Domain-specific verbal self-concepts of trilingual teachers

Researchers have emphasized the domain specificity of academic self-concept. For monolingual students, verbal and math self-concepts have been found to be distinct constructs. However, the assumption of a single distinct verbal construct may be questionable for individuals speaking multiple languages. Primary and secondary school teachers from Hong Kong (N = 437) responded to English, Math, Cantonese and Mandarin self-concept items. Confirmatory factor analysis found support for the distinction of the four domain-specific self-concepts. However, English self-concept had a low correlation with Mandarin self-concept and a negative correlation with Cantonese self-concept. The correlation was negative between Cantonese and Mandarin even though both were Chinese. These very low correlations did not allow the language constructs to form a single Verbal factor. The results challenge the assumption of a single verbal self-concept construct for speakers of multiple languages. The verbal self-concept constructs can be very distinct and unrelated for the trilingual.