The effect of language pair on phonological

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Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties

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Bilingualism and learning: The effect of language pair on phonological awareness abilities Barbara J. Dodda; Lydia K. H. Sob; Kobe K. C. Lamb a Perinatal Research Centre, University of Queensland, Australia b Speech and Hearing Sciences Division, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong

To cite this Article Dodd, Barbara J. , So, Lydia K. H. and Lam, Kobe K. C.(2008) 'Bilingualism and learning: The effect of

language pair on phonological awareness abilities', Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 13: 2, 99 — 113 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/19404150802380514 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19404150802380514

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Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties Vol. 13, No. 2, November 2008, 99–113

Bilingualism and learning: The effect of language pair on phonological awareness abilities Barbara J. Dodda*, Lydia K.H. Sob and Kobe K.C. Lamb

Downloaded By: [University of Queensland] At: 12:21 24 August 2010

a Perinatal Research Centre, University of Queensland, Australia; bSpeech and Hearing Sciences Division, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong

Children first exposed to English as a second language when they start school are at risk for poor academic outcome. They perform less well than their monolingual peers, matched for socio-economic background, at the end of primary school on measures of language and literacy, despite immersion in English at school. Previous research suggests, however, that some bilingual children do better on phonological awareness (PA) tasks than monolinguals in preschool. Two experiments investigated the effect of language pair on PA by comparing monolingual and bilingual children’s syllable, onset rime, phoneme and tone awareness using detection, deletion and segmentation tasks. Experiment 1 compared bilingual Putonghua-Cantonese children with two matched monolingual control groups. The bilingual group had enhanced phonological awareness. However, the monolingual Putonghua speakers performed better on the phoneme detection task. Experiment 2 compared Cantonese-English bilingual children and controls monolingual in Cantonese. While there was no overall group difference in PA, the bilingual children had better tone awareness. The profile of findings is considered for possible explanations of later literacy difficulties.

Bilingualism refers to the ability to understand and/or use two languages (Brutt-Griffler & Varghese, 2004). Internationally, it is the rule rather than the exception (Kohnert & Goldstein, 2005). Research describing bilingual language acquisition, however, is limited in terms of the language pairs studied and the language learning contexts investigated. Recent research indicates that children first exposed to Vietnamese or Samoan at home, followed by English at school, perform less well than matched monolingual peers at the end of primary school on lexical measures of language (Hemsley, Holm, & Dodd, 2006). While the two bilingual groups did not differ in performance, students from both Vietnamese and Samoan cultural backgrounds performed less well than their peers in their understanding and use of the English lexicon, despite six years of formal schooling in English, including focused ESL support during Years 1–3. The finding conflicts with previous research reporting the positive effects of bilingualism (e.g. Bialystok, 1986) on phonological awareness (PA), a precursor of literacy development. Research on the effects of bilingualism on language learning is in its infancy. The range of factors likely to influence research findings include whether languages are learned simultaneously or successively, the language pair being acquired, which language is

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] ISSN 1940-4158 print/ISSN 1940-4166 online Ó 2008 Learning Difficulties Australia DOI: 10.1080/19404150802380514 http://www.informaworld.com


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learned first, the nature of the orthography learned, the language in which assessment occurs and the dominance relationship of the languages being acquired (Dodd, 2004; Loizou & Stuart, 2003). Systematic research is needed to disentangle those findings that hold for bilingualism irrespective of linguistic factors specific to the languages being learned or the language learning environment. The two experiments reported here investigate the finding that bilingualism is associated temporarily with enhanced PA by investigating the effect of language pair. The first experiment compared the PA abilities of three groups of children who were: Cantonese monolingual, Putonghua monolingual and Cantonese-Putonghua bilingual. The second experiment compared the PA abilities of monolingual Cantonese speakers and Cantonese-English bilinguals. A number of studies have reported that bilingual children perform better on metaphonological awareness tasks than matched monolinguals (Bialystok, 1986, 1988; Bruck & Genesee, 1995; Campbell & Sais, 1995; Rubin & Turner, 1989). This ‘metalinguistic advantage’ is short-lived, usually disappearing after the first year of formal schooling (Eviatar & Ibrahim, 2000). Most studies have compared children acquiring European languages (English-French, English-Italian) that all have alphabetic orthographies. In contrast, a study of English-Cantonese bilinguals and monolingual controls showed no advantage in PA for the bilingual children (Jackson, Holm, & Dodd, 1998). This finding was interpreted as evidence that enhanced phonological awareness is only likely to arise if the two languages learned have a similar phonological structure. Children learning two European languages, for example, might need to distinguish between languages with similar phoneme repertoires, syllable structures, word shapes and orthography. Sorting out two phonologically similar languages may enhance their PA. In contrast, Cantonese and English have very different phonologies and children may not need enhanced phonological awareness to distinguish the two languages phonological systems. English has a complex syllable structure (C0-3VC0-4) and contains a preponderance of multi-syllabic words. In contrast, words in Chinese languages predominantly consist of single syllables carrying lexical tone (four in Putonghua and six lexical tones and three allotones in Cantonese). There are also differences between Chinese and English languages in the number of clusters, vowels and initial and final consonants that can occur. These dissimilarities might, then, account for Bialystok, Majumder and Martin (2003) failing to find reliable enhanced PA in children bilingual in Cantonese and English, whereas they did find such enhancement for Spanish-English bilinguals. Jackson et al.’s (1998) interpretation of their data would predict that children who were bilingual in two Chinese languages (e.g. Cantonese and Putonghua) would show enhanced phonological awareness. Cantonese and Putonghua are both tonal languages with a simple syllable structure and few word final consonants. A study by Chen et al. (2004) compared the phonological awareness abilities of bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua children (from Guangdong) with monolingual Putonghua speakers (from Beijing). Both groups of children received the same school curriculum. The bilingual children had Cantonese as their mother tongue but were taught in Putonghua at school. The monolingual children’s mother tongue was Putonghua and they were taught in Putonghua at school. Chen et al. (2004) reported enhanced phonological awareness, in comparison to monolingual Putonghua controls, at the onset-rime level for Cantonese-Putonghua bilinguals in Grade 2 (6–7 year olds) with the advantage disappearing by Grade 4. Another study (Louizou & Stuart, 2003) examined the phonological awareness of English- and Greek-speaking monolingual and bilingual five-year-olds. One group of bilinguals acquired English first and Greek second, while the other group acquired Greek


