Sihui Ke and Feng Xiao 2015 Cross lingui
Language Awareness
ISSN: 0965-8416 (Print) 1747-7565 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmla20
Cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness between Chinese and English
Sihui Ke & Feng Xiao
To cite this article: Sihui Ke & Feng Xiao (2015) Cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness between Chinese and English, Language Awareness, 24:4, 355-380
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2015.1114624
Published online: 26 Nov 2015.
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Language Awareness, 2015 Vol. 24, No. 4, 355 380, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2015.1114624
Cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness between Chinese and English
Sihui Ke a * and Feng Xiao b
b Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, Pomona College, 550 N. Harvard Ave, Claremont, CA 91711, USA (Received 25 January 2015; accepted 22 October 2015)
Substantial biliteracy research on two alphabetic languages has indicated that, once it is fostered in the first language (L1) literacy experience, morphological awareness can transfer and facilitate second language (L2) reading. It is still unclear, however, whether L1 metalinguistic awareness transfers in the same manner across typologically different languages, and to what extent and under what conditions transfer occurs. This paper synthesises eight studies on the transfer of morphological awareness between Chinese and English. Three questions guided this research: (1) how was morphological awareness defined and measured in prior work; (2) what are the patterns of transfer between the two languages; and (3) what are the factors that affect such transfer effects? The findings have shown a lack of consistency in measuring morphological awareness in existing studies; there were small-to-moderate correlations between L1 and L2 morphological awareness in Chinese English bilingual reading development; and L2 exposure and task demands were shown to have notable impacts on the cross-linguistic transfer. It is suggested that much needs to be done to expand our understanding of how morphological awareness functions as
a sharable resource in bilingual reading development. Keywords: morphological awareness; transfer; biliteracy; second language reading;
cross-linguistic
Introduction
356 S. Ke and F. Xiao across two typologically distinct languages (i.e. Chinese and English); (2) what the patterns
of transfer are between the two languages in bilingual reading development; and (3) what factors can affect such transfer effects.
Background Morphological awareness and reading development Morphological awareness and phonological awareness are two major components of
metalinguistic awareness. Metalinguistic awareness refers to the ability to identify, analyse, and manipulate language forms (Koda, 2007 , p. 2). As such, learning to read is fundamen- tally metalinguistic because it involves the ability to map form onto meaning (Mattingly, 1984 ; Nagy & Anderson, 1995 ). As proposed by the universal grammar of reading (Perfetti, 2003 ), all writing systems encode spoken languages (phonology and morphology). Previous research has found that, independent of phonological awareness, morphological awareness contributes to reading comprehension (e.g. Carlisle, 2000 ; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008 ), because morphological awareness entails sensitivity to semantic, phonological, and syntactic properties, and is a more ‘general index of metalinguistic capability’ than phono- logical awareness alone in examining learning to read (Carlisle, 1995 , p. 192). Also, mor- phological awareness is related closely to a range of important reading subskills at the word level, such as decoding, spelling, word identification, and lexical inferencing (guess- ing unknown word meanings) (Nagy, Carlisle, & Goodwin, 2014 ; Verhoeven & Carlisle, 2006 ). In a recent review, Nagy et al. ( 2014 ) expressed the view that the importance of morphological awareness in the development of reading subskills can be accounted for by experiences with morphologically complex words, particularly with unfamiliar words made up of familiar morphemes, which thus contributes to the quality of lexical representations in memory (see also, lexical quality hypothesis in Perfetti, 2007 ; Perfetti & Hart, 2002 ). These experiences range from decoding or spelling new words by segmenting them into morpheme constituents, to guessing the meanings of unknown morphologically complex words based on familiar word parts, and to inferring the part of speech of a new word on the basis of a suffix in the case of reading (in English).
Although the extant literature generally agrees upon the unique contributions of mor- phological awareness to reading subskills development, there have been heterogeneous conceptualisations, operationalisations, and assessments of morphological awareness.
