Bilingual Writers and Audience: Revisiting Family Message Journals

• In Event: 16.056 - Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: 16.056-3 - Bilingualism and Biliteracies in and out of the Classroom

Abstract

This paper explores young bilingual writers’ audience awareness, looking at their weekly correspondence with parents and sibling through as part of Family Message Journals. Building on earlier studies of young children’s audience awareness, this research considers bilingual children, and their writing to bilingual readers. Data analysis suggests that through interaction with family members, children are increasingly adepts with genre conventions, flexibility of language choice, accommodation to their reader, and persuasive writing tactics. Using interviews, document analysis and ethnographic observations of children writing, this paper extends current understandings of both biliterate development and young children’s audience awareness.

Author

• Leah Durán, The University of Arizona