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first and then English as a second language. Monolinguals were tested in their mothertongue and the bilinguals in both their languages. The results indicated an affect of order of acquisition of the languages. While bilingual children who acquired English first outperformed the English monolinguals, there was no enhancement of PA skills for children first acquiring Greek. They concluded that enhanced PA only arises when the second language is phonologically less complex than the first. However, the findings may have been affected by differences in exposure to literacy instruction in Cyprus and the UK where the bilingual groups were tested. The studies reviewed identified a number of factors that might influence research findings. Bialystok et al. (2003) concluded that bilingualism per se was not associated with enhanced metalinguistic skills. One factor identified as influencing the results of their study of French-, Spanish- and Chinese-English bilinguals and controls was the language in which literacy instruction occurred. Children tested in the language in which their literacy instruction occurred showed enhanced performance and all group differences disappeared. Other factors suggested as being important were language proficiency in each of the languages spoken; the relationship between the structure of the phonology of the two languages spoken; and the cognitive demands of the PA tasks administered. Chen et al. (2004) attributed their bilingual children’s advantaged PA not only to bilingualism but also to Cantonese being a more phonologically complex language (e.g. having a greater number of lexical tone contrasts than Potongua). Some recent studies, then, consider the possibility that the complexity of the phonological systems being acquired influences bilingual children’s PA. It is already well established that the phonological structure of a language influences monolingual children’s phonological awareness. Chen et al. (2004) concluded that specific aspects of phonological awareness can be enhanced in monolinguals who are exposed to complicated phonological structures. For example, Czech-speaking children outperform Englishspeaking children on onset-rime tasks when the onsets involve clusters (Caravolas & Bruck, 1993), a finding interpreted as reflecting the frequency and complexity of initial clusters in Czech as compared to English. The difficulty with this hypothesis, however, lies in defining complexity that includes all aspects of phonological structure. For example while Cantonese has more syllable final consonants and a more complex tone system, Puntonghua has a more complex vowel system and a more complex system of initial consonants than Cantonese. Evaluating the comparative complexity of two phonological systems is impractical because of the difficulty of assigning ‘complexity weights’ to different aspects of a system (e.g. consonants, vowels, tones, syllabic structure, stress) that have different degrees of salience in different phonologies. Consequently, the argument that it is the comparative complexity of the two phonological systems being learned that determines the extent of a bilingual phonological awareness advantage would be difficult to test empirically. Another, more objective, way of evaluating the relationship between two phonological systems is in terms of language families. For example, both Cantonese and Putonghua are Chinese languages. In contrast, Cantonese and English come from different language families (Chinese versus Indo-European). Comparison of the PA abilities of bilingual children acquiring Cantonese and either English or another Chinese language would provide evidence concerning the extent to which the relationship between two phonological systems affects PA skills. Two experiments are reported that examine the PA skills of groups of bilingual children and monolingual controls. The first experiment compares a group of bilingual (Cantonese and Putonghua) children with monolingual speakers of Cantonese and

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Putonghua. The bilingual children had Cantonese as a first language and were exposed to Putonghua in school. The second experiment compared monolingual Cantonese and bilingual Cantonese-English speakers whose first language was Cantonese. The data collected allow the investigation of the effect of language pair. The following research questions were asked.