Language Awareness 357 component skill, morphological awareness or tacit linguistic knowledge (including mor-
phology), or the interaction of the two, makes unique contributions to different aspects of reading development such as the ability to infer unknown word meanings during reading using word-internal morphological information and word-external contextual informa- tion. The former relies on morphological awareness whereas the latter depends on tacit linguistic knowledge (see Mori & Nagy, 1999 ). Still others have made efforts to distin- guish the two and examined the relationship between morphological awareness and tacit linguistic knowledge in reading development (Koda, 2007 , and Koda, L€u, & Zhang, 2014). Guided by the componential view of reading (Carr & Levy, 1990 ), Koda ( 2007 ) proposed that reading abilities or competencies encompass metalinguistic awareness (the ability to identify, analyse, and manipulate language forms), linguistic knowledge (e.g. vocabulary and grammar), and reading subskills (e.g. decoding, word identification, and lexical inferencing). In her model, she viewed metalinguistic awareness (including mor- phological awareness) as an explicit representation of the abstract structure of language, which is less language-specific and, therefore, less affected by linguistic knowledge. Most recently, Koda et al. ( 2014 ) proposed that different facets of morphological aware- ness impose different linguistic demands. Morphological awareness can be categorised into less language-specific facets (e.g. the ability to segment words into constituent mor- phemes and the structural relations between constituent morphemes) and more language- specific facets (e.g. the knowledge of the function of productive morphemes, like affixes in English, and the competence to discriminate meanings of base words). Therefore, the less language-specific facets of morphological awareness necessitate minimal use of lin- guistic knowledge of the target language, whereas the more language-specific facets of morphological awareness entail greater linguistic demands. As an illustration, in a study with Grade six Chinese-speaking children of L2 English, Zhang and Koda ( 2013 ) mea- sured the two categories of morphological awareness in English. The less language-spe- cific facet of morphological awareness was measured by two tasks that asked children to identify the structural relation between morpheme components
a morpheme relation task for derived words and a compound structure task for compounds. Sample questions include ‘Does teacher come from teach?’ for the former, and ‘Which is a better name for
a bee that lives in the grass: a grass bee or a bee grass?’ for the latter. The more language- specific facet of morphological awareness was measured by an affix choice task and a morpheme discrimination task. The affix choice task required children to select an appro-
358 S. Ke and F. Xiao morphological awareness, teachers can adjust their tasks to meet the needs of students at dif-
ferent developmental stages of L2 linguistic knowledge. More important, children’s prior language and literacy experiences should be valued by teachers because strengthening child- ren’s L1 morphological awareness might improve their L2 morphological awareness recipro- cally and benefit L2 reading development subsequently.
Cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness The term transfer can be used to describe ‘cross language relationships found in structures
that belong exclusively to the linguistic domain (e.g. phonology), as well as skills that involve cognitive and language abilities (e.g. reading comprehension)’ (Genesee, Geva, Dressler, & Kamil, 2006 , p. 157). We focus on the latter when attending to the role of mor- phological awareness in biliteracy development. In a review of L1 reading and biliteracy research involving eight languages (Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Ital- ian, and Spanish), Verhoeven and Perfetti ( 2011 ) suggested that ‘[there might be a univer- sal morphology principle since morphological knowledge] is universally part of reading, subject to the constraints of the language and how the writing system encodes that language’ (p. 465). In other words, morphological awareness should be a sharable resource across languages in reading development. As well, prior studies from the cross-linguistic perspective varied in their research foci. There were three major lines of research: one line of research analysed and compared the same construct of morphological awareness between different L1s (e.g. Ku & Anderson, 2003 ; McBride-Chang et al., 2008 ). The second line compared metalinguistic capabilities between monolingual readers and bilingual readers to see if there were any beneficial effects from reader’s bilin- gual or biliteracy experiences on the development of metalinguistic awareness (e.g. Kieffer, 2014 ; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012 ). The third line of research examined the interrelationship between L1 morphological awareness and L2 reading subskills within a single group of bilingual readers (e.g. Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ; Zhang, 2013 ). The first two lines of research have provided important implications for cross-linguistic transfer, but they have not provided sufficient evidence on transfer effects (if any). The third line of research directly investigated the mechanism of transfer and factors that lead to individual variation within a particular group of bilingual readers. This approach can probe transfer effects by comparing the interre-
Language Awareness 359 orthography of Chinese is morphosyllabic in that the basic grapheme unit is a character,
which, in most cases, maps onto a morpheme that corresponds to a single syllable. While most characters have their own meanings and can be used independently, the combination of two or more characters can also form new words; yet the meaning of each component character can be either closely related or totally unrelated to the whole word meaning (Li & Thompson, 1981 ; as cited in Li & McBride-Chang, 2014 ). The orthography of English is morphophonemic, meaning that the basic grapheme unit is an alphabetic letter, and printed words represent both phonemic and morphemic information. When there is inconsistency in representing phonemes in English printed words, morphological infor- mation is still preserved (e.g. heal/health, cats/dogs, as cited in Frost, 2012 ).
Since morphological awareness develops reciprocally with print exposure in the target language, previous research on monolingual reading development has indicated that, compared to other reading subskills (e.g. phonological awareness), morphological awareness plays a more important role in learning to read in Chinese than in learning to read in English because the morpheme boundary is more transparent in Chinese, with characters mapped onto morphemes at the syllable level, whereas the correspondence between morphemic information and orthographic phonological information is less reli- able in English. Moreover, an orthographic word is a salient unit in English, whereas word boundaries are not signalled clearly in Chinese orthography, and Chinese readers need to rely on their morphological skills to recognise words. For example, Lin et al. ( 2011 ) observed that L1 Chinese adults were more aware of the relative productivity of the character at the end of a word as a word boundary cue. Also, morphological awareness emerges relatively earlier in Chinese children (i.e. from kindergarten) and is a strong predictor of reading development in Chinese (e.g. Hao, Chen, Dronjic, Shu, & Anderson, 2013 ). On the other hand, morphological awareness in English might not make a signifi- cant contribution to reading development beyond phonological awareness until early elementary grades (e.g. Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006 ).
