The purpose of this study was to examine syntactic awareness skills in English, among two groups of children: native Chinese speakers and native Slavic (L1) speakers. Both groups were second language English (L2) speakers. Their syntactic awareness skills were compared to a matched sample of L1 English speakers.
Design/methodology/approach:
Eighty-six third grade students participated in the study, matched between language groups on the basis of age and gender, as well as academic achievements and word reading levels.
Data and analysis:
L1 English and L1 Slavic groups performed significantly better on the syntactic awareness task than did the L1 Chinese group. A close examination of specific syntactic constructions revealed that the L1 Chinese group did not perform as well as the other groups on past tense constructions, which do not exist in Chinese but do exist in Slavic languages. However, there were no between-group differences on superlative and comparative constructions, which exist in all three languages.
Findings/conclusions:
The results contribute to our knowledge about cross-linguistic influences between English, Slavic, and Chinese, showing that L1 Slavic facilitates the learnability of L2 English, while L1 Chinese impedes the learnability of L2 English.
Originality:
The originality of the study lies in the comparison of children from three different L1 groups, matched with respect to reading level. The examination of languages that are typologically different in their syntax is unique.
Significance/implications:
The results highlight the importance of taking the specific language backgrounds of L2 learners into consideration.
Limitations:
The current study did not include an assessment of L1 language proficiency among participants.
Abu RabiaS.SiegelL. S. (2002). Reading, syntactic and working memory skills of bilingual Arabic-speaking children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31, 661–678.
2.
ArdJ.HomburgT. (1983). Verification of language transfer. In GassS.SelinkerL. (Eds.), Language transfer in language learning (pp. 157–176). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
3.
BakerC.JonesS. P. (Eds.). (1998). Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education. Multilingual Matters.
4.
BaayenR. H.DavidsonD.BakerC.JonesS. P. (1998). Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
5.
Basnight-BrownD. M.ChenL.HuaS.KostićA.FeldmanL. B. (2007). Monolingual and bilingual recognition of regular and irregular English verbs: Sensitivity to form similarity varies with first language experience. Journal of Memory and Language, 57(1), 65–80.
6.
BentinS.DeutschA.LibermanI. Y. (1990). Syntactic competence and reading ability in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 49(1), 147–172.
7.
BialystokE. (1986). Factors in the growth of linguistic awareness. Child Development, 57, 498–510.
8.
BialystokE. (1988). Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness. Developmental Psychology, 24, 560–567.
9.
BialystokE. (1992). Attentional control in children’s metalinguistic performance and measure of field independence. Developmental Psychology, 28, 654–664.
10.
BialystokE. (1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development, 70, 636– 644.
11.
BialystokE. (2001). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12.
BialystokE. (2007). Cognitive effects of bilingualism: How linguistic experience leads to cognitive change. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10, 210–223.
13.
BialystokE.CraikF. I.LukG. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 240–250.
14.
BrimoD.ApelK.FountainT. (2017). Examining the contributions of syntactic awareness and syntactic knowledge to reading comprehension. Journal of Research in Reading, 40(1), 57–74.
15.
CampbellG. L. (2000). Compendium of the world’s languages. New York: Routledge.
16.
ChakrabortyR. (2015). An overview of research in bilingualism: Publication records and global needs. SIG 17 Perspectives on Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders, 5(2), 67–74.
17.
ChiappeP.SiegelL. S. (1999). Phonological awareness and reading acquisition in English and Punjabi-speaking Canadian children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 20–28.
18.
CumminsJ. (1984). Bilingualism in special education. San Diego, CA: College Hill Press.
19.
D’AngiulliA.SiegelL. S.SerraE. (2001). The development of reading in English and Italian in bilingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 479–507.
20.
Da FontouraH. A.SiegelL. S. (1995). Reading, syntactic, and working memory skills of bilingual Portuguese-English Canadian children. Reading and Writing, 7(1), 139–153.
21.
DavidsonD.RaschkeV. R.PervezJ. (2010). Syntactic awareness in young monolingual and bilingual (Urdu English). Interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 139–153.
22.
EhriL. C.WilceL. S. (1980). The influence of orthography on readers’ conceptualization of the phonemic structure of words. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1(4), 371–385.
23.
ErbaughM. S. (1992). The acquisition of Mandarin. In SlobinD. I. (Ed.), The cross- linguistic study of language acquisition. London: Erlbaum.
24.
FiestasC.PenaE. (2004). Narrative discourse in bilingual children: Language and task effects. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 35, 155–168.
25.
