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Cross-language transfer of
morphological awareness in
Chinese–English bilinguals
Adrian Pasquarella, Xi Chen, Katie Lam and Yang C. Luo
Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
Gloria Ramirez
Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada
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
alphabetic languages (e.g. Carlisle, 1995, 2000; Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nagy, Berninger,
Abott, Vaughan & Vermeulen, 2003), as well as in Chinese (e.g. Ku & Anderson, 2003;
McBride-Chang, Shu, Zhou, Wat & Wagner, 2003; Wang, Cheng & Chen, 2006; Wang,
Yang & Chen, 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
Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2010.01484.x
Volume 34, Issue 1, 2011, pp 23–42
Copyright r2011 UKLA. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ,
UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
Journal of
Research in Reading
Journal of
Research in Reading
the cross-language contribution of morphological awareness to literacy skills in bilingual
Chinese- and English-speaking children.
Morphology in English and Chinese
There are three types of morphology: inflection, derivation and compounding (Kuo &
Anderson, 2006). Inflectional morphemes are word endings that denote case, verb tense,
gender or syntax. They mark syntactic or semantic relations between different words
without altering the meaning or the part of speech of the root word (e.g. explain !
explained). Derivations, on the other hand, change either the part of speech or the
meaning, or both, of a base morpheme (root word) by adding a prefix or a suffix (e.g.
friendly !unfriendly,explain !explanation). Finally, compounding creates new
words by combining two or more root words (e.g. sunshine). Important differences exist
between English and Chinese morphology. Inflections and derivations are the main word
formation methods in English, whereas in Chinese over 75% of words are formed through
compounding (Kuo & Anderson, 2006; Sun, Sun, Huang, Li & Xing, 1996). The salience
of morphological features appears to influence the development of specific morphological
skills. In a comparative study, Ku and Anderson (2003) observed that Taiwanese children
had more advanced compound awareness than American children, whereas American
children had more advanced derivational awareness than their Taiwanese counterparts.
To the extent that compounding is more prominent in Chinese, Chinese and English are
rather similar in terms of rules for the formation and meaning of compound morphology.
Compounds in both languages are right-headed, which means that the right morpheme
specifies the category and the left morpheme modifies the meaning and identifies the
subcategory (Clark, Gelman & Lane, 1985). For example, in English ‘classroom’ refers to a
room where a class takes place. The corresponding concept in Chinese is ‘ ’. The left
morpheme ‘ /jiao4/’ means instruction and right morpheme ‘ /shi4/’ means room.
Chinese compounds tend to be relatively transparent (Yuan & Huang, 1998). In transparent
compounds, the meaning of the compound is predictable from the meaning of the
constituent morphemes, for example birthday. In opaque compounds, the meaning of the
compound is not closely related to one or both constituent morphemes, for example jailbird.
English also has many transparent compounds (Frisson, Niswander-Klement & Pollatsek,
2008; Libben, 1998), though opaque compounds do exist in both English and Chinese.
Within-language contribution of morphological awareness to literacy
The role of morphological awareness in reading has been examined in both English and
Chinese. Studies in English have generally supported that inflectional awareness and
derivational awareness are positively associated with vocabulary, word reading and
reading comprehension in monolingual as well as bilingual children (e.g. Carlisle, 2000;
Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; Carlisle & Stone, 2005; McBride-Chang, Cho et al., 2005;
Roman, Kirby, Parrila, Wade-Woolley & Deacon, 2009). Given the prominence of
compounds in Chinese, research involving Chinese children has focused on compound
awareness. This body of research has convincingly demonstrated that compound
awareness is a significant predictor of literacy development among children who are
native speakers of Chinese (e.g. Chen, Hao, Geva, Zhu & Shu, 2009; Chung & Hu, 2007;
24 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
Ku & Anderson, 2003; Li, Anderson, Nagy & Zhang, 2002; McBride-Chang, Cheung,
Chow, Chow & Choi, 2006; McBride-Chang, Shu, Ng, Meng & Penney, 2007; McBride-
Chang et al., 2008; Shu, McBride-Chang, Wu & Liu, 2006). Among Chinese–English
bilinguals, Wang et al. (2009) found that Grade 1 children’s English compound awareness
explained a small but significant amount of variance (4%) in their Chinese word reading.
Although the association between morphological awareness and literacy outcomes is
generally interpreted as evidence that morphological awareness is important for literacy
development, researchers acknowledge that the relationship is likely to be reciprocal (Kuo
& Anderson, 2006; McBride-Chang, Cho et al., 2005, 2008; Nagy, Berninger & Abbott,
2006; Wang et al., 2006). McBride-Chang et al. (2008) observed that in Chinese and
Korean kindergarteners, the ability to produce novel compound words using familiar
morphemes predicted unique variance in their vocabulary knowledge 1 year later;
vocabulary knowledge measured at pre-test also predicted unique variance in subsequent
morphological awareness. A number of intervention studies have found that morphological
awareness training led to improved literacy skills (e.g. Carlo et al., 2004; Chow, McBride-
Chang, Cheung & Chow, 2008; Nunes, Bryant & Olsson, 2003). On the other hand, there is
little doubt that vocabulary forms the foundation for developing morphological awareness
because knowledge of root words is required to understand and construct compounds
(Chung & Hu, 2007; M. Hao, X. Chen, V. Dronjic, H. Shu & R. Anderson, unpublished
data; Kuo & Anderson, 2006). In fact, morphological awareness is often considered to
represent vocabulary depth (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2008). It offers an effective way for
children to organise morphologically related words in their mental lexicon.
