Lexical prosody beyond first-language boundary: Chinese lexical tone sensitivity predicts English reading comprehension

Abstract

This 1-year longitudinal study examined the role of Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity in predicting English reading comprehension and the pathways underlying their relation. Multiple measures of Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity, English lexical stress sensitivity, Cantonese segmental phonological awareness, general auditory sensitivity, English word reading, and English reading comprehension were administered to 133 Cantonese-English unbalanced bilingual second graders. Structural equation modeling analysis identified transfer of Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity to English reading comprehension. This transfer was realized through a direct pathway via English stress sensitivity and also an indirect pathway via English word reading. These results suggest that prosodic sensitivity is an important factor influencing English reading comprehension and that it needs to be incorporated into theoretical accounts of reading comprehension across languages.

Tone matters for Cantonese–English bilingual children’s English word reading development: A unified model of phonological transfer

“…Indeed, our hypothesis of tone-stress association is supported by a recent study showing that Cantonese-English bilingual children used shared common cues (i.e., F0) to distinguish Cantonese lexical tones and English lexical stress, and their performance on Cantonese tone perception and English stress perception was significantly correlated (r = .73) (Tong et al 2015). Choi, Tong, and Cain (2016) obtained a similar finding that sensitivity to Cantonese tones predicted Cantonese-English bilingual children's sensitivity to English lexical stress. Similarly, there is also compelling evidence for an association between English stress sensitivity and English word reading.…”

“…Measures of Cantonese tone sensitivity, Cantonese segmental phonological awareness, and nonverbal ability were administered at the age of 7-8 years because empirical evidence indicates that 7-8year-old Cantonese children are able to identify six different lexical tones (e.g., Tong et al, 2014). English measures were administered at the age of 8-9 years because Cantonese-English bilingual children showed stress sensitivity at this age (e.g., Choi, Tong, & Cain, 2016;Tong et al, 2015). We measured our outcome variable at the age of 8-9 years to capture the progress in English word reading skill up to this point.…”

Within- and cross-language contributions of morphological awareness to word reading development in Chinese–English bilingual children

“…Although the role of morphological awareness in English word reading has been well established, little is known in the context of second language learners of English, in particular Chinese-English bilingual readers (e.g., Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993; Deacon & Kirby, 2004;McCutchen et al, 2009;Siegel, 2008 One prominent feature of cross language transfer is directionality, which has been mostly tested from L1 to L2 (e.g., Choi, Tong, & Cain, 2016;Choi, Tong, & Singh, 2017). In contrast, very few studies have tested the L2 to L1 transfer in terms of the relation between morphological awareness and word reading (e.g., Deacon, et al., 2007;Wang et al, 2006).…”

“…According to Nagy, Carlisle, and Goodwin (2014), morphological awareness contributed to reading acquisition through a set of reading subskills such as decoding, spelling, word identification and lexical inferencing. For example, the segmentation of morphologically complex words into fine-grained morphemic constituents could facilitate inferences of the meaning of new words encountered (e.g., reddish) based on known morphemes (e.g., red); and inferences of its part of speech by attending to the suffix (e.g., -ish corresponds to adjectives formed from nouns).Although the role of morphological awareness in English word reading has been well established, little is known in the context of second language learners of English, in particular Chinese-English bilingual readers (e.g., Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993; Deacon & Kirby, 2004;McCutchen et al, 2009;Siegel, 2008 One prominent feature of cross language transfer is directionality, which has been mostly tested from L1 to L2 (e.g., Choi, Tong, & Cain, 2016;Choi, Tong, & Singh, 2017). In contrast, very few studies have tested the L2 to L1 transfer in terms of the relation between morphological awareness and word reading (e.g., Deacon, et al., 2007;Wang et al, 2006).…”

“…This hypothesis emphasizes that certain knowledge in one language can transfer to facilitate the acquisition of another language given adequate language exposure and motivation. Also, according to Verhoeven and Perfetti's (2011) "universal view", morphological One prominent feature of cross language transfer is directionality, which has been mostly tested from L1 to L2 (e.g., Choi, Tong, & Cain, 2016;Choi, Tong, & Singh, 2017). In contrast, very few studies have tested the L2 to L1 transfer in terms of the relation between morphological awareness and word reading (e.g., Deacon, et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2006).…”