Syllable, phoneme, and tone: Psycholinguistic units in early Chinese and English word recognition

Syllable, phoneme, and tone: Psycholinguistic units in early Chinese and English word recognition

• McBride-Chang, Catherine Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Tong, Xiuli Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Shu, Hua State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences and Learning, Beijing Normal University
• Wong, Anita M. Y. University of Hong Kong
• Leung, Ka Wai Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Tardif, Twila University of Michigan

Scientific Studies of Reading, 12(2), 171-194, 2008

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

2008

• A Human Growth & Development
  • AB Cognitive & Language Development, Perceptual & Intellectual Development
• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GA Chinese Language
    • GAD Teaching Methods of Reading Comprehension & Their Outcomes, Vocabulary Teaching
• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language
    • GBD Teaching Methods of Reading Comprehension & Their Outcomes, Vocabulary Teaching

Psycholinguistics Syllables Phonemes Word Recognition Foreign Countries English (Second Language) Chinese Transfer of Training Second Language Learning Longitudinal Studies Intonation Orthographic Symbols Hong Kong

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Tasks of word reading in Chinese and English; nonverbal IQ; speeded naming; and units of syllable onset (a phoneme measure), syllable, and tone detection awareness were administered to 211 Hong Kong Chinese children ages 4 and 5. In separate regression equations, syllable awareness was equally associated with Chinese and English word recognition. In contrast, syllable onset awareness was uniquely associated with English reading only, whereas tone detection was uniquely associated with Chinese reading only. Results underscore both the universality of first-language phonological transfer to second-language reading and the importance of different psycholinguistic units (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) for understanding reading acquisition: Tone units are integral to Chinese character recognition, whereas phonemes are more strongly associated with English word recognition, even within the same children.
[Copyright of Scientific Studies of Reading is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888430801917290]

• English

Journal Articles

• 10888438

• 10.1080/10888430801917290

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/3dc2d24c

2010-09-27