The Effect Of The Dialect Experience On The Children's Early Morphological Awareness And Word Reading

The present study probed into the contribution of dialect-Putonghua bilinguals' dialect (L1) morphological awareness to Putonghua (L2) morphological awareness and Chinese character recognition.22 subjects from a primary school in Xianyou County participated in the experiment. The subjects were all Putian dialect-Putonghua bilinguals in the second grade. The study investigated the two main dimensions of Putian dialect and Putonghua morphological awareness, that is, morphological recognition ability and morphological construction ability. The results showed that dialect-Putonghua early bilinguals'dialect morphological awareness did have significant effects on Putonghua morphological awareness and Chinese character recognition. On one hand, bilingual children's dialect morphological construction ability significantly influence Putonghua morphological construction ability. On the other hand, after controlling the other variables which would affect reading, bilinguals'dialect morphological recognition ability and construction ability significantly predict Chinese character recognition. The previous studies focused on the effect of morphological awareness of L1 with written form on morphological awareness and word reading of L2 which was also with written form. The present study complemented it by proving that dialect (L1 without the written form) morphological awareness also made significant contributions to L2 morphological awareness and word reading.