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Vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) reading comprehension ability

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Abstract

This study explored the role of vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in reading comprehension ability of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) learners. One hundred ninety five CHL students participated in this study and completed a series of measures including two sets of vocabulary knowledge (one consisting of items pertaining to early exposure to spoken Chinese and the other comprised of items selected from a pool of words in Chinese as a foreign language classrooms), morphological awareness (structural awareness and functional awareness), and reading comprehension ability (lexical inference and passage comprehension). Drawing upon structural equation modeling with a bootstrap estimation method, the study found that vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness both contributed to reading comprehension among CHL learners. More critically, the results indicated that morphological awareness mediated the relation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in CHL learners. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses probed the relative contributions of vocabulary knowledge measures to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, and found that vocabulary knowledge acquired in formal Chinese instruction contributed to morphological awareness and reading comprehension, to a greater extent, than that gained through early exposure to spoken Chinese.

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Notes

  1. Speakers of Mandarin Chinese scored higher on early vocabulary knowledge but the difference was not salient (t = .084; p = .452).

  2. Young Chinese Test: a standardized Mandarin Chinese test for young learners.

  3. YCT levels: There are 4 levels in YCT.

  4. Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi—a standardized Mandarin Chinese test for collegiate learners.

  5. HSK levels: there are six levels in HSK.

  6. All items were modified based on the three selection criteria mentioned above.

  7. +: accurate morphological/contextual information −: inaccurate morphological/contextual information.

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Funding was provided by Carnegie Mellon University (US) Dietrich Presidential Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, Baker Hall 160, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Keiko Koda

  2. Department of English, East China Normal University, Foreign Languages Building, 500 Dongchuan Road, 200241, Shanghai, China

    Haomin Zhang

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  1. Haomin Zhang
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Correspondence to Haomin Zhang.

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Zhang, H., Koda, K. Vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) reading comprehension ability. Read Writ 31, 53–74 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9773-x

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