rub alcohol onyour body and it makes you warm'.

If human thinking is essentially metaphoric and the metaphorising processa primary linguistic device for transferring meaning from one universe toanother, then the metaphors generated by bilingual children in formulatingscientific hypotheses reflect a creativity which also takes into account theiruniverse. More precisely, it draws on the culture of which they are a partand which they bring to the schooling process.

To get at an understanding of creativity in language, Di Pietro (1976)distinguishes between the innovative power of grammar as demonstrated,for example, in syntactic generation of linguistic structures and the broaderact of creativity demonstrated in metaphor. In viewing metaphorisation asthe remarkable property that makes human language unique, Di Pietro(1979) suggests that metaphor formation is dominated by the right hemi-sphere which fuses with the left in this highly creative act. Bilingual childrenwho utilise syntactically more complex language to verbalise their hypothesesare drawing on the innovative aspects of linguistic form. Metaphorising,however, achieves even higher levels of linguistic creativity. It is here thatthe convergent thinking of relating one universe of knowledge with anotherand the divergent thinking of hypothesis formulation come together tomanifest aspects of a common underlying creativity. It may reveal aspectsof the bilingual brain and the interaction between both left and righthemispheres (Albert & Obler, 1978) and the proclivity for a right-hemisphere-based strategy observed for adolescent bilinguals (Lambert, 1985).

From the data examined here, bilingualism appears to facilitate the pro-cesses of expanding out and zeroing in. One explanation of the hypothesisthat bilingualism facilitates divergent and convergent thinking may be foundin Piaget's (1970) theory of cognitive development. In Piaget's theory,discrepant events, such as those presented in science problems, assume acritical function in establishing the type of internal conflict necessary forintellectual development. Cognitive development occurs in the co-ordinatedpresence of something to act on, such as a science problem, and some oneto do the acting. Furthermore, Piaget's theory attributes an increasinglyimportant role to language in implementing abstract thought in the stagesof concrete operational thought and formal operations. At these stagesrepresented by the 11-year-olds in this study, the proficient bilinguals mayhave achieved a higher level of metalinguistic understanding in terms ofboth grammatical structure and of perspective-taking (Ben-Zeev, 1984).

According to Piagetian theory, the attaining of a state of equilibrium ateach stage of cognitive development results from the dynamic interaction of

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the processes of assimilation, the incorporation of new elements of experienceinto an internal system, and accommodation or modifications of the systemresulting from assimilation. Together, these processes produce progressivelymore stable equilibrium states of adaptation, making cognitive developmentpossible.

Science problem-solving situations, where emphasis is on both quantityand quality of output, provide discrepant events for setting up disequi-librium. The problems themselves provide an external disequilibrium in thesense that the source of the discrepancy is external to the child. It is inattempting to confront and cope with the event that internal disequilibriumoccurs. The events, clearly, must strike a balance with the child's devel-opmental level, falling between what the child knows and what the childcan deal with. Unlike external disequilibrium, which relies on an outsideevent, internal disequilibrium traces to discrepancies or inconsistencieswithin the child's internal system. The child must be ready to act on theexternal discrepant event which triggers internal disequilibrium and mustalso deal with an affective disequilibrium that says 'something is wrong'.Science problems related to the child's physical world at a level in tunewith the child's internal disequilibrium may engage features of affectivedisequilibrium at an optimal level. Affectively, science questions may triggerbrain mechanisms that draw, on linguistic and cognitive interactions. ThePiagetian principle that children develop through activity, by acting upontheir environment, looks to the context in which children learn. The 'here-and-now' of the experiences in physical science and of the social contextsin which children interact are sources of development in all areas, includinglanguage (Genishi & Dyson, 1984).

Unlike the acquisition of a first language, a universal achievement for allnormal individuals in all cultures, bilingualism is a non-universal achieve-ment. In Feldman's (1980) theory of cognitive development, a distinguishingfeature of non-uni versais is that they tend to require some form of instructionor facilitating conditions for their acquisition. Like universal achievements,non-universals also require cognitive conflicts as a precondition for cognitivedevelopment. Bilingualism then may be presumed to draw on the sameconditions that describe the equilibrium process for general cognitive devel-opment and which set the stage for first language acquisition.

The most effective duration for instruction in problem-solving accordingto a study by Curbello (1986), appears to be in a 5 to 10-week range. The5-week study reported here is based on a science programme utilising aninquiry approach which emphasises the processes of problem-solving. Inthis science programme, a critical role is assigned to divergent thinking. Itmay be possible that bilingual children given such a programme outperformmonolingual peers as a result of the optimal length of the science educationprogramme combined with the series of discrepant events, conflicts andprocesses experienced in becoming bilingual. In encoding two languagesystems, they have engaged the underlying cognitive processes common to

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universal and non-universal achievements to a greater degree than mon-olingual peers. In Piagetian terms, the disequilibrium—external, internaland affective—arising from two linguistic inputs may stimulate in a positiveway the equilibrium processes through assimilation and accommodation ofnew linguistic information. In dual language development, the increaseddemands to observe details required by language input in specific culturalcontexts and the consequent increase in uncertainty in responding in specificlanguage contexts enhances the conflict between possible linguistic hypoth-eses governing the two languages. This state of conflict is relieved as bilingualproficiency develops and the dual language systems of the bilingual are morecompletely encoded. This subconscious experience in generating languagehypotheses more extensively than monolingual peers may have a similareffect upon the ability to generate divergent scientific hypotheses of increas-ingly better quality. Furthermore, experiencing the realities of a world oftenin conflict with that of the school provides access to different universes.Seeing relationships between those worlds provides conditions for trans-ferring meaning from one universe to another, the basic notion in metaphorformation.

SummaryA science inquiry programme focusing on formulating hypotheses for

solving physical science problems suggests that children with a high degreeof bilingual language proficiency are capable of entering into creative pro-cesses in divergent and convergent thinking more fully than their mon-olingual peers. The qualitatively high scientific hypotheses expressed incomplex metaphoric language produced by the language minority Mexican-American children in this study contrasted with language majority English-speaking monolingual peers indicate that linguistic and cognitive creativityis enhanced by bilingual language proficiency.

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Botel, M.J., Dawkins, J. and Granowsky, A. (1973) A syntactic complexity formula. In W.H.MacGinitie (ed.), Assessment Problems in Reading. Newark, DE: International ReadingAssociation.

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