On the nature of morphological awareness in Japanese–English bilingual children: A cross-linguistic perspective

Abstract

While morphological awareness has received much attention to date, little is understood about how morphological awareness develops within bilingual children learning typologically different languages. Therefore, we investigated children's knowledge of inflections and derivations in Japanese and English, and also asked whether morphological awareness in one language predicted morphological awareness in the other. To that end, 24 Japanese learners of L2 English (ESL) and 21 English learners of Japanese as a heritage language (JHL) were recruited and participated in a range of tasks assessing both vocabulary and morphological knowledge. Cross-linguistic contributions of morphological awareness were identified in both directions (Japanese ↔ English), after controlling for age, IQ, and vocabulary knowledge. This bidirectional transfer was, however, identified only in the ESL group. The group-specific and reciprocal transfer observed is discussed in terms of morphological complexities and relative competence in each language. The potential role of different types of L2 instruction in morphological development is also discussed.

Investigating the Relative Contributions of Computerised Working Memory Training and English Language Teaching to Cognitive and Foreign Language Development

“…Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices Plus (SPM+) (Raven, Rust, & Squire, ) was administered to assess the participants' nonverbal ability. SPM+ was chosen because it is designed to be relatively culture‐free and has been widely used for populations with various linguistic backgrounds including foreign language learners (Hayashi & Murphy, ; Jean & Geva, ). Participants were shown an incomplete illustration of a matrix and asked to complete it by choosing one pattern among an array of five or six patterns.…”

“…Participants were shown an incomplete illustration of a matrix and asked to complete it by choosing one pattern among an array of five or six patterns. Past research suggests that using the SPM as a timed test across a wide range of populations can be both reliable and valid (e.g., Hayashi & Murphy, ; Rushton, Čvorović, & Bons, ). Drawing on this, and also because of practical issues surrounding the participants' schedules, the SPM+ was administered with a 20‐minute time limit.…”

Roles of L1 and L2 Derivational Morphological Awareness in L2 Reading Through the Mediation of L2 Vocabulary Knowledge

“…In addition to language-related factors, including transparency and productivity of derivational morphology, researchers have also suggested high possibilities of cross-linguistic morphological awareness transfer and have illustrated it as an essential issue to be considered (Koda, 2000;Kuo & Anderson, 2006;Hayashi & Murphy, 2013;Marinova-Todd et al, 2013;Zhang, 2013). Specifically, Koda (2000) examined the effects of L1 processing experience on L2 morphological awareness in word reading with two groups of adult EFL learners of different L1 backgrounds.…”

“…However, this study measured awareness of compounding morphology rather than derivational morphology. Researchers have concluded the importance and necessity of further research considering cross-linguistic morphological awareness transfer due to the high possibility of the transfer, even across typologically different or linguistically distant languages (Hayashi & Murphy, 2013;Zhang, 2013). Nonetheless, few studies except for Cho and Tong (2014) have focused on the cross-linguistic transfer of derivational morphological awareness of older L2 learners, such as adolescents or adults, whose L1 morphological awareness has been highly developed and the effect of such a transfer in L2 passage-level reading comprehension.…”

Investigating Effects of Working Memory Training on Foreign Language Development

“…The SPM+ consists of a series of diagrams with a part missing and the participants were asked to complete as many diagrams as possible within a 20‐minute time limit, by choosing the right part from an array of five or six options printed underneath. Previous studies suggest that using the SPM+ as a timed test (as well as a test with no time limit) can yield reliable findings (e.g., Hayashi & Murphy, ; Rushton, Čvorović, & Bons, ). Setting a time limit was important also from the viewpoint of keeping to a minimum any disruption caused by administering a range of measures to the participants’ curricular or co‐curricular activities.…”