This study examines the reading patterns of native speakers (NSs) and high-level (Chinese) nonnative speakers (NNSs) on three English sentence types involving temporarily ambiguous structural configurations. The reading patterns on each sentence type indicate that both NSs and NNSs were biased toward specific structural interpretations. These…

Knowledge of compound word structures in Chinese and English was investigated, comparing 435 Chinese and 258 Americans, including second, fourth, and sixth graders, and college undergraduates. As anticipated, the results revealed that Chinese speakers performed better on a word structure analogy task than their English-speaking counterparts. Also,…

This study investigated compound processing and cross-language activation in a group of Chinese-English bilingual children, and they were divided into four groups based on the language proficiency levels in their two languages. A lexical decision task was designed using compound words in both languages. The compound words in one language contained…

In the present study, morphological structure processing of Chinese compounds was explored using a visual priming lexical decision task among 21 Hong Kong college students. Two compounding structures were compared. The first type was the subordinate, in which one morpheme modifies the other (e.g., [image omitted] ["laam4 kau4",…

This study investigated the concurrent contributions of phonology, orthography, and morphology to biliteracy acquisition in 78 Grade 1 Chinese-English bilingual children. Conceptually comparable measures in English and Chinese tapping phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness were administered. Word reading skill in English and…

We reported three experiments investigating subsyllabic unit preference in young Chinese children. In Experiment 1, a Chinese sound similarity judgment task was designed in which 48 pair of stimuli varied in terms of shared subsyllabic units (i.e., vowel, body, rime, onset-coda). Grade 1 Chinese-speaking monolingual children judged pairs with…

Investigated how adult monolinguals and bilinguals incorporate the context cue in assigning the agent role vis-a-vis intrasentential cues (animacy and word order). Subjects were first and second language speakers of Chinese and English. Results show that both Chinese and English controls paid less attention to context than to intrasentential cues…

In this study, a sentence interpretation experiment based on Bates and MacWhinney's Competition Model was administered to second language learners of English and Chinese at three different stages of learning. Examined how transfer patterns at the sentence processing level change as a function of proficiency and investigates whether or how transfer…

Investigated processing of English wh-questions by native speakers of English and advanced Chinese, German, and Korean learners of English as a Second Language. Performance was evaluated in relation to parsing strategies and sensitivity to plausibility constraints. Results suggest native and nonnative speakers employ similar strategies in…

Examines patterns of transfer in the sentence processing strategies displayed by Chinese-English and English-Chinese bilinguals. Results indicate that late bilinguals display strong evidence for forward transfer: late Chinese-English bilinguals transfer animacy-based strategies to English sentences; late Chinese-English bilinguals transfer…

Describes a study done to test the hypothesis that factors that shape children's production of their native language (L1) will also influence adults' pronunciation of sounds in a foreign language (L2). Results confirmed the hypothesis that developmental processes are "reactivated" when adults attempt to produce L2 sounds not found in their L1.…

A study investigated children's understanding of the formal and functional aspects of written Chinese in an orthographic acceptability judgment task and a creative spelling task. Subjects were 60 Hong Kong children ages 4 to 9. Results suggest that learning to read and write in Chinese is not accomplished by rote learning of characters but through…

Investigated effects of first language processing on second language morphological awareness. Preliminary cross-linguistic comparisons indicated that morphological awareness in two typologically distinct languages, Chinese and English, differs in several major ways. Tested hypotheses from the study with two groups of English-as-a-Second-Language…

A study investigated differences in English word recognition in native speakers of Indonesian (an alphabetic language) and Chinese (a logographic languages) learning English as a Second Language. Results largely confirmed the hypothesis that an alphabetic first language would predict better word recognition in speakers of an alphabetic language,…