Cross-language transfer of morphological awareness
The purpose of the present study was to investigate cross-language transfer of
morphological awareness in bilingual Chinese–English speaking children. We examined
whether English morphological awareness would predict children’s Chinese literacy
skills and whether Chinese morphological awareness would also predict English literacy
skills. Among different aspects of metalinguistic awareness, transfer of phonological
awareness has been studied extensively. Cross-language effects of phonological
awareness on reading have been reported between many language combinations such
as Spanish and English (Cisero & Royer, 1995; Durgunog
˘lu, Nagy & Hancin-Bhatt,
1993), French and English (Comeau, Cormier, Grandmaison & Lacroix, 1999; LaFrance
& Gottardo, 2005) and between Chinese and English (Chen, Xu, Nguyen, Hong & Wang,
2010; Gottardo, Yan, Siegel & Wade-Woolley, 2001).
Research on transfer of morphological awareness is more limited. Studies involving
bilingual children who are exposed to two alphabetic languages have focused on the
cross-language effects of derivational awareness and inflectional awareness on word
reading (Deacon, Wade-Woolley & Kirby, 2007; Ramı
´rez, Chen, Geva & Kiefer, 2010;
Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008; Schiff & Calif, 2007). Transfer effects of derivational
awareness on word reading have been observed from Hebrew to English in Israeli
children who learned English as a second language (L2) (Schiff & Calif, 2007), and from
Arabic and Spanish to English in English Language Learners in Canada (Ramı
´rez et al.,
2010; Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008). Notably, Arabic and Hebrew have very different
morphological structures from English. In these languages, word formation involves
the simultaneous affixation of a consonantal root (e.g. K-T-B) and a word pattern
TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 25
Copyright r2011 UKLA
(e.g. Ca:CeC), both of which are bound morphemes that cannot stand on their own
(Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008). Transfer of inflectional awareness has been found
between French and English in Canadian French immersion children (Deacon et al., 2007).
Taken together, this body of research provides evidence for cross-language transfer of
morphological awareness, both between languages with similar morphological structures
(English and Spanish, English and French), and between languages with considerably
different morphological structures (English and Hebrew, English and Arabic).
Transfer of compound awareness has been investigated in several studies involving
Chinese children (Wang et al., 2006, 2009; Zhang et al., 2010). Zhang et al. (2010)
offered fifth graders in Mainland China, who learned English as a second language, a
brief intervention on either Chinese or English compound structures. The researchers
found that the children who received the Chinese intervention outperformed the control
group on an English morphological awareness task, suggesting transfer of morphological
awareness from Chinese to English. Among children who received the English
intervention, only those with high English proficiency outperformed the children in the
control group on a Chinese morphological awareness task. This intervention study reveals
a causal link between Chinese and English morphological awareness.
Wang et al. (2006, 2009) investigated transfer of compound awareness in two studies
involving Chinese–English bilinguals. Wang et al. (2009) found that English compound
awareness was related to Chinese word reading in Grade 1. Wang et al. (2006) showed that
English compound morphology predicted significant unique variance in Chinese reading
comprehension in a mixed sample containing children from Grades 1 to 5. This study offered
evidence for cross-language transfer of English compound awareness to Chinese reading
comprehension, but it also had several limitations. First, neither Chinese compound
awareness nor Chinese word reading were entered as within-language controls when
examining the cross-language effect of English compound awareness, which might have
inflated the transfer effect observed in this study. Another concern was that English and
Chinese compound awareness tasks were not correlated, making the transfer effect difficult to
interpret. Because of these limitations, the result of Wang et al. (2006) requires replication.
Interestingly, in both studies by Wang and colleagues, transfer of compound awareness was
found from English compound awareness to Chinese reading, but not from Chinese compound
awareness to English reading. Since reading Chinese requires more compound awareness than
reading English, it may be easier to detect transfer of compound awareness from English to
Chinese than from Chinese to English. Zhang et al. (2010) did observe transfer from Chinese
to English. However, their outcome variable was English compound awareness rather than
English reading. Furthermore, Wang et al. (2006) measured both English compound
awareness and English derivational awareness. Only the former transferred to Chinese reading
comprehension. Because of the rare occurrence of derivational morphology in Chinese, it was
unlikely that English derivational awareness would facilitate Chinese vocabulary and reading,
over and above Chinese compound awareness. Thus, it seems that the direction of transfer of
morphological awareness, at least to the reading outcomes, is influenced by the morphological
structure of children’s first and second language.
The present study
The present study evaluated the cross-language effects of morphological awareness in
Chinese–English bilingual children. We measured compound awareness in Chinese and
26 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
English in parallel tasks. We also measured derivational awareness in English, as English
is a language rich in derivation. Our study attempted to present a comprehensive
framework of cross-language transfer by including Chinese and English vocabulary, word
reading and reading comprehension measures in the same structural equation model
(SEM). To our knowledge, this was the first study to examine the cross-language effects
of morphological awareness on vocabulary and only the second study, after Wang et al.
(2006), to examine these effects on reading comprehension. We created a baseline model
with only within-language paths. In the second model, cross-language paths were added
to examine transfer effects. By comparing the two models, we aimed to extend the
findings of previous studies with better controls and rigorous statistical modelling.
