title: Lexical prosody beyond first-language boundary: Chinese lexical tone sensitivity predicts English reading comprehension.
abstract: This 1-year longitudinal study examined the role of Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity in predicting English reading comprehension and the pathways underlying their relation. Multiple measures of Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity, English lexical stress sensitivity, Cantonese segmental phonological awareness, general auditory sensitivity, English word reading, and English reading comprehension were administered to 133 Cantonese-English unbalanced bilingual second graders. Structural equation modeling analysis identified transfer of Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity to English reading comprehension. This transfer was realized through a direct pathway via English stress sensitivity and also an indirect pathway via English word reading. These results suggest that prosodic sensitivity is an important factor influencing English reading comprehension and that it needs to be incorporated into theoretical accounts of reading comprehension across languages.
authors.affiliation: Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Electronic address: xltong@hku.hk.
authors.forename: Xiuli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK.
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cain
mesh_terms: D044466:Asian People / Q000208:ethnology; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000208:ethnology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D014163:Transfer, Psychology / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Bilingualism; Cantonese lexical tone; English lexical stress; Lexical prosody; Lexical quality hypothesis; Reading comprehension