Multilingual disciplinary literacies: exploring developmental patterns of science writing across secondary education

Abstract

This study examines multilingual disciplinary literacies from a developmental perspective, a still relatively underexplored matter. Using a cross-sectional design, 535 multilingual learners enrolled in Basque immersion programmes across the four years of secondary education (12–16 year old students) completed a disciplinary source-based writing task in the three languages of the curriculum: Basque, Spanish and English. They were asked to produce two cognitive discourse functions: argue and compare. Texts were coded with an analytic rubric consisting of 11 items, and linear mixed models were used to assess the effect of Year, Testing Language and L1. Findings showed that all items improved in all three languages as students progressed through secondary education, with non-linear and gradual patterns in certain moments. While diverse patterns across languages were found, parallel developmental patterns took place, particularly between Basque and Spanish. Some measures showed varying developmental patterns for L1 groups. In conclusion, results support multilingual writing development and language transfer theories, and provide evidence for the development of multilingual disciplinary literacies. This study presents important theoretical and practical implications for multilingual education and disciplinary literacies.