Research questions and hypotheses (1) Do children, who are bilingual in Cantonese and Putonghua have better PA skills than monolingual Cantonese and Putonghua speaking children? It is hypothesized that there will be differences in profiles between the three groups of subjects. (2) Do children bilingual in Cantonese and English have better PA than monolingual Cantonese-speaking children? It is hypothesized that there will be no differences in profiles between the two groups of subjects. (3) Do the PA skills of children who are bilingual in Cantonese and Putonghua differ from those who are bilingual in Cantonese and English? It is hypothesized that there will be differences in profiles between the two groups of subjects. Methods Experiment 1 Participants Three groups of children were recruited from kindergartens in Hong Kong and Shenzhen: Cantonese monolinguals (n ¼ 19), Putonghua monolinguals (n ¼ 30) and CantonesePutonghua bilinguals (n ¼ 19). The mean age of the Cantonese monolinguals was 61.5 months (SD ¼ 8.8); of Putonghua monolinguals, 61.0 months (SD ¼ 7.3); and of bilinguals, 63.6 months (SD ¼ 7.7). A one-way analysis of variance revealed no differences between the age of the groups (F2,67 ¼ 0.650, p ¼ 0.521). There were approximately equal numbers of boys and girls in each group. The bilingual children were successive bilinguals, with Cantonese as their first language. Their parents had moved to Shenzhen (where Putonghua is the dominant language) from Hong Kong (where Cantonese is the dominant language). Children were exposed to Putonghua in kindergarten and the community but Cantonese at home. None of the participants had hearing loss, visual impairment, cognitive impairment or physical impairment as reported by the kindergartens or parents. None of the children had an articulation or phonological disorder. The Putonghua-speaking children (both monolingual and bilingual) attending school in Shenzhen had been exposed to Pinyin, a Romanised alphabet. Procedure Children participated in a one-hour assessment session. All participants’ language abilities were first screened with either the Cantonese version of the Reynell Developmental Language Scales (Reynell, 1987) or, for the Putonghua-speakers, by calculating the mean length of utterance. Phonological awareness assessment commenced only if the children passed the language screening. The examiner randomized the order of the PA tasks to ensure that the order of presentation did not affect findings.


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Phonological awareness tests The PA tests comprised six informal tasks that were adapted from Wong (1997). The test instructions were short and simple to ensure comprehension. In the rhyme and phoneme detection tasks and phoneme identification task, targets word and distracters were presented verbally and in photographic format to minimize memory load. There were two practice items for each task and participants were given specific feedback to ensure their understanding of instructions. Neutral feedback was given for the actual test items. Tasks


There were six PA tasks. Items are detailed in Appendix 1. (1) Syllable counting. Participants’ counting ability was tested before they attempted this task. Six words were tested and the participants were required to count the number of syllables in each word, either by clapping or counting on their fingers. There were between one and four syllables in each word. (2) Syllable deletion. Six two or three syllable words were tested. Participants were required to repeat each word, deleting a specified syllable. (3) Rhyme detection. There were four words in each of the six test items in this task. The examiner presented the words verbally and pictorially. The participants were asked to choose a word, from three choices, that rhymed with the target word. (4) Phoneme detection. There were six trials, each having three words, in this task. In each trial, two of the three words had the same initial phoneme. The examiner named the three words. The participant was asked to choose the spoken word with a different initial phoneme from the other two words. (5) Phoneme identification. Six single words were tested in this task. Three pictures representing three initial phonemes, /m/ (cow), /f/ (wind) and /s/ (snake) were introduced. The participants were asked to identify the initial phoneme of each spoken target word by pointing to the appropriate picture representing the sounds /m/, /f/ and /s/. Naming the initial phoneme of the words was also accepted. (6) Tone detection. Eighteen word pairs were presented in this task. The examiner said each word pair aloud, without stressing the tome or elongating syllables. Participants indicated whether the two spoken words had the same tone by saying ‘same’ or ‘yes’, or different tones by saying ‘different’ or ‘no’.

Experiment 2 Participants There were two groups of children: Cantonese monolinguals (n ¼ 30) and CantoneseEnglish bilinguals (n ¼ 30). The mean age of the Cantonese monolinguals was 56.1 months (SD ¼ 5.2) and the mean age of Cantonese-English bilinguals was 56.3 months (SD ¼ 5.1). A one-way analysis of variance revealed no differences between the age of the groups (F1,59 ¼ 0.023, p ¼ 0.881). There were approximately equal numbers of boys and girls in each group. None of the participants had hearing loss, visual impairment, cognitive impairment or physical impairment as reported by the kindergartens or parents. None of the children had an articulation or phonological disorder.

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The bilingual participants were successive bilinguals, with Cantonese being the children’s dominant language. They were, however, reasonably fluent in English, all being exposed to English for at least four hours a day at school. All the children spoke Cantonese to at least one parent at home and were fluent in Cantonese. The monolingual children attended Cantonese-speaking kindergartens. All the children spoke Cantonese to their parents at home and peers at schools. Given the language context of Hong Kong, the children might understand some English single words but they could not communicate in English.


Procedure All children participated in a one-hour assessment session. All participants’ language abilities were first screened with either the Cantonese version of the Reynell Developmental Language Scales (Reynell, 1987) or the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Tests (PPVT: Dunn & Dunn, 1981). Phonological awareness assessment was done only if the children passed the language screening. The phonological awareness assessments were the same as those described for Experiment 1. Results Experiment 1 Table 1 shows the Cantonese monolingual, Puntonghua monolingual and bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua speakers’ performance on the phonological awareness tasks (means and standard deviations of correct percentage scores). A multivariate analysis of variance compared the performance of the three groups. The groups’ term was significant (F12,122 ¼ 2.607, p 5 0.01). The total phonological awareness score means in Table 1 indicated the largest difference to be between the Cantonese monolinguals and the bilingual children; this was confirmed by a post-hoc independent t-test (t36 ¼ 2.062, p 5 0.05). The three individual tasks that discriminated the three groups and the results of post-hoc tests are shown in Table 2: the bilingual group performed better on the two syllable tasks and the Putonghua monolingual group performed better than the two other groups on the phoneme detection task, accounting for the lack of a significant difference between the Putonghua monolinguals and bilinguals in the overall ANOVA.