We were interested in what aspects of morphological awareness would transfer, and
the direction of transfer. We expected that compound awareness would transfer between
English and Chinese, due to shared compounding structures. It was unlikely that English
derivational awareness would transfer to Chinese reading. With respect to the direction of
transfer, based on Wang et al.’s (2006, 2009) findings, we predicted that English
compound awareness would contribute to Chinese vocabulary and reading.
Method
Participants
In total, 137 children who spoke Mandarin Chinese as their first language (L1) and
English as their L2 participated in this study. They were recruited from 12 schools
located in predominantly middle-class neighbourhoods in a large Canadian city. English
was the only language of instruction in all schools. The sample consisted of 47 first
graders (24 boys, 22 girls, M
age
581.35 months), 53 second graders (27 boys, 26 girls,
M
age
589.06 months) and 37 fourth graders (15 boys, 22 girls, M
age
5114.19 months).
On average the first graders had been living in Canada for 6.35 months (1–28 months,
SD 55.04 months), second graders for 29.82 months (1–99 months, SD 532.04 months)
and fourth graders for 71.83 months (19–120 months, SD 531.80 months). All children
were exposed to Chinese at home, with 81% of the parents reporting speaking Chinese
with their child at home for more than 75% of the time. Approximately 82% of the
students participated in Chinese heritage language programmes for 1.5 hours every week.
Measures
Nonverbal reasoning. Nonverbal reasoning ability was measured using the Raven’s
Standard Progressive Matrices (Raven, Raven & Court, 1998). For each item, children
were asked to complete a visual–spatial matrix by choosing the missing piece from six or
eight patterned segments. Children progressed through the test until they gave five
consecutive wrong answers. A raw score was calculated by adding up the total number of
correct items.
English phonological awareness. Children’s phonological awareness was assessed using
the Elision subtest from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP;
Wagner, Torgesen & Rashotte, 1999). Children were asked to delete individual sounds
from words and to give the remaining part (e.g. say ‘cat’, say it without ‘/k/’). The six
practice items and 20 test items in this test included initial, middle and last phoneme
TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 27
Copyright r2011 UKLA
deletion. The test was discontinued when the child had responded incorrectly on three
consecutive items.
English derivational awareness. The derivational awareness task was adapted from
Carlisle (2000). Children were orally presented with a root word and a sentence with a
word missing by the experimenter, and were asked to produce a derived form of the root
word to complete the sentence. For example, Experimenter: ‘Farm [root word]. My uncle
is a __________’ (farmer). Children were given three practice trials with feedback to
verify that they understood the task. This test contained 27 items.
English compound awareness. This task was adapted from a similar task designed by
McBride-Chang, Wagner, Muse, Chow and Shu (2005b). In each trial, children were
orally presented with the definition of a compound word, and were then asked to create a
novel compound word of similar structure. For example, Experimenter: ‘Early in the
morning, we can see the sun rising. This is called a sunrise. At night, we might also see
the moon rising. What could we call this?’ (moonrise). There were two practice trials and
15 test items.
English word reading. Children’s word reading ability in English was assessed using the
Letter–Word Identification Subtest from the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery
(WLPB; Woodcock, 1984). This test required children to identify 14 letters and to read
62 words of increasing difficulty. The test was discontinued if the child read six
consecutive words incorrectly. The raw score was the total number of words read
correctly.
English receptive vocabulary. A shortened version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary
Test, Third Edition, Form III A (PPVT-IIIA; Dunn & Dunn, 1997) was administered to
measure children’s receptive vocabulary. To maintain the same progression of item
difficulty as the original task, every third item from the original task was selected to
create the shortened version, for a total of 60 items. The modifications were made to
shorten administration time and to allow for group administration. Four practice items
were administered before the test items. The experimenter read each item twice and the
children circled in response booklets the picture that best described the word presented.
English reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was assessed using the
Reading Comprehension subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test – Revised
(PIAT-R; Markwardt, 1998). To reduce administration time, we created a shortened
version of the original test by including every other item. The adapted test had 36 items.
Each child received booklets containing sentences and short paragraphs of increasing
difficulty, along with stimulus pictures. Children were asked to silently read each
sentence or short paragraph, then turn the page and select out of four stimulus pictures the
one that best represented the text previously read. Three practice trials were administered
to ensure that the children understood the task.
Chinese compound awareness. This task was parallel to the English compound
awareness measure. In each trial, children were orally presented with the definition
of a compound word in Chinese, and were then asked to create a novel Chinese
compound word of similar structure. For example, ‘
28 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
?[Striped horse (Zebra) is a kind of horse with stripes on the
body. What should we call a cow with stripes on the body?]’ ( striped cow). This task
included 15 test items and two practice items.
Chinese word reading. This task required the child to read 135 characters. The task
started with the most frequent characters (e.g. ) and moved to the less frequent ones
(e.g. ). The test was discontinued when the child misread 10 characters
consecutively.
Chinese receptive vocabulary. Similar to the English receptive vocabulary task, every
third item was selected from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Third Edition, Form
III A (PPVT-IIIA; Dunn & Dunn, 1997) and was translated into Chinese to measure
children’s Chinese receptive vocabulary. The total number of items was also 60. These
items were distinct from those selected for the English vocabulary task. The
administration procedure was the same as the English vocabulary measure.
Chinese reading comprehension. Since no standardised reading comprehension test was
available in Chinese, we developed a reading comprehension task based on the sentences
presented in the Neilson’s reading test for elementary school children (Shu, Meng, Chen,
Luan & Cao, 2005). The format of the task was the same as the English reading
comprehension measure. The only difference was that each item contained five stimulus
pictures. There were three practice items and 36 test items.