Although cross-linguistic comparisons made between the two languages in monolin- gual readers have provided insights into the acquisition of morphological awareness in typologically different languages, it has not been until recent years that researchers have examined directly the commonalities and differences in morphological awareness in Chinese and English and the transfer effects in bilingual readers (e.g. Wang, Cheng, & Chen, 2006 ; Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ; Zhang, 2013 ). Such investigations were based
360 S. Ke and F. Xiao This synthesis examines how morphological awareness functions as a cross-linguisti-
cally sharable resource in Chinese and English, by addressing three synthesis questions: (1) How has morphological awareness been defined, conceptualised, and measured in
bilingual reading development of Chinese and English? (2) What are the patterns of transfer between the two languages? (3) What are the factors that affect the transfer effects?
Method Two steps were followed to locate primary studies. First, four key words (morphological
awareness, morphological knowledge, transfer, and reading) were combined and searched for in five databases: ERIC, LLBA, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. Second, a manual search was conducted of research syntheses, narrative reviews, and pre- vious primary studies in referred journals and book chapters (e.g. Apel, 2014 ; August & Shanahan, 2006 ; Carlisle, McBride-Chang, Nagy, & Nunes, 2010 ; Koda & Reddy, 2008 ; Nagy et al., 2014 ). The first two steps generated 28 studies (till January 2015). Finally, eight primary studies (marked with in References) were selected by referring to the fol- lowing inclusion and exclusion criteria: studies on transfer of morphological awareness between Chinese and English and published in English were included, while studies on readers with special language impairments or of an interventional nature as well as repeti- tive reports were excluded. As noted in a review of the effects of instruction in morpho- logical awareness on literacy achievement in L1, Carlisle et al. ( 2010 ) concluded that given the design and quality of existing studies, interventional research in this area is still immature. To our knowledge, it also holds for L2 reading.
Guided by the three synthesis questions, we coded the selected studies with reference to the characteristics of primary studies, features of morphological awareness measures, the correlation between L1 and L2 morphological awareness (indexed by Pearson’s r), and potential moderators (see Lee, 2011 ). Generally speaking, the purposes of the primary studies were twofold: to investigate the cross-linguistic transfer effects of morphological awareness in Chinese English bilingual readers, and to investigate the relative contribu- tions of morphological awareness and other reading skills (e.g. phonological awareness)
Table 1. Summary of studies on cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness in Chinese English bilingual reading.
Duration Wang, Cheng, and To investigate cross-language
Language profile
10.5 14 64 Immediate Cross-sectional Chen ( 2006 )
Chinese-English
English-dominant
morphological transfer in
bilingual
(USA)
learning to read two writing
children
systems simultaneously Wang, Yang, and To investigate concurrent
6.8 1 78 Immediate Cross-sectional Cheng ( 2009 )
Chinese
English-dominant
contributions of phonology,
(Mandarin)
(USA)
orthography, and morphology
English bilingual
to biliteracy acquisition
children
Cheung et al. To examine the intercorrelations Chinese
among speech perception,
(Cantonese)
(Hong
metalinguistic (i.e.
English bilingual
Kong)
phonological and
children
morphological) awareness, word reading, and vocabulary in L1 and L2
Pasquarella et al. To investigate cross-language
7.8 1, 3 and 4 137 Immediate Cross-sectional ( 2011 )
Chinese
English-dominant
La Chinese English speaking
transfer of morphological
(Canada) awareness in bilingual
(Mandarin)
English bilingual
nguage children Yeh (2010 )
children
To examine morphological
Cross-sectional awareness transferring effects
(Taiwan) Awarenes from Chinese to English
English bilingual adolescents
Zhang ( 2013 ) To investigate a
Cross-sectional s potential linguistic distance
(mainland effect on cross-linguistic
(Mandarin)
English bilingual
China)
transfer of morphological
361 awareness
children
(continued)
Table 1. (Continued ) 362
Language profile
Duration S. Ke
Zhang and Koda To examine the intra-
Cross-sectional and ( 2014 )
(Mainland between L1 and L2
and inter-lingual relationships
(Mandarin)
F. morphological awareness and
English bilingual
China)
Xiao reading comprehension Zhang, Koda, &
children
Cross-sectional Sun ( 2014 )
To examine the contribution of Chinese
morphological awareness to
(Mainland reading comprehension, and
(Mandarin)
English bilingual
China)
to further address whether
children
there is any effect of linguistic distance and relative proficiency of L1 and L2 on cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness in biliteracy development
Note: K Kindergarten.