Table 1. Experiment 1: means of percentage correct scores on PA measures of monolingual Cantonese and Putonghua-speaking children and matched bilingual children speaking Cantonese and Putonghua. Cantonese Monolinguals Mean (SD) Syllable counting Syllable deletion Rhyme detection Phoneme detection Phoneme identification Tone Total PA scores

75.4 70.2 49.1 40.4 52.6 82.2 61.7

(36.2) (29.2) (27.5) (21.0) (32.5) (19.8) (27.7)

Putonghua monolinguals Mean (SD) 90.0 67.2 47.8 58.9 58.3 85.0 67.9

(18.4) (20.8) (22.6) (25.4) (25.1) (21.0) (22.2)

Cantonese-Putonghua bilinguals Mean (SD) 94.7 86.0 58.8 40.4 62.3 82.2 70.7

(13.7) (16.9) (31.6) (21.7) (30.4) (21.1) (22.6)


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Experiment 2 Table 3 shows the performance of the Cantonese monolingual speakers and bilingual Cantonese-English speakers on the phonological awareness tasks (means and standard deviations of correct percentage scores). A multivariate analysis of variance compared the overall performance of the two groups. The groups’ term was not significant (F6,53 ¼ 1.223 p ¼ 0.309, ns). Comparison of the individual tasks showed that the bilingual group performed better than the Cantonese monolingual controls on the tone discrimination task (see Table 4).


Table 2. Tests of between-subjects effects on phonological awareness tasks: results of post-hoc tests comparing monolingual Cantonese- and Putonghua-speaking children and matched bilingual children speaking Cantonese and Putonghua. Task

F(2,67)

Significance ¼ ¼ ¼ ¼

Syllable counting Syllable deletion Rhyme detection Phoneme detection

3.49 4.28 1.07 5.32

p p p p

0.036 0.018 0.350 0.007

Phoneme identification Tone

0.54 0.16

p ¼ 0.584 p ¼ 0.855

Post-hocs (Bonferroni) Monolingual Cantonese 5 Bilingual Monolingual Putonghua 5 Bilingual No differences Cantonese 5 Putongua Bilingual 5 Putonghua No differences No differences

Table 3. Experiment 2: means of percentage correct scores on phonological awareness measures of monolingual Cantonese and bilingual children speaking Cantonese and English. Cantonese monolinguals Mean (SD) Syllable counting Syllable deletion Rhyme detection Phoneme detection Phoneme identification Tone Total PA Score

79.4 70.6 58.9 41.1 71.1 84.6 66.8

(22.6) (23.9) (21.8) (23.9) (27.0) (11.4) (11.1)

Cantonese-English bilinguals Mean (SD) 83.9 78.3 63.3 34.4 71.7 90.6 70.4

(21.2) (20.1) (19.3) (20.0) (23.6) (8.5) (10.7)

Table 4. Tests of between-subjects effects on phonological awareness tasks: results of betweensubject tests comparing monolingual Cantonese speakers and bilingual Cantonese-English speakers. Task

F(1,59)

Significance

Syllable counting Syllable deletion Rhyme detection Phoneme detection Phoneme identification Tone

0.617 1.864 3.169 1.374 0.007 5.219

0.436 0.177 0.080 0.246 0.933 0.026

No difference No difference No difference No difference No difference Bilingual 4 monolingual

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Comparison of Experiments 1 and 2 Comparison of the two monolingual Cantonese-speaking groups The percentage means (SDs) for the two groups of monolingual Cantonese speakers in Experiments 1 and 2 are shown in Table 5. A multivariate analysis of variance comparing the two groups performance was not significant (F6,42 ¼ 1.729, p ¼ 0.138) and none of the individual tasks elicited a significant difference.


Comparison of the two bilingual Cantonese speaking groups The percentage means (SDs) for the two groups of bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua and Cantonese-English speakers in Experiments 1 and 2 are shown in Table 6. A multivariate analysis of variance comparing the two groups performance was not significant (F6,21 ¼ 1.165, p ¼ 0.362 NS). None of the tasks discriminated the two bilingual groups (see Table 6). Discussion Two experiments explored the effect of bilingualism on phonological awareness by comparing the abilities of groups of Cantonese-Putonghua and Cantonese-English bilinguals with monolingual Putonghua- and Cantonese-speaking children. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua group performed better on syllable tasks than monolinguals but that the Putonghua monolinguals performed Table 5. Comparison of the two monolingual Cantonese groups from Experiments 1 and 2: means scores correct. Task Syllable counting Syllable deletion Rhyme detection Phoneme detection Phoneme identification Tone Total PA score

Experiment 1 Mean (SD) 75.0 66.7 57.1 31.7 69.0 84.1 54.0

(26.8) (28.5) (20.4) (22.8) (28.4) (13.0) (14.2)

