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Lauren Whitley

Professor Jan Rieman

ENGL 1103

March 15, 2011

Research Proposal

Throughout this process of beginning our Inquiry Papers, the question that is the basis of

my paper has evolved from a very broad and general question to what I consider a very specific

question. My question began with the idea of the effects of bilingualism on children and evolved

into my current and final question that researches and discovers the linguistic, social and

academic effects of bilingualism on young (specifically infant to preschool aged) children in

English and Spanish speaking households.

My question has evolved due to the time we spent as a class in the library and time I have

spent on my own briefly skimming through some of the books I selected as well as some articles

I discovered on the internet. Going into this process with the idea of bilingualism, I had no idea

the extensive amount of information already existing on the topic. Seeing all of this I realized I

could not continue with such a broad topic seeing as if I did I would’ve never reached a

conclusion to my paper. Thus, I was led to evolving my topic into one which focused not only on

a specific language pair but also a specific age group.

As I have stated in my previous discussions of why I chose the topic of bilingualism for

my essay, I chose this topic for a very personal reason. I have an almost one and a half year old

daughter who is half Caucasian and half Mexican resulting in her growing up in both an English

speaking household and a Spanish speaking household. Since before she was born I have

questioned the idea of my daughter growing up hearing and possibly speaking two languages and

have had concerns as to whether or not this might negatively affect her development. I hope that
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through this project I am not only able to satisfy the requirements and find sufficient research for

my paper, but I hope to also satisfy and sufficiently answer the long-awaiting questions I have

had concerning my daughter.

In class we have discussed various topics ranging from Sponsors of Literacy to educated

arguments. The topic that really prompted my inquiry question choice was Brandt’s idea of

Sponsors of Literacy and the concept of various literacy environments. I put these concepts

together with the idea of my daughter and who her various sponsors of literacy may be. While

learning about Brandt’s ideas and applying this to my personal life I focused on my daughter’s

most evident sponsors of literacy: both myself and her father and how our different language

backgrounds would affect her.

I have heard both positive and negative effects of bilingualism in young children ranging

from bilingualism at a young age allowing for trilingualism and even beyond when those

children reach school age to bilingualism delaying the development of a child’s linguistic and

even social abilities. I was nervous when hearing the negative aspects of bilingualism but

hopeful with what I had heard about the possible positive aspects of bilingualism. I have also

witnessed the effects of bilingualism first hand through another family who speaks both Spanish

and English and whose child seemed delayed in talking and had trouble speaking either

language.

I plan collecting the majority of my research through books I received from the library as

well as internet sources of periodicals and journals. I hope to not only include resources from

other people but as this process continues and my daughter continues to begin talking I hope to

be able to incorporate firsthand information I find from her. I discovered multiple books in the

library on the topic of bilingualism in children find one that specifically focused on younger

children as well as one that specifically focused on the English-Spanish speaking bilinguals. I
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hope that these books will offer detailed secondary research along with my other valuable

resources and I hope that my own daughter will provide valuable primary research. I am

considering doing interviews (more than likely through email) with the family of bilinguals that I

know as well as my daughter’s father who grew up speaking primarily Spanish but now speaks

primarily English.

Now that I am narrowing down the resources I will use when conducting research for my

paper, I have remained focused on the same primary questions: how does bilingualism affect

young infant to preschool aged Spanish-English speaking children linguistically, socially, and

academically. I will focus on finding research that applies to these three specific areas but I hope

to also find information to answer a few other questions as well. I hope to find information

regarding my questions of how a parent should go about teaching their child the specific

language, if it is better to focus on one main language and then allow her to learn a second

language, and whether it is even possible for a child to truly become fluent in two languages if

she primarily hears one language over the other.

I will leave the question of what form I feel the final product will take for after our group

discussion and conference with Professor Rieman. I was under the impression that this was going

to be a paper but now am doubting if it is supposed to be in that form or not. I feel like my topic

would most efficiently be produced in the form of an essay however if other forms or necessary I

could try those as well. I hope I find out more information as to what this final question is

regarding. Overall I am looking forward to truly diving into this project and finding out as much

information possible regarding my topic on both an academic and personal level.

Lauren,

Your final product can indeed be a paper, one where you take advantage of the electronic format

by considering the advantages you have with it—providing pictures, links etc. We can certainly

talk about what purpose you hope this project will serve—to inform parents, perhaps—and what

form suits your purpose. It sounds like you are about where you should be, and I look forward to

meeting with you to talk about this more.