Parent questionnaire. Parents were encouraged to fill out a language and literacy
questionnaire in Chinese or English. A number of items from the questionnaire were used
in the data analysis, including birthplace, age of immigration, number of months lived in
Canada, maternal education, attendance of Chinese heritage language programme and
home language use. Maternal education was rated on a 6-point scale (1 5some high
school,25completed high school,35some university or college,45completed college
or undergraduate,55some graduate studies,65graduated with an advanced degree).
The amount of Chinese and English that parents spoke to the child was coded along a
5-point scale from never (0% of the time) to always (100% of the time).
Procedure
Participants were assessed in a quiet room at their schools within school hours.
Experimenters were trained undergraduate and graduate research assistants who majored
in psychology, linguistics or human biology. All research assistants were Chinese–
English bilinguals. Testing was divided into two sessions of approximately 60 minutes
each for Chinese and English tasks. The children completed the nonverbal reasoning
measure, as well as the Chinese and English vocabulary and reading comprehension tasks
in small groups. The remaining measures were administered individually. For tests that
were administered individually, the order by which the tests were given was
counterbalanced across participants. Instructions for a test were first given in the
language of the test. Explanation in the other language was provided when needed to
facilitate understanding. Practice trials were also used to confirm that the children
understood the tests.
TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 29
Copyright r2011 UKLA
Results
Means and correlations
Table 1 presents the reliability ratings, maximum scores, means and standard deviations
of the measures. The scores appear to be reasonable and floor or ceiling effects in the data
are not evident. Children’s performance significantly increased with grade level on most
Chinese and English measures (pvalues for ANOVA tests of group difference were
all .009). However, there were a few exceptions. Post hoc tests revealed that there was
no difference between children in Grades 2 and 4 on English phonological awareness,
English derivational awareness and Chinese compound awareness. Children in Grades 1
and 2 also performed similarly on English receptive vocabulary. Furthermore, maternal
education (p5.121) and number of months lived in Canada (p5.475) were not
significantly different across grades.
Table 2 presents a correlation matrix partialling out the influence of age. Generally
speaking, the English reading and language variables were significantly correlated with
each other (rs ranged from .41 to .79). The Chinese reading and language variables were
also significantly correlated with each other (rs ranged from .36 to .69). A number of
significant correlations emerged between languages. In particular, English compound
awareness was related to Chinese compound awareness, Chinese vocabulary and Chinese
reading comprehension (r5.32, .30 and .41, respectively). Chinese compound awareness
was related to English phonological awareness, English word reading, English
derivational awareness and English reading comprehension (r5.36, .24, .22 and .30,
respectively).
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the variables under study.
Variable aMaximum Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 4 Total
(n547) (n553) (n537) (n5137)
M SD M SD M SD M SD
Age 81.35 7.98 89.06 3.85 114.19 5.13 93.41 15.54
Months in Canada 74.48 16.44 68.23 25.50 70.61 31.72 71.02 24.77
MomED 6 4.70 1.14 4.91 0.71 4.41 1.36 4.66 1.16
NV 0.90 60 17.15 5.72 32.98 10.87 44.30 8.05 31.45 14.04
EPA 0.92 20 9.91 5.05 12.98 4.70 14.11 4.77 12.36 5.06
EDA 0.78 27 8.36 4.00 10.58 2.46 9.76 3.74 9.59 3.37
ECA 0.91 15 6.83 2.08 9.70 2.70 11.43 2.54 9.50 2.93
EWR 0.95 76 37.45 11.28 46.26 7.79 53.27 10.82 45.50 11.62
EV 0.82 60 32.17 4.57 34.30 4.30 39.49 7.09 35.02 6.03
ERC 0.89 36 14.17 7.18 21.42 5.12 24.86 5.79 20.14 7.55
CCA 0.83 15 7.03 3.32 9.76 3.40 10.41 2.45 9.22 3.47
CWR 0.98 135 19.86 7.44 35.72 19.70 45.92 27.43 35.35 23.47
CV 0.83 60 29.13 6.76 36.30 6.31 39.46 7.44 34.98 8.09
CRC 0.90 36 6.26 6.46 12.60 8.48 20.46 8.66 12.77 9.98
Note: Months in Canada 5Number of months lived in Canada; MomED 5maternal education; NV 5nonverbal
reasoning; EPA 5English phonological awareness; EDA 5English derivational awareness; ECA 5English
compound awareness; EWR 5English word reading; EV 5English vocabulary; ERC 5English reading
comprehension; CCA 5Chinese compound awareness; CWR 5Chinese word reading; CV 5Chinese
vocabulary; CRC 5Chinese reading comprehension.
30 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
Construction of SEMs
We constructed SEM models to examine the relationships among the variables. Before
performing the SEM analyses, we first calculated hierarchical regressions to compare the
pattern of relationships across the three grades. Regressions with Chinese reading
comprehension, Chinese receptive vocabulary and English receptive vocabulary as the
dependent variables revealed the same patterns of relationships across the three grades.
The variables predicting English reading comprehension were also very similar for the
three grades. The only difference was that English vocabulary was a marginally
significant predictor of English reading comprehension in Grade 1, while it was a
significant predictor in Grades 2 and 4. Because the relationships among the variables
were almost identical across the three grades, to increase power, we conducted the SEM
analyses on the whole sample. Moreover, because regressions and SEM models yielded
highly similar results, only SEM results are reported to avoid redundancy.