Experiment 2 Mean (SD) 79.8 66.7 50.0 40.5 54.8 86.5 63.0

(34.7) (32.0) (30.0) (22.4) (36.6) (15.7) (17.1)

F(1,27)

Significance

0.165 0.000 0.554 1.046 1.329 0.191 0.024

0.688 1.000 0.467 0.316 0.259 0.666 0.877

Table 6. Comparison of the two bilingual groups (Cantonese-Putonghua and Cantonese-English) from Experiments 1 and 2: mean scores correct. Task Syllable counting Syllable deletion Rhyme detection Phoneme detection Phoneme identification Tone Total PA score

Cantonese-Putonghua Mean (SD) 94.1 82.1 56.0 41.7 59.5 82.1 69.3

(15.5) (17.9) (29.2) (25.1) (26.7) (23.5) (15.9)

Cantonese-English Mean (SD) 92.9 83.3 63.1 31.0 75.0 94.1 73.2

(10.8) (22.6) (23.7) (19.5) (20.4) (5.1) (9.3)

F(1,27)

Significance

0.056 0.024 0.410 1.593 2.966 3.435 0.006

0.815 0.878 0.528 0.218 0.097 0.075 0.799


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better on phoneme detection tasks than Cantonese monolinguals and bilingual children. In Experiment 2, the overall phonological awareness score did not differ between the Cantonese-English bilingual group and the monolingual control group, although the bilingual group performed better on the tone awareness task. Comparison of children, matched for age, from the two monolingual Cantonese speaking groups from Experiments 1 and 2 showed that they performed similarly. There was no difference between the Cantonese-Putonghua and Cantonese-English bilingual groups.


Bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua versus monolingual Putonghua and Cantonese speakers The bilingual children performed better than the Cantonese monolinguals when all the phonological awareness task scores were combined. This difference was primarily due to the bilingual children performing better on the syllable counting tasks than the monolingual Cantonese-speakers and better than the monolingual Puntonghua-speakers on the syllable deletion task. Chen et al. (2004) reported enhanced phonological awareness, in comparison to monolingual Putonghua controls, at the onset-rime level for Cantonese-Putonghua bilinguals in Grade 2 (6–7 year olds) with the advantage disappearing by Grade 4. The mean age of the children reported here was a little younger (5 years 3 months) and the only advantage observed was for syllables. One plausible explanation for this finding is that the syllable is a highly salient phonological feature of Chinese languages, primarily because it carries lexical tone (Zhu, 2002). However, syllable patterns differ in Cantonese and Putonghua, with Cantonese having more tonal contrasts and Putonghua having more multisyllabic words. These differences between the two languages may give rise to the need for enhanced awareness of syllables in the early stages of bilingual language learning. Another finding was that the Putonghua monolinguals performed better on the phoneme detection than the other two groups. This finding is likely to reflect the advantage associated with learning Pinyin (an alphabetic script). Previous research evidence indicates that the acquisition of Pinyin enhances phoneme awareness (Holm & Dodd, 1996; Huang & Hanley, 1994; Mann, 1986; Read, Zhang, Nie, & Ding, 1986). The research suggests that awareness of phonemes may be dependent on alphabetic literacy. The monolingual Cantonese children in this experiment had not been exposed to Pinyin, because testing occurred before Hong Kong had become part of the People’s Republic of China. However, the bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua, who attended school in People’s Republic of China, and were consequently exposed to Pinyin, did not show any advantage. Two factors may have contributed to the finding. The children had limited school experience because of their age and may not yet have mastered Pinyin. The children also had Cantonese as a first language, speaking Cantonese at home and Putonghua at school. Many of their parents had been educated in the Hong Kong education system and would be unfamiliar with the Pinyin. The bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua bilinguals may, then, have had less reinforcement at home of the alphabet. In contrast, their monolingual Putonghua-speaking peers had parents who would have learned Pinyin at school. Bilingual Cantonese-English versus monolingual Cantonese speakers There was no overall difference in phonological awareness performance between the Cantonese-English bilingual group and the monolingual Cantonese-speaking control group. This finding replicates that made by Jackson et al. (1998) and Bialystok et al. (2003). Despite being at an age when the bilingual ‘metalinguistic advantage’ is most often