Table 2. Summary of the definition and measurement of morphological awareness. Control variables and
measures Wang, Cheng, and
Study
Definition
Function(s)
No. of measure(s)
Age and grade level Chen ( 2006 )
Children’s awareness of the
Somewhat analogous to the role
Multiple in both L1
morphemic structure of words
of phonemic awareness in
and L2
and their ability to reflect on
reading English
and manipulate that structure
Wang, Yang, and
Age Cheng ( 2009 )
Children’s understanding of the
An important index in
Single in both L1 and
morphemic structure of words
understanding meaning
L2
and their ability to perceive
information in words; critical
and manipulate that structure
in processing meaning information in complex words
Cheung et al. ( 2010 ).
The recognition of and ability to
Involved in the more meaning-
Single in both L1 and
Non-verbal
manipulate the meaning
based domains of vocabulary
L2
intelligence (Raven,
structure of language
and reading comprehension
Raven, & Court, 1998 ) and verbal short-term memory (Wechsler, 1974 )
Pasquarella et al.
Non-verbal ( 2011 )
The ability to reflect upon and
Positively associated with
Single in L1 and
manipulate morphemes, the
vocabulary, word reading, and
multiple in L2
intelligence (Raven
smallest phonological unit
reading comprehension in
et al., 1998 )
that carries meaning, and to
monolingual as well as
La
use word formation rules to
bilingual children
nguage
construct and understand
morphologically complex words
Awarenes Yeh (2010 )
A child’s conscious awareness of
Functioning as a framework
Multiple in both L1
The Junior High
the morphemic structure of
helping to organise acquired
and L2
School Students’
words and their ability to
lexicons and expand
Scholastic Aptitude
reflect on and manipulate that
vocabulary size; helping
Test (Lu, Wu, & s
structure
speakers/readers take
Chien, 2001 )
advantage of syntactic and semantic clues among
morphemes in order to distinguish homophones
(continued)
364 Table 2. (Continued )
Control variables and S. Study
measures Ke Zhang ( 2013 )
Definition
Function(s)
No. of measure(s)
The ability to reflect upon and
Facilitating segmentation of
Multiple in both L1
NA and
F.
manipulate morphemes and
morphologically complex
and L2
employ word formation rules
words and the retrieval and
in one’s language
retention of these words; a
Xiao
basic competence for word learning in that meanings of unfamiliar words can be inferred by use of morphological analysis
Zhang and Koda
Non-verbal (2014)
The ability to reflect upon and
Analysing morphologically
Multiple in both L1
manipulate morphemes and
complex words into their
and L2
intelligence (Raven
the morphological structure of
meaningful components;
et al., 1998 )
words
Supportive of development of vocabulary knowledge and reading of words, and the inference of meanings of unfamiliar words
Zhang, Koda, and Sun
NA ( 2014 )
The ability to reflect upon and
Contributing to word reading;
Multiple in both L1
manipulate morphemes and
critical to inferring meanings
and L2
morphological structure of
of unknown complex words
words
Language Awareness 365 ability to reflect on and manipulate that structure’ (p. 199). Morphological structure
referred to ‘the ways in which morphemes are conjoined in words’ (Koda, 2000 , p. 299). Since all were studies investigating the role of morphological awareness in bilingual read- ing development, they should have provided explanations for the way in which morpho- logical awareness contributed to reading development in bilingual readers. Surprisingly, only a few studies went beyond surface-level association between morphological aware- ness and reading subskills (e.g. decoding) and reasoned about how morphological aware- ness served as an important predictor in bilingual (and monolingual) reading acquisition (e.g. Yeh, 2010 ; Zhang, 2013 ). Following prior work (Carlisle, 2000 ), Zhang ( 2013 ) pointed out that morphological awareness had two functions in relation to reading devel- opment: (1) facilitating segmentation of morphologically complex words and the retrieval and retention of these words; and (2) serving as a basic competence for inferring the meanings of unfamiliar words and learning new words.
When it comes to the operationalisation of morphological awareness, the primary studies varied in their specifics. Three studies used a single measure of morphological awareness in L1 and L2, respectively (i.e. Cheung et al., 2010 ; Pasquarella, Chen, Lam, & Luo, 2011 ; Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ), while five others used multiple measures. The use of multiple measures is more reliable because morphological awareness, by defi- nition, is multifaceted. Specifically, primary studies varied in the features of morphologi- cal awareness measures, including modes (i.e. spoken versus written), type of morphology, and parallels between L1 and L2 measures (as illustrated in Table 3 ). (1) Four of the studies presented morphological awareness tasks orally (i.e. Cheung et al., 2010 ; Pasquarella et al., 2011 ; Wang et al., 2006 ; Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ); the other four used a written format, which should relate to the participants’ literacy exposure in that oral measures are more appropriate for children in kindergarten and early elementary grades. Among the oral tasks, the more frequently used ones with sample questions include: (a) Riddle guess: Which is a better name for a bee that lives in the grass: grass bee? Or bee grass? (b) Sentence completion: My uncle is a. (clue word: farm. Answer: farmer). (c) New word production: Early in the morning the sun comes up, and this is called sunrise. At night, we see the moon come up. What could we call this? (Answer: moonrise). (2) As for types of morphology, two studies (i.e. Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ; Zhang, Koda, & Sun, 2014 ) directly examined the shared word formation rules between Chinese and English, focusing on compound awareness only, while six studies
Table 3. Features of morphological awareness measurement. 366
Type of
Study Target populations
Mode
morphology
L1-L2
Operationalisation
Sample item(s) Words S.
