Early writing of a bilingual child: A content analysis of his YouTube video comments

Early writing of a bilingual child: A content analysis of his YouTube video comments Bernard M. Barruga Dr. Emilio B. Espinosa, Sr. Memorial State College of Agriculture and Technology/ Mandaon, Philippines Ateneo de Naga University/ Naga, Philippines bbarruga@gbox.adnu.edu.ph Abstract Language and literacy development has come to be influenced by digital technology in the current information age. Comments posted on a video streaming site by a developing bilingual seven-year-old child speaking an autochthonous Philippine language and English were analyzed as to their mean length, syntactic form and pragmatic uses. Results revealed a language development in early English writing comparable to native speaker oral norms extant in the literature. Implications for further language and literacy development of the participant especially in the use of internet and digital technology in learning as well as for language policy in education are also discussed. Keywords: mean length of utterance, multilingual education, child language, YouTube, digital literacy 1 Introduction Contemporary society has placed an outsized role for language and literacy skills of learners. Early childhood programs have been touted to help in this regard. As evidence, the full development of young children focusing on early childhood programs has attracted the attention of scholars and development agencies worldwide (Engle, et al., 2007). Naturally, parents of children in the emergent literacy stage also place a premium on the latter’s development of literacy skills. The current situation in homes with both parents working leaves young children with their home child minders and increasingly with internet sites like YouTube. Early literate children who interact through online gaming, social media and video sites may offer a glimpse into their language and literacy development. Thus, discourse is no longer limited to in-person interactions but also technology-mediated platforms (Waring, 2018, p. 7). Children developing their language skills must not just master the systems of sounds, meanings, and word order but must learn communicative competence, too (Bryant, 2009). Communicative competence, also known as pragmatic skills, are needed for effective interactions with other people such as peers, families, and teachers. It is also predictive of later academic achievement (Reeder, Shapiro, Watson, and Goelman, 1996). e pages. 1.1 Theoretical framework Sociocultural theory (SCT): This theory posits that human psychology comes as a result of “a trichotomy of social practice (behavior), consciousness (cognition and affect), and material culture (artifacts, such as language)” (van Compernolle, 2022, citing Blunden, 2011). In this theorization, the three components mediate one another. For instance, communicative speech or writing like commenting on a viewed YouTube video is mediated by participation in a social practice like watching a gamer stream himself playing a game, both of which are also mediated by the mental and emotional processes of cognition and affect. Sociocultural theory is often linked with Vygotsky’s (1978) work on the zone of proximal development (ZPD) to take advantage of extraneous resources in helping a learner learn a target language. According to Snyder and Tour (2017), the sociocultural conception of literacy became more mainstream in the 1980s, necessitating the use of more ethnographic approaches …

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