GalambosS. J.Goldin-MeadowS. (1990). The effects of learning two languages on levels of metalinguistic awareness. Cognition, 34, 1–56.
26.
GalambosS. J.HakutaK. (1988). Subject-specific and task specific characteristics of metalinguistic awareness in bilingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9, 141–162.
27.
GauxC.GombertJ.-E. (1999). Implicit and explicit syntactic knowledge and reading in pre-adolescents. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 169–188.
28.
GoadH.WhiteL.SteeleJ. (2003). Missing inflection in L2 acquisition: Defective syntax or LI-constrained prosodic representations?. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 48(3–4), 243–263.
29.
GoldsteinB. A.BuntaF. (2012). Positive and negative transfer in the phonological systems of bilingual speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, 16(4), 388–401.
30.
GottardoA.YanB.SiegelL. S.Wade-WoolleyL. (2001). Factors related to English reading performance in children with Chinese as a first language: More evidence of cross-language transfer of phonological processing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 530–542.
31.
KaltsaM.TsimpliI. M.ArgyriF. (2017). The development of gender assignment and agreement in English-Greek and German-Greek bilingual children. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. doi:10.1075/lab.16033.kal.
32.
KellermanE.Sharwood SmithM. (1986). Crosslinguistic influence in second language acquisition. New York: Pearson.
33.
KohnertK. (2013). Language disorders in bilingual children and adults. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing, Inc.
34.
LardiereD. (2007). Ultimate attainment in second language acquisition: A case study. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
35.
LardiereD. (2008). Feature assembly in second language acquisition. In LicerasJ.ZoblH.GoodluckH. (Eds.), The role of formal features in second language acquisition (pp. 106–140). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
36.
LardiereD. (2009). Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 25, 173–227.
37.
LardiereD. (2013). Linguistic approaches to second language morphosyntax. In GassS. M.MackeyA. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 106–126). New York, NY: Routledge.
38.
MacWhinneyB. (2005). A unified model of language acquisition. In KrollJ.De GrootA. (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp. 49–67). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
39.
NagyW. E.GarciaG. E.DurgunogluA. Y.Hancin-BhattB. (1993). Spanish-English bilingual students’ use of cognates in English reading. Journal of Reading Behavior, 25, 241–259.
40.
OdlinT. (2005). Crosslinguistic influence and conceptual transfer: What are the concepts?Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25, 3–25.
41.
SchepensJ.van der SlikF.van HoutR. (2013a). Learning complex features: A morphological account of L2 learnability. Language Dynamics and Change, 3, 218–244.
42.
SchepensJ.van der SlikF.van HoutR. (2013b). The effect of linguistic distance across Indo-European mother tongues on learning Dutch as a second language. In BorinL.SaxenaA. (Eds.), Approaches to measuring linguistic differences (pp. 199–230). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
43.
SchepensJ. J.van der SlikF.van HoutR. (2016). L1 and L2 distance effects in learning L3 Dutch. Language Learning, 66(1), 224–256.
44.
SiegelL. S.RyanE. B. (1988). Development of grammatical-sensitivity, phonological and short-term memory skills in normally achieving and subtypes of learning disabled children. Developmental Psychology, 24, 28–37.
45.
SimardD.LabelleM.BergeronA. (2016). Measuring metasyntactic abilities: On a classification of metasyntactic tasks. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46(2), 433–456.
46.
SlabakovaR. (2009). Features or parameters: Which one makes second language acquisition easier, and more interesting to study?Second Language Research, 25(2), 313–324.
47.
SlabakovaR. (2015). Acquiring temporal meanings without tense morphology: The case of L2 Mandarin Chinese. The Modern Language Journal, 99(2), 283–307.
48.
TunmerW. E.HooverW. A. (1992). Cognitive and linguistic factors in learning to read. In GoughP. B.EhriL. C.TreimanR. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 175–214). Hillsdale, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
49.
van der SlikF.HoutR. V.SchepensJ. (2017). The role of morphological complexity in predicting the learnability of an additional language: The case of La (additional language) Dutch. Second Language Research. (Online version)
50.
WilkinsonG. S. (1993). The wide range achievement test-3. Wilmington, DE: Jastak Associates.
51.
WillowsD. M.RyanE. B. (1986). The development of grammatical sensitivity and its relation to early reading achievement. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 253–266.
52.
WoodcockR. W. (1987). Woodcock reading mastery test – revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Se.
53.
YangY.LysterR. (2010). Effects of form-focused practice and feedback on Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of regular and irregular past tense forms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 235–263.