Wang, Cheng, and Chinese English Oral
(1) Riddle guess: which is a Pseudo Ke Chen ( 2006 )
Derivation and
Non-parallel
(1) Compound structure:
bilingual
better name for a bee that children
compound
understanding of
compound structure
lives in the grass: grass and bee? Or bee grass?
F.
(2) Derivational-
(2) Sentence completion: my Real Xiao
morphology: awareness
uncle is a. (clue word:
of the derivational
farm)
structure of words (3) Homophone
(3) Multiple-choice: /shan1 Real
identification (in Chinese
yang2/ (goat)/mian2
only): children’s ability
yang2/(sheep)/tai4
to differentiate morphemes
yang2/(sun)
from homophones
Wang, Yang, and Chinese
(1) Riddle guess: same Pseudo Cheng ( 2009 )
(1) Compound structure:
(Mandarin)
as Wang, Cheng, and English bilingual
children’s understanding
that a compound word is
Chen ( 2006 )
children
made up of modifier and head
Cheung et al. Chinese
(1) Production: early in the Pseudo ( 2010 )
Oral
Derivation and
morning the sun comes up, English bilingual
compound
construction: the
and this is called sunrise. children
recognition and
manipulation of
At night, we see the moon
morphemes
come up. What could we call this? (answer: moonrise)
Pasquarella et al. Chinese
(1) Sentence completion: My Real ( 2011 )
Oral
Derivation and
Non-parallel
(1) Derivational awareness
uncle is a. (clue word: English bilingual
(Mandarin)-
compound
(in English only)
farm)
children
(2) Compound awareness
(2) Production: Same as Pseudo Cheung et al. ( 2010 )
(continued)
Table 3. (Continued )
Type of
Study Target populations
Sample item(s) Words Yeh (2010 )
Mode
morphology
L1-L2
Operationalisation
Chinese
(1) Sentence completion: Bill Real (Mandarin)
Written Inflection,
Non-parallel
(1) Inflectional awareness
is a boy and John is a boy. English bilingual
derivation, and
They are both _____. (boy) adolescents
compound
(2) Derivational awareness: (2) Sentence completion with Real affixation or high- frequency morphemes : (一 般人常常不懂得藥物的 ____(藥))
Chinese: (a) derivation English:
English:
(a) derivation
(a) My uncle is a. (clue word: Real
farm)
(b) decomposition
(b) The smoke in the room Pseudo was very. (clue word: density)
(3) Compound awareness Chinese:
Chinese:
La
(a) morpheme
(a) Paraphrase: /jian3cha2 Real
nguage is paraphrased as
combination
ce4liang2/
/jian3ce4/
Awarenes
(b) morpheme
(b) Production: Same as Pseudo
compounding
Cheung et al. ( 2010 )
English:
English:
(a) Morpheme
(a)Word relation judgement: Real s
identification
Does teach come from teacher?
(b) Compound word
(b) Reading unfamiliar Real &
decoding
compound words Pseudo (continued)
368 Table 3. (Continued )
Type of
Sample item(s) Words S.
Study Target populations
Ke Zhang ( 2013 )
Mode
morphology
L1-L2
Operationalisation
Chinese
(1)Word relation judgement: Real and (Mandarin)
Written Derivation and
Parallel
(1) Morphological relation:
Does teach come from English bilingual
compound
ability to perform
F. children
morpheme segmentation
teacher?
Xiao (2) Affix choice: knowledge (2)Sentence completion: My
for derived word
Real
about the functions of
little sister brings us a lot
English derivation affixes
of.(happily, unhappy, happiness)
(3) Compound structure: the (3)Riddle guess: same as Pseudo
understanding of the
Wang, Cheng, and Chen
modifier-head structure of
nominal compounds (4) Morpheme
(4) Multiple-choice: Real
discrimination: the
classroom bedroom
understanding that a word
mushroom
part shared by different words may vary in meaning in these words
Zhang and Koda Chinese
Same as Zhang ( 2013 ) Same as (2014)
Written Derivation and
Parallel
Same as Zhang ( 2013 )
(Mandarin)
Zhang English bilingual
compound
( 2013 ) children
Zhang, Koda, and Chinese
(1) Compound structure: the (1)Riddle guess: same as Pseudo Sun ( 2014 )
Written Compound
Non-parallel
(Mandarin)
Wang, Cheng, & Chen English bilingual
understanding of the
modifier-head structure of
children
nominal compounds (2) Morpheme
Real
discrimination: the
(continued)
Table 3. (Continued )
Type of
Study Target populations
Mode
morphology
L1-L2
Sample item(s) Words understanding that a word (2) Multiple-choice:
Operationalisation
part shared by different
classroom bedroom
words may vary in
mushroom
meaning in these words (3) Radical awareness (in
(3) Multiple-choice: The Real
Chinese only)
character 搬 (to move) was presented with four components 扌, 舟, 般, and 殳. Only 扌is the correct answer because it is the semantic radical that means hand or functions that have to be performed by hand.