Two SEM models were created with AMOS 17.0 to explore the within- and cross-
language relationships among morphological awareness, word reading, vocabulary and
reading comprehension. The baseline model contained only within-language paths. In the
cross-language model, cross-language paths were added between the measures of
phonological awareness, morphological awareness, word reading, vocabulary and reading
comprehension. The correlations reported in Table 2 were used to inform model
construction. The earlier versions of the models contained all possible paths that
displayed significant correlations. In the final versions, nonsignificant paths were deleted
to create more parsimonious models and to increase the number of degrees of freedom
(df). Age and nonverbal reasoning were significantly correlated with most reading
measures in Chinese and English and were subsequently entered as control variables in
Table 2. Pearson correlation matrix of variables partialling for age.
Months
in
Canada
Mom
ED
NV EPA EDA ECA EWR EV ERC CCA CWR CV CRC
Months in
Canada
– .05 .18
*
.19
*
.33
***
.03 .27
**
.39
***
.21
*
.10 .35
***
.40
***
.31
***
MomED – .20
*
.37
***
.41
***
.27
***
.37
***
.37
***
.38
***
.27
**
.15 .24
**
.10
NV – .34
***
.38
***
.61
***
.42
***
.26
**
.51
***
.22
*
.11 .29
***
.40
***
EPA – .54
***
.49
***
.69
***
.47
***
.59
***
.36
***
.16 .17
***
.27
***
EDA – .41
***
.71
***
.57
***
.66
***
.22
*
.08 .06 .12
ECA – .53
***
.44
***
.59
***
.32
***
.14 .30
***
.41
***
EWR – .59
***
.79
***
.24
**
.05 .11 .21
*
EV – .57
***
.13 .19 .04 .03
ERC – .29
***
.07 .22
*
.28
***
CCA – .45
***
.63
***
.36
***
CWR – .53
***
.69
***
CV – .39
***
Note: Correlations with Months in Canada and MomED have not partialled out the influence of age.
Months in Canada 5Number of months lived in Canada; MomED 5maternal education; NV 5nonverbal
reasoning; EPA 5English phonological awareness; EDA 5English derivational awareness; ECA 5English
compound awareness; EWR 5English word reading; EV 5English vocabulary; ERC 5English reading
comprehension; CCA 5Chinese compound awareness; CWR 5Chinese word reading; CV 5Chinese
vocabulary; CRC 5Chinese reading comprehension.
*
p.05;
**
p.01;
***
p.001.
TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 31
Copyright r2011 UKLA
both models. Maternal education and number of months lived in Canada were entered
initially, but removed from the final models because adding these variables reduced
model fits, and did not produce any significant relationships with word reading,
vocabulary or reading comprehension.
We explored bidirectional paths between morphological awareness and the outcome
variables in the cross-language model. Although longitudinal data are ideal for testing
reciprocal effects, cross-sectional data can be useful for capturing reciprocal relationships
if the model has proper specification (Wong & Law, 1999). Various fields of research
(e.g. industrial, organisation, political sciences) have used cross-sectional data to test
reciprocal relationships in SEM (Benda & Corwyn, 2000; Everland, Hayes, Shah &
Kwak, 2005; Wong, Wong, Hui & Law, 2001). We applied this analytic technique,
following the considerations of Wong and Law (1999), to investigate the reciprocal
relationships in the cross-language model. Notably, our model supported a bidirectional
path between English compound awareness and Chinese vocabulary. That is, English
compound awareness significantly predicted Chinese vocabulary, and Chinese vocabu-
lary also significantly predicted English compound awareness. The final versions of the
within- and the cross-language models are displayed in Figures 1 and 2, respectively.
1
Comparison of within- and cross-language models
The model fit indices for the within- and cross-language models are displayed in Table 3.
All scores were mean centred before analysis to increase interpretability when comparing
parameter values. Multiple indices were used to assess model fit. A w
2
to df ratio o3 and
a CFI 4.95 suggest good fit. RMSEA values .05 suggest good fit, values o.08
suggest satisfactory fit and values .10 suggest poor fit. Deviance statistics were
calculated by taking the difference of the w
2
,df, AIC and BCC values between models. If
the deviance statistics are significant, the model with the lower values (i.e. w
2
, AIC and
BCC) is the better fitting model (Kenny, Kashy & Cook, 2006).
As shown in Table 3, the within-language model produced adequate fit on measures of
w
2
/df and CFI but not RMSEA, w
2
(39) 599.80, po.001, w
2
/df 52.56, RMSEA 5.11,
CFI 5.95. The cross-language model produced excellent fit, w
2
(33) 541.81, p5.140,
w
2
/df 51.27, RMSEA 5.04, CFI 5.99 and it fit significantly better than the within-
language model for all three tests, Dw
2
(6) 557.99, DAIC(6) 545.99, DBCC(6) 544.72,
po.001. These results suggest that the addition of the cross-language paths significantly
improved the model fit. We calculated the required sample size and power for the cross-
language model according to the method outlined in MacCallum, Browne and Cai (2006),
and Kim (2005). Based on the RMSEA fit statistic, alpha value, and df, the cross-
language model required a minimum sample size of 106; our actual sample size
(N5137) was larger than the required sample size. In addition, the cross-language model
had an excellent power rating of .90.
Path analysis for the cross-language model
Table 4 presents standardised (b) parameter estimates and the unique variance explained
(DR
2
) for the cross-language model. The outcome variables are listed above the
corresponding independent variables.