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demonstrated, the only task that elicited a difference was for tone awareness task. Neither Jackson et al. (1998) nor Bialystok et al. (2003) assessed tone awareness, while Chen et al. (2004) reported better performance on tones for first grade bilingual PutonghuaCantonese bilinguals in comparison to monolingual Putonghua-speakers. They partly attributed the advantage to the greater complexity of the tone system in Cantonese, which has six lexical tones and three allotones, in comparison to Putonghua’s four lexical tones. The finding that Cantonese-English bilingual children also have enhanced tone awareness in comparison to monolingual Cantonese-speakers, suggests that bilingualism might affect PA more than previously assumed. Although English does not have tones, it does have intonation patterns that indicate, for example whether a statement is a question or a command (You’re going home? versus You’re going home!). Distinguishing the meaning of pitch changes in the two languages may influence awareness of tonal differences. Comparison of findings from Experiments 1 and 2 A comparison of the two monolingual Cantonese-speaking groups from Experiments 1 and 2, when children were matched for age, showed no significant difference in performance. Although the same tasks were used in both experiments, the assessors were different. Children in Experiment 1 were tested in 1997 and children in Experiment 2 in 2005. Nevertheless, there was no difference in performance, providing evidence of the reliability of the data. Comparison of the two bilingual groups, Cantonese-Putonghua and CantoneseEnglish, provides a strong test of hypotheses about the effect of bilingual language pair on phonological awareness. There was no significant difference in phonological awareness performance when children from these two groups were selected to form age-matched groups. This finding was unexpected. The result may reflect changes in the school curriculum between 1997 and 2005. Alternatively, the exposure of both groups of bilinguals to alphabetic scripts (Pinyin for the Cantonese-Putonghua bilinguals and English orthography for the Cantonese-English bilinguals) may have enhanced their phonological awareness skills to a similar extent. Anecdotal evidence against this explanation, however, is that teachers tend to take a whole word approach to learning written English words in Hong Kong. Future research, however, needs to explore this issue to determine the extent to which exposure to an alphabetic orthography has a general effect on PA, as opposed to a more limited effect on phoneme detection, previously reported by Read et al. (1986). The findings contribute evidence concerning possible explanations for the transitory bilingual advantage for phonological awareness. A limited effect of language pair was demonstrated. Bilingual Cantonese-Putonghua children had better syllable awareness than the monolingual Cantonese-speaking control group. In contrast, the Cantonese-English bilinguals showed no overall advantage over their monolingual Cantonese-speaking controls, although the bilingual group performed better on a tone awareness task. These effects seem to reflect differences in the phonological structure of the two language pairs being acquired by the bilingual children. The nature of the orthography learned, however, would appear to have more major implications for phonological awareness. Acquisition of Pinyin, an alphabetic phonetic script that represents the phonemes in spoken words as letters, is associated with enhanced PA. The results suggest that children’s phonological awareness reflects their exposure to the differing phonological and orthographic characteristics of the spoken and written language(s) learned. Bialystok, Luk and Kwan (2005) argue that bilingualism is



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advantageous for the early acquisition of literacy because it enhances the understanding of the symbolic nature of print and allows transfer of reading principles across languages when both languages are alphabetic. The research reported here, and previous research suggesting that these advantages are transitory and obviated by limited schooling (e.g. Eviatar & Ibrahim, 2000), suggests the need for care in interpreting the theoretical importance of the bilingual ‘metalinguistic advantage’. The academic difficulties of children who learn one language at home and then another language once they start school should not be underestimated. Previous research reporting that bilingual children were advantaged in literacy learning, due to more acute PA, has not been replicated. In any case, while acknowledging that PA is important for decoding text, current research emphasises that reading for meaning involves grammatical ability to understand the complex clausal structures that written texts contain (Bishop & Snowling, 2004; Scott, 2004) and semantic skills, because the richness of vocabulary determines the use of contextual cues for interpreting unknown words (Catts, Adlof, & Weismer, 2006; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002). Language ability is important for reading success and many bilingual children’s fail to acquire ability in English that allows them to fully access the curriculum, despite immersion in English in schools (Hemsley et al., 2006). Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank C. Chow, Z. Li, K.M. Lau and C. To for data collection and Alison Li for data input. The study was supported by the Committee of Research and Conference Grants, The University of Hong Kong.

References Bialystok, E. (1986). Factors in the growth of linguistic awareness. Child Development, 57, 498–510. Bialystok, E. (1988). Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness. Developmental Psychology, 24, 560–567. Bialystok, E., Luk, G., & Kwan, E. (2005). Bilingualism, biliteracy and learning to read: Interactions among languages and writing systems. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9, 43–61. Bialystok, E., Majumder, S., & Martin, M. (2003). Developing phonological awareness: Is there a bilingual advantage? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 27–44. Bishop, D., & Snowling, M. (2004). Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment: Same or different? Psychological Bulletin, 130, 858–886. Bruck, M., & Genesee, F. (1995). Phonological awareness in young second language learners. Journal of Child Language, 22, 307–324. Brutt-Griffler, J., & Varghese, M. (2004). Bilingualism and language pedagogy. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Campbell, R., & Sais, E. (1995). Accelerated metalinguistic (phonological) awareness in bilingual children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13, 61–68. Caravolas, M., & Bruck, M. (1993). The effect of oral and written language input on children’s phonological awareness: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 55, 1–30. Catts, H., Adlof, S., & Weismer, S. (2006). Language deficits in poor comprehenders: A case for the simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 278–293. Chen, X., Anderson, R.C., Li, W., Hao, M., Wu, X., & Shu, H. (2004). Phonological awareness of bilingual and monolingual Chinese children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96, 142–151. Dodd, B. (2004, August). Bilingualism: Recent research on development and disorders. Implications for diagnosis. Paper presented at the IALP Conference, Brisbane, Australia. Dunn, L., & Dunn, L. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service. Eviatar, Z., & Ibrahim, R. (2000). Bilingual is as bilingual does: Metalinguistic abilities of Arabicspeaking children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 451–471.