La nguage
Awarenes
s 369
370 S. Ke and F. Xiao with a Chinese inflectional morpheme (e.g. the resultative potential infix 得 de, an adver-
bial morpheme that has no corresponding word in English). Another language-specific measure was homophone identification, used by Wang et al. ( 2006 ), which tapped into young children’s ability to differentiate morphemes with the same sounds. The following subsections will discuss patterns of transfer of morphological awareness, to show what factors can affect, and how they can affect, the transfer between L1 and L2 morphological awareness.
Patterns of cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness To recapitulate, transfer occurs as L1 reading skills are triggered involuntarily by L2 print
input (Koda, 2005 ). But it remains unclear the extent to which L1 morphological aware- ness can transfer and facilitate the development of L2 morphological awareness and L2 reading abilities between two languages that are typologically distant. We examined the correlation between L1 and L2 morphological awareness by coding pertinent effect sizes (i.e. zero-order correlation coefficient, r) in primary studies of Chinese English bilingual reading development. The magnitude of correlation was interpreted based on Cohen’s
( 1988 ) bench marks on r, with .1 being small, .25 being medium, and .4 being large. 2 As illustrated in Table 4 , six studies found small-to-medium correlations between L1 and L2 morphological awareness. The two exceptions were the studies by Cheung et al. ( 2010 ) and Yeh ( 2010 ). Both observed large effect sizes (>.40). Cheung et al. ( 2010 ) assessed a single facet of morphological awareness (i.e. morphological construction) with L1 Chinese L2 English children at the lower elementary grades. Interestingly, while main- taining equivalent conceptual demands in L1 and L2 morphological awareness tasks, Cheung et al. ( 2010 ) included different types of words for L1 Chinese (pseudo-compound awareness) and L2 English (pseudo-derivation words). This differed from other studies that categorised morphological awareness based on a priori categorisation of morphology in Chinese and English (derivation versus compound). Yeh’s study, on the other hand, examined three major facets of morphological awareness (inflection, derivation, and com- pound) and found a high correlation (r D .45) between Chinese and English inflectional awareness with L1 Chinese L2 English middle-school students. Since Chinese is a mini- mally inflected language and L1 Chinese readers might rely less on inflectional mor- phemes when compared with their L1 English counterparts, logic would suggest that it
Table 4. Summary of correlation between Chinese and English morphological awareness.
Facets of
Sample
morphological
Effect size (s)
Statistical
Study
Findings Wang, Cheng, and Chen ( 2006 )
size
awareness
(Pearson’s r)
modelling
64 Compound morphology
Regression (1) Transfer of morphological awareness
Derivation morphology
was only found from L2 English to L1
Homophone morphology
Chinese, but not vice versa. (2) L2 English compound morphological awareness explained unique variance in both Chinese reading and Chinese reading comprehension. But there was no transfer effect of English derivational awareness to Chinese reading.
Wang, Yang, and Cheng ( 2009 )
78 Compound structure
Regression (1) Cross-language morphological transfer occurred for compound structure awareness.(2) English compound structure awareness contributed to Chinese character reading over and above the Chinese tasks.
Cheung et al. ( 2010 )
Morphological construction
Regression (1) For the low-vocabulary subgroup, there were no transfer effects; but for the high-vocabulary subgroup, Chinese categorical perception, morphological awareness, and phonological awareness (marginally) do predict English vocabulary uniquely.
La Pasquarella et al. ( 2011 )
(1) English compound awareness, but not English nguage
Compound awareness
SEM
Derivational awareness
derivational awareness, transferred to Chinese and enhanced the development of Chinese vocabulary and reading comprehension.
Awarenes (2) There was a reciprocal relationship between English
compound awareness and Chinese vocabulary. Yeh (2010 )
Inflectional awareness
SEM
(1) Positive correlations were found among the s
Derivational awareness
development of students’ Verbal Aptitude, Chinese
Compound awareness
morphological awareness, and English morphological 371
(continued)
372 Table 4. (Continued )
S. Study
Facets of
Sample
morphological
Effect size (s)
Statistical
Findings Ke
size
awareness
(Pearson’s r)
modelling
and
awareness. (2) Further examinations of each individual Chinese
F. sub-awareness and their relationship to the English
Xiao morphological awareness illustrate that only the
model of the Chinese Awareness of Compound Words to the English morphological awareness showed a good fit to the data.