Within-language relationships. The cross-language model detected a number of
significant within-language relationships. In English, phonological awareness was a
32 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
significant predictor of word reading (b5.73; DR
2
5.53, po.001). Word reading
predicted vocabulary (b5.71; DR
2
5.50, po.001), and derivational awareness (b5.69;
DR
2
5.47, po.001). English compound awareness was related to both English word
reading (b5.48; DR
2
5.23, po.001) and English vocabulary (b5.17; DR
2
5.03,
p5.033). English reading comprehension was predicted by five variables. English word
reading was the strongest predictor (b5.51; DR
2
5.26, po.001). The other predictors
included English receptive vocabulary (b5.12; DR
2
5.01, p5.040), derivational
awareness (b5.11; DR
2
5.01, p5.045), compound awareness (b5.13; DR
2
5.02,
p5.026) and nonverbal reasoning (b5.17; DR
2
5.03, p5.003).
In Chinese, word reading significantly predicted vocabulary (b5.54; DR
2
5.29,
po.001). Chinese vocabulary significantly predicted Chinese compound awareness
(b5.61; DR
2
5.37, po.001). With respect to Chinese reading comprehension, Chinese
word reading was the strongest predictor (b5.58; DR
2
5.34, po.001). Age and
nonverbal reasoning also contributed significant variance to Chinese reading comprehen-
sion, b5.13, p5.041 and b5.24, po.001, respectively.
English
Reading
Comprehension
Chinese
Reading
Comprehension
English
Compound
Awareness
Chinese
Compound
Awareness
English
Vocabulary
Chinese
Vocabulary
English
Word Reading
Chinese
Word Reading
English
Derivational
Awareness
English
Phonological
Awareness
.73***
.71***
.69***
.15*
.58***
.53***
.14*
.51***
.62***
.11*
.67***
.12*
Figure 1. The within-language structural model, showing standardised regression coefficients.
*
p.05;
**
p.01;
***
p.001.
TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 33
Copyright r2011 UKLA
Cross-language relationships. The most important results of the present study lie in the
cross-language relationships. We found that English phonological awareness predicted
Chinese compound awareness (b5.27; DR
2
5.07, po.001), as well as Chinese word
reading (b5.24; DR
2
5.06, p5.003). Notably, English compound awareness was
significantly predicted by Chinese receptive vocabulary (b5.30; DR
2
5.09, p5.004).
Chinese receptive vocabulary was also predicted by English compound awareness
(b5.31; DR
2
5.10, p5.004). The bidirectional paths suggest a reciprocal relationship
between English compound awareness and Chinese vocabulary in Chinese–English
English
Reading
Comprehension
Chinese
Reading
Comprehension
English
Compound
Awareness
Chinese
Compound
Awareness
English
Vocabulary
Chinese
Vocabulary
English
Word Reading
Chinese
Word Reading
English
Derivational
Awareness
English
Phonological
Awareness
.73***
.24**
.71***
.54***
.31**
.17*
.48***
.30**
.69***
.51***
.12*
.11*
.13*
.27*
.61***
.58***
.18**
Figure 2. The cross-language structural equation model, showing standardised regression coefficients.
*
p.05;
**
p.01;
***
p.001.
Table 3. Comparison of model fit indices.
Model w
2
df p w
2
/df AIC BCC RMSEA CFI Dw
2
DAIC DBCC Ddf Dp
1. Within-
language
99.80 39 o.001 2.56 201.80 212.58 .11 .95
2. Cross-
language
41.81 33 .140 1.27 155.81 167.86 .04 .99 57.99 45.99 44.72 6 po.001 for Dw
2
,
DAIC, DBCC
Note: Critical w
2
value (df 55) 12.59 for p.05 and 22.46 for p.001.
34 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
bilinguals. Another important finding was that English compound awareness was
significantly related to Chinese reading comprehension (b5.18 DR
2
5.03, p5.005).
Thus, English compound awareness transferred to both Chinese receptive vocabulary and
Chinese reading comprehension.
Discussion
The present study investigated cross-language transfer of morphological awareness in
Chinese–English bilingual children from the first to fourth grade. We compared a model
with cross-language paths with a baseline model that included within-language paths
only. The cross-language model produced significantly better fits, providing clear
evidence for cross-language transfer.
Table 4. Standardised coefficients (b) and unique variance (DR
2
) explained in the cross-language model.
Variable bDR
2
English
English word reading
EPA .73 .53
***
English vocabulary
EWR .71 .50
***
English compound awareness
EWR .48 .23
***
EV .17 .03
*
CV .30 .09
**
English derivational awareness
EWR .69 .47
***
English reading comprehension
NV .17 .03
**
EWR .51 .26
***
EV .12 .01
*
EDA .11 .01
*
ECA .13 .02
*
Chinese
Chinese word reading
EPA .24 .06
**
Chinese vocabulary
CWR .54 .29
***
ECA .31 .10
**
Chinese compound awareness
EPA .27 .07
*
CV .61 .37
***
Chinese reading comprehension
Age .13 .02
*
NV .24 .06
***
CWR .58 .34
***
ECA .18 .03
**
Note: NV 5nonverbal reasoning; EPA 5English phonological awareness; EDA 5English derivational
awareness; ECA 5English compound awareness; EWR 5English word reading; EV 5English vocabulary;
CWR 5Chinese word reading; CV 5Chinese vocabulary. The dependent (outcome) variables are listed above
the independent (predictor) variable(s) and the associated standardised regression coefficient (b) and amount of
unique variance explained (DR
2
).
