Cross‐language transfer of morphological awareness in Chinese–English bilinguals

Abstract

This study examined cross-language transfer of morphological awareness in Chinese-English bilingual children. One hundred and thirty-seven first to fourth graders participated in the study. The children were tested on parallel measures of compound awareness, vocabulary, word reading and reading comprehension in Chinese and English. They also received measures of English derivational awareness, English phonological awareness and nonverbal reasoning. Structural equation modelling was used to compare a baseline model with only within-language paths to a model with cross-language paths. The cross-language model fit significantly better than the within-language model, suggesting transfer of morphological awareness between English and Chinese. In particular, we observed a bidirectional relationship between English compound awareness and Chinese vocabulary. Furthermore, English compound awareness was a significant predictor of Chinese reading comprehension. The conditions that support transfer of morphological awareness and the impact of transfer on literacy development in Chinese and English are discussed.Morphological awareness refers to the ability to reflect upon and manipulate morphemes, the smallest phonological unit that carries meaning, and to use word formation rules to construct and understand morphologically complex words (Kuo & Anderson, 2006). Recent research has identified morphological awareness as an important predictor of literacy constructs including vocabulary, word reading and reading comprehension in , 2009) among monolingual and bilingual children. Only a relatively small number of studies, however, have examined the cross-language impact of morphological awareness on literacy development in bilingual children. The present study investigated

Multi-Faceted Morphological Awareness and Vocabulary Knowledge in English as a Second Language Learners: A Multivariate Analysis

“…However, compound awareness was not found to have a signifi cant eff ect on English vocabulary depth. Recent studies confi rmed that cross-linguistic compound awareness in both Chinese and English significantly contributed to Chinese vocabulary knowledge (e.g., Chen et al, 2009;Liu & McBride-Chang, 2010;Pasquarella, Chen, Lam, Luo, & Ramirez, 2011;Zhang, 2015) and cross-linguistic derivational awareness was found to significantly predict English vocabulary development (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012;Zhang, 2013). The current study also justified that there were cross-linguistic variations of morphological awareness in vocabulary development, and English compound awareness was a weaker predictor of ESL vocabulary knowledge compared with English derivational awareness.…”

An investigation of cross-linguistic transfer between Chinese and English: a meta-analysis

“…This will in turn facilitate the design of suitable education and intervention programs for bilingual Chinese-speaking students. Previous studies on cross-linguistic transfer between Chinese and English show large variation both in the specific linguistic domains examined and in results (e.g., Gottardo et al, 2001;Pasquarella et al, 2011;Wang, Cheng & Chen, 2005;Yeung & Ganotice, 2014;Zhang & Koda, 2014). A meta-analysis can provide a comprehensive review of the literature and quantify evidence of linguistic of transfer across multiple studies.…”

Cognitive Skill Transfer in English Reading Acquisition: Alphabetic and Logographic Languages Compared

“…These studies revealed that compound awareness in Chinese L1 predicted English L2 reading acquisition. However, inflectional and derivational awareness in Chinese did not show a significant cross-linguistic relationship with English reading abilities (Chung & Ho, 2010;Luo et al, 2014;Hu, 2013;Pasquarella et al, 2011;Zhang, 2013;Zhang & Koda, 2014;Zhang et al, 2010). There is some indication that these findings are affected by the morphological structure of the typologically distinct languages (Zhang & Koda, 2014;Zhang, 2013): The derivational process in Chinese is very limited, with few derivational affixes, of little functional salience.…”