Zhang ( 2013 )
Morphological relation
SEM
(1) The contribution of Chinese morphological awareness to English morphological awareness was larger for compound words than for derived words.
Affix choice
(2) The indirect effect of Chinese compound awareness
Compound structure
on English compound word meaning inference was
Morpheme discrimination
significant, but that of Chinese derivational awareness on English derived word meaning inference did not achieve significance.
Zhang and Koda (2014)
Morphological relation
Regression (1) Cross-linguistically, Chinese compound awareness
Affix choice
explained a unique proportion of variance in English
Compound structure
reading comprehension, over and above English vocabulary knowledge, English compound
Morpheme discrimination
awareness, and other related variables. Such a cross- linguistic effect, however, was not found of English compound awareness on Chinese reading comprehension.(2) Derivational awareness in one language did not show a significant cross-linguistic relationship with reading comprehension in the other language, when other variables were considered.
Zhang, Koda, and Sun ( 2014 )
96 Compound structure
Regression
(continued)
Table 4. (Continued )
Facets of
Sample
morphological
Effect size (s)
(Pearson’s r)
modelling
Findings
Morpheme discrimination
(1) Compound awareness contributed to reading
Radical awareness
comprehension within both Chinese and English. (2) Over and above English compound awareness and Chinese reading comprehension, Chinese compound awareness, but not radical awareness, explained a unique amount of variance in English reading comprehension. After Chinese compound awareness was controlled for, English compound awareness, however, did not make a significant contribution to Chinese reading comprehension.
Note: With regard to studies that have multiple measures of morphological awareness, effect sizes are coded for parallel measures between L1 and L2. When we coded non-parallel measures between L1 and L2 (marked with ‘ ’), an averaged effect size were calculated for correlations across measures. SEM stands for structural equation modelling.
La nguage
Awarenes
s 373
374 S. Ke and F. Xiao These results seem to contradict the claim that the reciprocal relationship of morphologi-
cal awareness between Chinese and English is stronger for compound words than for derived words.
Another related question is whether transfer only occurred in a unidirectional fashion, that is, from L1 to L2. There was inconsistency across the primary studies: five out of eight observed unidirectional transfer effects from L1 Chinese morphological awareness to L2 English morphological awareness; two found unidirectional transfer from L2 English morphological awareness to L1 Chinese morphological awareness (Wang et al., 2006 ; Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ); and one observed bidirectional transfer between L1 Chinese and L2 English morphological awareness (Pasquarella et al., 2011 ). An extensive discussion on transfer effects is presented in the next section.
Factors affecting the transfer effects The preceding discussion has shown that there is a small-to-medium correlation of mor-
phological awareness between L1 and L2 in Chinese English bilingual readers, suggest- ing that morphological awareness is sharable between writing systems regardless of their typological differences. Yet, with regard to the direction of transfer, there was a notable variance in the primary studies. According to Koda et al. ( 2014 ), the extent to which L1 skills could transfer to and alter subsequent reading development was affected by three factors: (1) linguistic distance, (2) L2 mapping experience, and (3) task demands. The lat- ter two are evidenced in the current synthesis.
First, L2 linguistic and literacy exposure might affect the direction of transfer. For example, Wang et al. ( 2006 ) and Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ) observed a unidirectional transfer of morphological awareness from L2 English to L1 Chinese with English-domi- nant bilingual children in the USA. They argued that this was due to the bilingual child- ren’s rapidly increasing L2 English skills in their elementary school years. According to these authors, the participants’ Chinese language and literacy practices were limited to their home environments. In contrast, with another cohort of English-dominant bilingual children at elementary schools in Canada, Pasquarella et al. ( 2011 ) found bidirectional transfer of morphological awareness. One difference associated with the participants’ lan- guage and literacy profiles might be that the children in this study attended Chinese heri- tage language programmes weekly. Therefore, although the children were from English-
Language Awareness 375 than those of derivational awareness in the primary studies. However, the findings of pre-
vious studies showed that the magnitude of the correlation was small to moderate. This might be the reason why Yeh ( 2010 ) observed a large correlation of inflection awareness between Chinese and English despite the fact that inflection is rare in Chinese. Suffice it to say, cross-linguistic transfer is not induced by the priori morphology shared between the two languages only (e.g. compounding between Chinese and English), but conceptual and linguistic demands shared in the morphological awareness tasks segmenting ortho- graphical forms into meaningful chunks (see Ehri, 2005 ).