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Hemsley, G., Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (2006). Diverse but not different: A lexical study of two bilingual groups. International Journal of Bilingualism, 10, 453–476. Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (1996). The effect of first written language on the acquisition of English literacy. Cognition, 59, 119–147. Huang, H.S., & Hanley, R. (1994). Phonological awareness and visual skills in learning to read Chinese and English. Cognition, 54, 73–98. Jackson, N., Holm, A., & Dodd, B. (1998). Phonological awareness and spelling abilities of CantoneseEnglish bilingual children. Asia Pacific Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing, 3, 79–96. Kohnert, K., & Goldstein, B. (2005). Speech, language and hearing in developing bilingual children: From practice to research. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 36, 169–171. Loizou, M., & Stuart, M. (2003). Phonological awareness in monolingual and bilingual English and Greek five-year-olds. Journal of Research in Reading, 26, 3–18. Mann, V. (1986). Phonological awareness: The role of reading experience. Cognition, 24, 65–92. Read, C., Zhang, Y., Nie, H., & Ding, B. (1986). The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic writing. Cognition, 24, 31–45. Reynell, J. (1987). Reynell developmental language scale [Cantonese version]. Windsor, UK: NFERNelson. Rubin, H., & Turner, A. (1989). Linguistic awareness skills in grade one children in a French immersion setting. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1, 73–86. Scott, C. (2004). Syntactic contributions to literacy learning. In C. Stone, E. Silliman, B. Ehren & K. Apel (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy: Development and disorders (pp. 340–362). New York: Guilford. Storch, S., & Whitehurst, G. (2002). Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: Evidence from a longitudinal structural model. Developmental Psychology, 38, 934–947. Wong, G.K.P. (1997). Phonological awareness of Cantonese-speaking language-disordered children. Unpublished B.Sc. (Speech and Hearing Sciences) dissertation, University of Hong Kong. Zhu, H. (2002). Phonological development in specific contexts: Studies of Chinese-speaking children. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Appendix 1. Task items I. Cantonese 1. Syllable counting Practice trials: //t ˛21/ (chair)

/tshiu55 kh p5 si23 tshœ˛21/ (supermarket)

Test trials: 1. /phi˛21 kw 35/ (apple) 2. /pui55/ (cup) 3. /si22 t 55 pe55 lei35/ (strawberry)

4. /tsy55 ku55 lik5/ (chocolate) 5. /pa55 si35/ (bus) 6. /m k2 t ˛55 lou21/ (McDonald)

2. Syllable deletion Practice trials: /p 55 pan35 th ˛35/ (lollipop) /s 35i55 kwa55/ (watermelon) Test trials: 1. /f 35 tshe55/ 2. /h n33 pou35 pau55/ 3. /tin22 wa35/ 4. /ku˛55 jyn35/ 5. /ku˛55 ts i35 min22/ 6. /tan22 kou55/

to delete / th ˛35/ to delete /s i55/ (train) to delete / tshe55/ (hamburger) to delete /h n33 pou35 / (telephone) to delete /tin22/ (park) to delete /jyn35/ (Doll’s noodle) to delete /min22/ (cake) to delete /tan22/


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3. Rhyme detection Practice trials: Target Rhyme choice items /tshe55/ /s 55/ /tse55/ (car) (comb) (umbrella) /sœy35/ /tsœy35/ /k u35/ (water) (mouth) (dog)


Test trials: 1. /h u35/ (mouth) 2. /muk2/ (wood) 3. /th i35/ (table) 4. /tan35/ (egg) 5. /fa55/ (flower) 6. /sy55/ (book)

/j t5/ (one) /ku35/ (drum)

/w n21/ (cloud) /luk2/(six) /k u35/ (dog) /tsan35/ (spade) /tou55/ (knife) /p 55/ (ball)

/jy35/ (fish) /jip2/(leaf) /t i35/ (bag) /lei35/ (pear) /p t5/ (pen) /tsy55/ (pig)

/s u35/ (hand) /sek2/(rock) /tshe55/ (car) /tou35/ (bean) /tsha55/ (fork) /jip2/ (leaf)

4. Phoneme detection Practice trials: /p/ /p 55/ (ball) /s/ /sam55/ (clothes) Test trials: 1. /f/ 2. /t/ 3. /ts/ 4. /ph/ 5. /kw/ 6. /j/

/pui55/ (glass) /k u35/ (dog)

/f 35/ (fire) /tip35/ (plate) /tsy55/ (pig) /phun21/ (basin) /kw i55/ (tortoise) ji23/(ear)

/tshe35/ (car) /sy55/ (book)

/fa55/ (flower) /s 55/ (comb) /tse55/ (needle) /fu33/ (trousers) /jip2/ (leaf) /jy23/ (moon)

/kw i55/ (tortoise) /t ˛55/ (light) /th i35/ (sky) /ph 21/ (grandma) /kw t5/ (bone) /sy55/ (book)

5. Phoneme identification Practice trials: (mother) 1. /ma55/ 2. /si˛55/ (star) 3. /fa55/ (flower) Test trials: 1. /sœy35/ (water) 2. /m t2/ (sock) 3. /f 35/ (fire)

starts with the cow sound. starts with the snake sound. starts with the wind sound.

