Contribution of morphological awareness and lexical inferencing ability to L2 vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension among advanced EFL learners: testing direct and indirect effects

Zhang, Dongbo; Koda, Keiko

doi:10.1007/s11145-011-9313-z

Cited by 141 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Building upon the multidimensionality of morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge along with empirical evidence presented above, the positive relationship between morphological awareness and ESL vocabulary knowledge has been confirmed in the current literature (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012;Zhang, 2002;Zhang & Koda, 2012). Nevertheless, the interconnected relationships among different facets of morphological awareness and multiple dimensions of ESL vocabulary knowledge have not been scrutinized.…”

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 73%

“…Acquisition of major English inflectional structures is completed by early elementary grades (e.g., Anisfeld & Tucker, 1968;Berko, 1958) and inflectional structures attach grammatical roles to lexical items, for instance, progressives, past tense, and third-person singular. Derivational morphology and compounding morphology play a critical role in deriving meanings of new words in oral and written communication, thus these two facets of morphology are hypothesized to be facilitators in vocabulary acquisition (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012, Zhang & Koda, 2012. Derivation is the process of producing a new word on the basis of a preexisting lexical item.…”

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In ESL vocabulary acquisition, prior studies have also examined the contribution of morphological awareness to ESL vocabulary knowledge (Kieffer & Lesaux, 2012;Zhang, 2002;Zhang & Koda, 2012). Kieffer and Lesaux (2012) explored the development of morphological awareness and its impact on vocabulary growth.…”

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, learners who developed English morphological awareness also displayed the development of vocabulary knowledge. Pertaining to ESL vocabulary development among Chinese-speaking learners, several studies have confirmed the positive relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge (Zhang, 2002;Zhang & Koda, 2012). Zhang (2002) investigated the role of morphological awareness in memory-retention-retrieval of vocabulary knowledge among adult Chinese-speaking English as a foreign language (EFL) learners.…”

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…He concluded that learners were able to automatize the process of English word retrieval with the assistance of morphological cues in English. Likewise, Zhang and Koda (2012) used structural equation modeling to uncover the effect of English morphological awareness on Chinese-speaking EFL learners. The results revealed, first, that English morphological awareness significantly predicted L2 English vocabulary knowledge, and second, that the effect of morphological awareness was mediated by a specific word learning skill, lexical inferencing ability.…”

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

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

Zhang

Zhuang

2017

Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics

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This study investigates the role of morphological awareness in ESL vocabulary acquisition. Participants were 198 Chinese college students enrolled in a joint program which required them to study in China for the first two years and then study in the U.K. to complete their degrees. They completed a total of four paper-and-pencil tests: morpheme discrimination, morpheme recognition, vocabulary size test (VST) and word associates test (WAT) tests. We drew upon path analysis to explore the interconnected relationships among multiple explanatory variables (facets of morphological awareness) and outcome variables (facets of vocabulary knowledge). The results demonstrated that English derivational awareness was strongly predictive of both ESL vocabulary breadth and ESL vocabulary depth, and that preexisting ESL vocabulary breadth could enhance the relation between derivational awareness and ESL vocabulary depth. To summarize, these results indicate that an improved English derivational awareness not only helps to expand ESL vocabulary size but can also consolidate learners' deep understanding of word properties, which will in turn assist them to establish connections with other associative words and phrases.

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Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Morphological Awareness and English Vocabulary Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

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

Zhang

Zhuang

2017

Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics

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Inferring Meaning From Meaningful Parts: The Contributions of Morphological Skills to the Development of Children's Reading Comprehension

Levesque

Kieffer

Deacon

2018

Reading Research Quarterly

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Skilled reading comprehension is an important goal of educational instruction and models of reading development. In this study, the authors investigated how core skills surrounding morphemes, that is, the minimal units of meaning in language, support the development of reading comprehension. The authors specifically contrast the roles of morphological awareness and morphological analysis; the first refers to the awareness of and ability to manipulate morphemes in language, and the second refers to the use of morphemes in inferring the meaning of unfamiliar morphologically complex (multimorphemic) words. The authors evaluated these morphological skills in 197 English‐speaking students who were followed from grade 3 to grade 4; the analyses used stringent autoregressor controls to home in on predictors of gains over time. In addition to morphological awareness and morphological analysis, the authors assessed students' reading comprehension and controls for word reading, vocabulary, phonological awareness, nonverbal ability, and age. Multivariate autoregressive path analysis revealed that morphological analysis, but not morphological awareness, predicted gains in reading comprehension. Morphological awareness, for its part, predicted gains in morphological analysis. Taken together, the findings allude to a developmental trajectory whereby students' use of morphemes to infer the meanings of unfamiliar complex words supports the development of reading comprehension over time. The development of this skill, in turn, appears to be supported by a more general awareness of morphemes in language. These findings contribute to theory and reading instruction by clarifying the ways in which morphological skills support the development of students' reading comprehension.

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Morphological Awareness in Vocabulary Acquisition Among Chinese‐Speaking Children: Testing Partial Mediation via Lexical Inference Ability

Zhang

2014

Reading Research Quarterly

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The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of Chinese‐specific morphological awareness on vocabulary acquisition among young Chinese‐speaking students. The participants were 288 Chinese‐speaking second graders from three different cities in China. Multiple regression analysis and mediation analysis were used to uncover the mediated and unmediated effects of morphological awareness on reading vocabulary knowledge. Results showed that both morphological awareness and lexical inference ability significantly contributed to reading vocabulary knowledge after each factor was controlled for. The ability to extract sublexical morphological information (in the form of derivational awareness and compound awareness) significantly predicted the students' reading vocabulary. More importantly, the study revealed that morphological awareness made a significant indirect contribution to reading vocabulary via lexical inference ability. Findings suggest that morphological awareness enhances young Chinese students' reading vocabulary acquisition by the partial mediation of their lexical inference ability.

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Contribution of morphological awareness and lexical inferencing ability to L2 vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension among advanced EFL learners: testing direct and indirect effects

Cited by 141 publications

References 30 publications

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

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

Inferring Meaning From Meaningful Parts: The Contributions of Morphological Skills to the Development of Children's Reading Comprehension

Morphological Awareness in Vocabulary Acquisition Among Chinese‐Speaking Children: Testing Partial Mediation via Lexical Inference Ability

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