TY - JOUR
T1 - The dimensionality of morphological awareness
T2 - Evidence from Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children
AU - Li, Ran
AU - Cain, Kate
AU - Tong, Shelley Xiuli
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 NABE.
Funding Information:
The work described in this paper was partly supported by the Research Fellow Scheme under Grant number [RFS 2021-7H05]; the Hong Kong-UK joint research scheme ESRC/RGC under Grant number [ES/K010425/1]; the General Research Fund from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China under Grant number [17621321]; and the Hong Kong Baptist University Start-up Grant under Grant number [21.4131.165536].
PY - 2025/7/3
Y1 - 2025/7/3
N2 - Morphological awareness is essential for language and literacy
development, yet its underlying structure remains unclear, especially in
Chinese-English bilinguals at different ages. This study tested
467 hong Kong bilingual children in Grades 2, 5, and 8 on their
morphological awareness in both Chinese and English. Confirmatory factor
analysis was conducted to examine whether morphological awareness in
each language is a unidimensional structure, a multi-dimensional
structure by task modality (i.e. receptive vs. expressive), or a
multi-dimensional structure by stimulus level (i.e. Chinese: word,
character, radical; English: free vs. bound morpheme). The results
indicated that for L1 Chinese, morphological awareness was
unidimensional in Grade 2, multi-dimensional by task modality in Grade
5, and unidimensional in Grade 8. L2 English maintained a unidimensional
structure across all grades. These findings underscore how the
dimensionality of morphological awareness is shaped by language-specific
features and developmental changes.
AB - Morphological awareness is essential for language and literacy
development, yet its underlying structure remains unclear, especially in
Chinese-English bilinguals at different ages. This study tested
467 hong Kong bilingual children in Grades 2, 5, and 8 on their
morphological awareness in both Chinese and English. Confirmatory factor
analysis was conducted to examine whether morphological awareness in
each language is a unidimensional structure, a multi-dimensional
structure by task modality (i.e. receptive vs. expressive), or a
multi-dimensional structure by stimulus level (i.e. Chinese: word,
character, radical; English: free vs. bound morpheme). The results
indicated that for L1 Chinese, morphological awareness was
unidimensional in Grade 2, multi-dimensional by task modality in Grade
5, and unidimensional in Grade 8. L2 English maintained a unidimensional
structure across all grades. These findings underscore how the
dimensionality of morphological awareness is shaped by language-specific
features and developmental changes.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105010863813
U2 - 10.1080/15235882.2025.2520225
DO - 10.1080/15235882.2025.2520225
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:105010863813
SN - 1523-5882
VL - 48
SP - 260
EP - 277
JO - Bilingual Research Journal
JF - Bilingual Research Journal
IS - 3
ER -