*
p.05;
**
p.01;
***
p.001.
TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 35
Copyright r2011 UKLA
Cross-language relationships between morphological awareness and vocabulary
To our knowledge, this was the first study to examine transfer of morphological awareness
to vocabulary in bilingual children. Consistent with our prediction, English compound
awareness was a significant predictor of Chinese vocabulary for the Chinese–English
bilinguals. This cross-language transfer is likely due to the fact that Chinese and English
have similar compounding structures. As previously discussed, compounds in both
languages are right-headed, and tend to be transparent in meaning. The similarities explain
why compound awareness developed in English transfers to Chinese and enhances Chinese
vocabulary development. By contrast, English derivational awareness was not related to
Chinese vocabulary. Because Chinese has very few derived words, it is not surprising that
English derivational morphological awareness does not facilitate Chinese vocabulary.
Notably, transfer of compound awareness was only observed from English to Chinese.
Chinese compound awareness, on the other hand, was not significantly related to English
vocabulary. This finding suggests that the direction of morphological awareness transfer
is influenced by the morphological structure of the language of the outcome variable.
Since Chinese has a larger number of compounds than English, compound awareness
plays a more prominent role in developing Chinese vocabulary. In contrast, compound
awareness is less important for developing English vocabulary, thus there is little need for
cross-language transfer to occur. Previous research on transfer of morphological
awareness has indicated that the direction of transfer is influenced by relative proficiency
levels of L1 and L2 (Deacon et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2010). Our findings, together with
those of Wang et al. (2006, 2009), suggest that another determining factor is the structure
of the languages and writing systems involved.
The present study provides preliminary evidence for a reciprocal relationship between
English compound awareness and Chinese vocabulary. English compound awareness was
predicted by Chinese as well as English vocabulary, while it also predicted Chinese
vocabulary. It is particularly interesting that Chinese vocabulary was linked, not only
with English compound awareness, but also with English vocabulary through English
compound awareness. The pattern of relationships demonstrated in our model, in line
with Cummins’ (1981) interdependent hypothesis, underscores mutual facilitation
between L1 and L2 oral proficiency in bilingual children. A reciprocal relationship
between compound awareness and vocabulary has been previously reported in
monolingual children (e.g. McBride-Chang et al., 2008). Our study is the first to extend
this relationship to cross-language variables. Admittedly, the reciprocal relationship was
tentative, as it was based on cross-sectional data, but it points to the possibility that a
‘true’ relationship exists between the variables. Of course, this finding needs to be
replicated by future longitudinal studies.
It should also be noted that we did not observe a reciprocal relationship between
compound awareness and vocabulary within either English or Chinese. In English,
vocabulary was a significant predictor of compound awareness, whereas compound
awareness did not predict vocabulary. Because English vocabulary contains compound
words, it is not surprising that vocabulary development leads to more advanced
compound awareness. Growth in root words also facilitates compound awareness,
because compounds are formed by root words. On the other hand, because only a small
percentage of English words are compound words, the impact of compound awareness on
overall English vocabulary is limited. It is not entirely clear why a reciprocal relationship
was not found between Chinese compound awareness and Chinese vocabulary. One
36 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
possibility is that the Chinese and English compound awareness tasks tapped the same
underlying construct (Zhang et al., 2010), as suggested by the significant correlation we
observed between the two measures. The underlying construct might have been better
captured by the English compound awareness measure in our data. As a result, the
English measure was a significant predictor of Chinese vocabulary, while the Chinese
measure was not due to shared variance. Of course, the unidirectional relationship
observed in our cross-sectional data does not rule out the possibility that a reciprocal
relationship between Chinese compound awareness and Chinese vocabulary can emerge
in longitudinal data, as demonstrated in McBride-Chang et al. (2008). In any case, the
explanations we offer for the lack of within-language reciprocal relationships can only be
speculative due to the limitation of the cross-sectional design, and have to be confirmed
with future longitudinal and interventional research.
Cross-language contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension
Another important finding of our study was that English compound awareness explained
individual differences in Chinese reading comprehension, after considering the effects of
Chinese word reading, Chinese vocabulary and Chinese compound awareness. Our
finding, confirming that of Wang et al. (2006), suggests that English compound
awareness transfers to Chinese reading comprehension. As discussed previously, this
transfer is likely based on the shared compounding structure between Chinese and
English. Importantly, we extended Wang and colleagues’ study by including Chinese
word reading and Chinese compound awareness as control variables in our analysis, both
of which have been shown to predict Chinese reading comprehension in previous
research involving monolingual Chinese children (e.g. Ku & Anderson, 2003; Leong,
Hau, Tse & Loh, 2007; Leong & Ho, 2008; Leong, Tse, Loh & Hau, 2008; Li et al., 2002;
Shu et al., 2006). Including these two within-language control variables strengthens the
evidence of cross-language transfer. Furthermore, Chinese and English compound
awareness tasks were significantly correlated in our study, suggesting that these tasks
may tap the same underlying construct. The shared variance between these tasks may
explain why the English compound awareness task, but not the Chinese compound
awareness tasks, was significantly related to Chinese reading comprehension.