Other factors that might affect the cross-linguistic transfer effect of morphological awareness include the inclusion of control measures (e.g. verbal short-term memory), types of words used in the morphological awareness task (e.g. real words vs. pseudo words), and types of statistical models. For instance, four studies that were included in this analysis used oral measures of morphological awareness (i.e. Cheung et al., 2010 ; Pasquarella et al., 2011 ; Wang et al., 2006 ; Wang, Yang, & Cheng, 2009 ), among which, Cheung et al.’s ( 2010 ) study is the only one that included verbal short-term memory (measured by Wechsler’s forward digit span test) as a control variable and found a large correlation between L1 and L2 morphological awareness (r > .4); others only observed small to medium correlations. In addition, the choice between real words and pseudo- words also matters since access to real word meanings might tap into tacit linguistic knowledge as opposed to morphological awareness. Finally, it should be noted that corre- lational evidence presented in this synthesis and the primary studies does not warrant any inference of causal relationship. But multilevel modelling, such as structural equation modelling, could reduce measurement errors and allow for inference of causality. Among the eight studies, three have taken advantage of this statistical method (i.e. Pasquarella et al., 2011 ; Yeh, 2010 ; Zhang, 2013 ).
Conclusions and implications This review has examined the cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness
between Chinese and English, which has received relatively limited attention in previous studies of bilingual reading development. Specifically, it examined the definition and measurement of morphological awareness in prior work, the patterns of transfer, and potential factors that could affect the transfer effects. The findings of the review have
376 S. Ke and F. Xiao one language transfers and facilitates the acquisition of morphological awareness in
another language is susceptible to L2 language and literacy experience and the demands of the morphological awareness tasks.
To sum up, several gaps have been identified in this review. First, future research should align the measurement with the definition of morphological awareness. Given that it is a multifaceted construct, multiple measures should be utilised, tapping into both lan- guage-general and language-specific facets of morphological awareness. Second, previ- ous studies mainly examined cross-linguistic transfer effects of morphological awareness in bilingual children at elementary school level. Our understanding needs to be expanded to a larger population of different cognitive and linguistic profiles, for example, adoles- cent and adult bilingual readers learning a second language other than English. Third, to provide more in-depth explanations of the way in which morphological awareness func- tions as an important resource in bilingual (and monolingual) reading development, future research should include a wider range of cognitive variables as control measures, which could potentially confound or mediate the effects of morphological awareness (see also Zhang, Lin, Wei, & Anderson, 2014 ). Fourth, our findings were based on cross-sectional studies with correlational data, which do not include longitudinal and interventional stud- ies to maintain compatibility across primary studies. It should be noted that, to date, there have been several longitudinal and interventional studies to gain causal evidence of cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness (e.g. Wang, Lin, & Yang, 2014 ; Zhang et al., 2010 ). However, there is still a great need to conduct longitudinal and inter- ventional studies to examine how morphological awareness serves as a sharable resource in reading across languages over time. Lastly, this review focused on the role of morpho- logical awareness in bilingual reading development in Chinese and English. In order to develop a better understanding of how morphological awareness functions as a cross-lin- guistically sharable resource in L2 reading development, it is important for future researchers to examine other language pairs that are typologically distant (e.g. English and Arabic in Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008 ; Hebrew and English in Schiff & Calif, 2007 ; Japanese and English in Hayashi & Murphy, 2013 ).
Acknowledgements We sincerely appreciate comments from the reviewers and editors. All remaining errors are our
Language Awareness 377 overstated the contribution of semantic radicals to Chinese word meaning retrieval. Many of
them focused on single characters, less representative of contemporary Chinese written words (Lexicon of Common Words in Contemporary Chinese Research Team, 2008 ), the majority of which are two- and three-character words (84%). Moreover, it should be noted that the semantic cues provided by semantic radicals are not always consistent and reliable (Chung & Leung, 2008 ). (3) Based on (1) and (2), we propose that research on orthographic awareness, ortho- morphological awareness, and semantic radical awareness in Chinese is worth examining. But it does not fit in the scope of this synthesis. 2. Even though readers may be more familiar with Cohen’s d as an effect size measure based on studies with mean differences across independent groups or with matched groups, or with pre post designs, this review focused on correlation (r) between two continuous variables, which is based on studies that examined the transfer of morphological awareness between L1 and L2 within one group (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ). We also noted that although specific effect sizes based on correlations have been proposed for Second Language Acquisition research (0.4 being a small effect; 0.7 medium; and 1.0 considered as a large effect), they should not be taken as the ‘golden’ rules (Oswald & Plonsky, 2010 ). Following this set of rules, the unique contributions of morphological awareness would be taken as small, which might lead to the underestimation of the relevance of morphological awareness for instructional practices (see also Nagy et al., 2014 ). In this review, we adopted Cohen’s bench- marks, which have been widely used in meta-analyses to interpret the magnitude of correlation in social science (as cited in Li, Shintani, & Ellis, 2012 , p. 12).
Notes on contributors Sihui Ke is a PhD candidate in second language acquisition at the Department of Modern Lan-
guages, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. She is interested in second language reading and biliter- acy acquisition, psycholinguistics, foreign language assessment and instruction, and language planning and policy.
Feng Xiao is an assistant professor of Asian Languages and Literatures at Pomona College, USA. His research interests are interlanguage and intercultural pragmatics, technology-enhanced learning, and statistical language learning.
ORCID Sihui Ke http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2665-0637
Feng Xiao http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7885-5987
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