Tone matters for Cantonese-English bilingual children's English word reading development: A unified model of phonological transfer.
Mem Cognit
; 45(2): 320-333, 2017 02.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-27739039
ABSTRACT
Languages differ considerably in how they use prosodic features, or variations in pitch, duration, and intensity, to distinguish one word from another. Prosodic features include lexical tone in Chinese and lexical stress in English. Recent cross-sectional studies show a surprising result that Mandarin Chinese tone sensitivity is related to Mandarin-English bilingual children's English word reading. This study explores the mechanism underlying this relation by testing two explanations of these effects the prosodic hypothesis and segmental phonological awareness transfer. We administered multiple measures of Cantonese tone sensitivity, English stress sensitivity, segmental phonological awareness in Cantonese and English, nonverbal ability, and English word reading to 123 Cantonese-English bilingual children ages 7 and 8 years. Structural equation modeling revealed a longitudinal prediction of Cantonese tone sensitivity to English word reading between 8 and 9 years of age. This relation was realized through two parallel routes. In one, Cantonese tone sensitivity predicted English stress sensitivity, and English stress sensitivity, in turn, significantly predicted English word reading, as postulated by the prosodic hypothesis. In the second, Cantonese tone sensitivity predicted English word reading through the transfer of segmental phonological awareness between Cantonese and English, as predicted by segmental phonological transfer. These results support a unified model of phonological transfer, emphasizing the role of tone in English word reading for Cantonese-English bilingual children.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Lectura
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Habla
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Percepción del Habla
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Transferencia de Experiencia en Psicología
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Desarrollo Infantil
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Multilingüismo
Tipo de estudio:
Observational_studies
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Prognostic_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Child
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Female
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Humans
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Male
País/Región como asunto:
Asia
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Mem Cognit
Año:
2017
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
China