Again, we observed unidirectional transfer from English compound awareness to
Chinese reading comprehension, but not from Chinese compound awareness to English
reading comprehension. The direction of transfer from morphological awareness to reading
comprehension is similar to that from morphological awareness to vocabulary. This
remarkable similarity further supports the notion that the direction of transfer is influenced
by the morphological features of the language of the outcome variable. Because
compounding is the most salient feature of Chinese morphology, compound awareness
developed in English can transfer to Chinese and facilitate both Chinese vocabulary and
reading comprehension. In contrast, the best predictors of English reading comprehension
were English word reading and English morphological awareness. Chinese compound
awareness made little contribution after controlling for these within-language variables.
Conclusion
To recapitulate, the present study produced several important findings. First, we found
that English compound awareness, but not English derivational awareness, transferred to
TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 37
Copyright r2011 UKLA
Chinese and enhanced the development of Chinese vocabulary and reading comprehen-
sion. In addition, there was a reciprocal relationship between English compound
awareness and Chinese vocabulary. These findings provide strong evidence for the
transfer of morphological awareness between Chinese and English. The aspect of
morphological awareness (compound vs derivational) that transfers, and the direction of
transfer (from L1 to L2 vs from L2 to L1) are both influenced by the morphological
structures of the languages involved. Transfer occurs when the target morphological
structure is similar across children’s L1 and L2. The direction of transfer seems to be
determined particularly by the morphological structure of the language of the outcome
variable – because reading Chinese requires more compound awareness, cross-language
transfer of compound awareness is more likely to be observed from English to Chinese.
The results of this study expand our understanding of cross-language transfer of
metalinguistic awareness. It seems that the nature of morphological awareness is different
from that of phonological awareness. Phonological awareness transfers across languages,
regardless of the nature of the script used to represent them (e.g. Chen et al., 2010;
Durgunog
˘lu et al., 1993; Gottardo et al., 2001). For this reason, it is considered to be a
common underlying competence (e.g. Genesee, Geva, Dressler & Kamil, 2006; Koda,
2007). In contrast, different aspects of morphological awareness exhibit different transfer
patterns. Derivational awareness and inflectional awareness have been observed to
transfer between two alphabetic languages that are rich in derivation and inflection
(Deacon et al., 2007; Ramı
´rez et al., 2010; Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008; Schiff & Calif,
2007). Our study and Wang et al. (2006, 2009) demonstrate that awareness of compounds
transfers between Chinese and English due to shared compounding structures. Taken
together, available evidence supports the notion that the transfer of morphological
awareness is conditioned by the morphological features of the languages involved.
Furthermore, evidence of transfer observed between Chinese and English also provides
insights beyond that observed between closely related languages. Since Chinese and
English do not share any cognates, what transfers is not concrete vocabulary knowledge,
but abstract metalinguistic understanding. It could be understanding of compounding
rules or the ability to derive compound meaning from constituent morphemes or both.
2
The present study has several limitations. First, the study adopted a cross-sectional
design. Although cross-sectional data offer useful information about reciprocal relation-
ships among variables, rigorous longitudinal studies, especially studies with experimental
intervention, are needed to better understand these relationships. Second, our analyses
were based on a mixed sample combining children from Grades 1 to 4. Power restrictions
constrained our ability to performance grade-level analyses. Future studies should
conduct such analyses to examine the development of literacy skills in bilingual children
and compare the pattern of cross-language transfer across different grades. Finally, in our
study, English vocabulary was measured with a shortened version of PPVT. While PPVT
is a widely used standardised vocabulary measure, it contains few compound words. This
may have reduced the chance of observing transfer from Chinese compound awareness to
English vocabulary, as well as the chance of observing a significant impact of English
compound awareness on English vocabulary. It will be beneficial to include an
experimental measure of English compound vocabulary in future studies.
Despite the limitations, results of this study offer convincing evidence for cross-language
transfer of morphological awareness in Chinese–English bilinguals. Our study has
important educational implications. Even though Chinese and English are two languages
represented by very different writing systems, developing English proficiency may have a
38 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
positive impact on Chinese vocabulary and reading comprehension through the transfer of
compound awareness. However, teachers should closely monitor the development of
English derivational awareness in Chinese children, especially in those who immigrated
recently, as this aspect of morphological awareness is not supported by their L1.
Notes
1. The control variables are not displayed in the figures of the within- and cross-language models in an attempt
to simplify the diagrams. The direct effects of the control variables on reading comprehension are displayed
in Table 4.
2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
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TRANSFER OF MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS 41
Copyright r2011 UKLA
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and compounds: A corpus study]. [Teaching Chinese as a Second
Language, 3], 7–12.
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Xi Chen is an associate professor at OISE/University of Toronto. She has extensive research
experience in monolingual and bilingual Chinese children’s language and literacy development.
She has been the principal investigator of an SSHRC standard research project that examines the
development of morphological, orthographic, phonological and visual skills in monolingual and
bilingual Chinese children and the contribution of these skills to reading.
Adrian Pasquarella, Katie Lam and Yang C. Luo are PhD students under Xi Chen’s supervision
at OISE/University of Toronto. All of them have played a key role in the SSHRC-funded research
on Chinese children’s literacy.
Gloria Ramirez is an assistant professor at Thompson Rivers University. Her research has
examined the development and transfer of morphological awareness in Spanish-speaking ELLs
(English Language Learners) and Chinese-speaking ELLs.
Received 30 September 2010; revised version received 19 November 2010.
Address for correspondence: Xi Chen, Department of Human Development and
Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, University of Toronto,
252 Bloor Street West, 9th Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1V6. E-mail:
xchenbumgardner@oise.utoronto.ca
42 PASQUARELLA, CHEN, LAM, LUO and RAMIREZ
Copyright r2011 UKLA
