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- Title
Speech Prosody and Reading Comprehension in Chinese–English Bilingual Children: The Mediating Role of Syntactic Awareness.
- Authors
Xiuhong Tong; Qinli Deng; Shelley Xiuli Tong
- Abstract
Purpose: Although children’s prosodic sensitivity links with their reading com- prehension, the factors affecting this link remain unclear. By simultaneously measuring first language (L1) Chinese and second language (L2) English pro- sodic sensitivity and reading comprehension, this study examined the mediating role of syntactic awareness on prosody–reading comprehension among Hong Kong Chinese–English bilingual children. Method: A group of 227 Hong Kong Chinese–English bilingual fourth graders completed L1 and L2 prosodic sensitivity (Cantonese lexical tone awareness and English prosodic sensitivity), syntactic awareness, and reading comprehen- sion and control measures of cognitive (nonverbal IQ, short-term memory, and working memory), metalinguistic (phonological awareness and morphological awareness), linguistic (vocabulary knowledge), and word reading skills. Results: The within-language analyses showed a partial mediation effect of Chinese syntactic awareness on the relation between Cantonese lexical tone awareness and Chinese reading comprehension, but a full mediation effect of English syntactic awareness on the relation between English prosodic sensitivity and English reading comprehension. The cross-language analyses revealed a significant direct effect of Cantonese lexical tone awareness on English reading comprehension and a significant indirect effect of English prosodic sensitivity on Chinese reading comprehension via Chinese syntactic awareness. Conclusion: These findings suggest that, despite the language-independent mediating role of syntactic awareness in bridging prosody and reading compre- hension, the degree of this mediation is shaped by language-specific prosody and its relations with other linguistic structures, including semantics.
- Subjects
HONG Kong (China); MEMORY; PHONOLOGICAL awareness; PHYSIOLOGICAL aspects of speech; ENGLISH language; MUSICAL pitch; REGRESSION analysis; SPEECH evaluation; COGNITION; COMPARATIVE grammar; MULTILINGUALISM in children; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL tests; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; VOCABULARY; QUESTIONNAIRES; RESEARCH funding; MUSICAL perception; READING; INTELLIGENCE tests
- Publication
Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 2023, Vol 66, Issue 7, p2362
- ISSN
1092-4388
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00026