4. /min22/ (face) 5. /fei21/ (fat) 6. /s u35/ (hand)

6. Tone detection Practice trials: /si55/ (poem), /si55/ (poem) same; /tsœ˛55/ (sheet), tsœ˛35/ (reward) different Test trials: 1. /j t22/ (sun) 2. /jiu22/ (light) 3. /h i55/ (open) 4. tan33/ (born) 5. /tshœ˛33/(sing) 6. /khei55/ (abnormal) 7. /l i21/ (mud) 8. /fan22/(rice) 9. /pe˛22/ (sick)

/j t22/ (sun) /jiu33/ (want) /h i22/ (harm) /tan55/ (odd) /tshœ˛21/ (ground) /khei21/ (strange) /l i21/ (mud) /fan21/(junk) /pe˛35/ (biscuit)

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

/sœy35/ (water) /ts u55/ (chau) /tham23/ (tasteless) /h u23/ (thick) /fu33/ (trousers) /th i35/ (table) /lei21/ (girl) /si35/ (make) /min23/ (free)

/sœy33/ (bit) /ts u35/ (wine) /tham55/ (greedy) h u22/ (back) fu23/ (woman) /th i21/ (carry) /lei23/ (you) /si33/ (try) /min23/ (free)

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II. Putonghua 1. Syllable counting Practice trials: /t ˛51/ chair

/tshau55 t s¸ i214 s¸ i51 ts¸ ha˛214/ supermarket

c

Test trials: 1. /phi˛35 ku 214/ 2. /pei55/ 3. /pei35 t i ˛55 ta51 ue35/ 4. /t iau214 kh 55 li35/ 5. /ts¸ u 55 tsi/ 6. /mai51 ta˛55 lau35/

apple cup Beijing University chocolate table McDonald

c

c

c

delete /ts¸ ha ˛35/ delete /xan51 pau214/

Test trials: 1. /xu 214 ts¸ 55/ 2. /xan51 pau214 pau55/ 3. /tien51 xua51/ 4. /ku˛ 55 jyen35/ 5. /kuai55 s¸ u35 mien51/ 6. /tan51 kau55/

delete playground hamburger

delete /ts¸ h 55/ delete /xan51 pau214/ delete / tien51/ delete / jyen35/ delete /mien51/ delete /tan51/ c

Practice trials: /jou35 l 51 ts¸ ha ˛35/ /xan51 pau214 pau55/ c

c

c

train hamburger telephone park fast noodle cake

3. Rhyme detection Practice trials: Rhyme choice items /s¸ u55/ /tau55/ comb knife /t ui214/ /kou214/ mouth dog

Test trials: 1. /khou214/ mouth 2. /mu51/ wood 3. /thai35/ table 4. /tan51/ egg 5. /xua55/ flower 6. /s¸ u55/ book

/jyn35/ cloud /lu51/ deer /kou214/ dog /fan51/ rice /tau55/ knife /p 55/ ball c

Target /mau55/ cat /s¸ ui214/ water

/ji55/ one /ku214/ drum

/jy35/ fish /je35/ leaf /tai51/ bag /li35/ pear /pi214/ pen /ts¸ u55/ pig

/s¸ ou214/ hand /s¸ i35/ rock /ts¸ h 55/ car /tou51/ bean /s¸ ua55/ brush /je35/ leaf c

4. Phoneme detection Practice trials: /p/ /p 55/ ball c


2. Syllable deletion

/pei55/ glass

/ts¸ h car

55/

/s/

/s¸ an55/ clothes

/kou214/ dog

/s¸ u55/ book

Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties c

/xua55/ flower /s¸ 55/ comb /ts¸ n55/ needle /khu51/ trousers /je35/ leaf /jye51/ moon

/kui55/ tortoise /t ˛55/ light /thien55/ table /pho35/ grandma /ku214/ bone /s¸ u55/ book a

Test trials: 1. /f/ /xu 214/ fire 2. /t/ /tie35/ plate 3. /ts¸ / /ts¸ u55/ pig 4. /ph/ /ph n35/ basin 5. /k/ /kui55/ tortoise 6. /j/ /ji55/ clothes

c

a

a

Practice trials: 1. /ma55/ mother 2. /s 51/ colour 3. /f ˛55/ wind a a

Test trials: 1. /san55/ 2. /mau55/ 3. /fan51/ 4. /mien51/ 5. /fei35/ 6. /suan55/

starts with the cow sound. starts with the snake sound. starts with the wind sound.

three cat rice face fat sour

6. Tone detection (10 trials only, to test 4 tones) Practice trials: 1. /pa55/ (father) /pa55/ (father) 2. /s¸ u55/ (book) /s¸ u214/ (mice)

Same Different

Test 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Same Different Different Different Different Different Same Different Different Same

trials: /ts¸ u55/ (pig) /ts¸ u55/ (pig) /ph 55/ (ball) /ph 35/ (grandma) /xai35/ (child) /xai51/ (harm) /s¸ ui214/ (water) /s¸ ui51/ (sleep) /t iu214/ (nine) /t iu51/ (old) /khu55/ (cry) /khu214/ (bitter) /lan35/ (blue) /lan35/ (blue) /pi35/ (nose) /pi214/ (pencil) /tan51/ (egg) /tan55/ (odd) /mu51/ (wood) /mu51/ (wood) c

c


5. Phoneme identification

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