Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T18:41:43.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lexical transfer and second language morphological development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2015

Barbara Hancin-Bhatt  and
William Nagy
Barbara Hancin-Bhatt*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
William Nagy*
Affiliation:
Urbana-Champaign
*
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Center for the Study of Reading, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Center for the Study of Reading, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigates the development of two levels of morphological knowledge that contribute to Spanish-English bilingual students’ ability to recognize cognates: the ability to recognize a cognate stem within a suffixed English word, and knowledge of systematic relationships between Spanish and English suffixes (e.g., the fact that words ending in -ty in English often have a Spanish cognate ending in -dad). A total of 196 Latino bilingual students in 4th, 6th, and 8th grade were asked to give the Spanish equivalent for English words, some of which had derivational and inflectional suffixes. The results indicated that the students’ ability to translate cognates increased with age above and beyond any increase in their vocabulary knowledge in Spanish and English. There was also marked growth in the students’ knowledge of systematic relationships between Spanish and English suffixes. Students recognized cognate stems of suffixed words more easily than noncognate stems, suggesting that, in closely related languages such as Spanish and English, cross-language transfer may play a role, not just in recognizing individual words, but also in the learning of derivational morphology.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 289 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adjemian, C. (1983). The transferability of lexical properties. In Gass, S. & Selinker, L. (Eds.), Language transfer and language learning (pp. 250–268). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Anderson, R. C., & Freebody, P. (1981). Vocabulary knowledge. In Guthrie, J. T. (Ed.), Comprehension and teaching: Research reviews (pp. 77–117). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.Google Scholar
Anglin, J. (in press). Vocabulary development: A morphological analysis. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.Google Scholar
Applebee, A., Langer, J., & Mullis, I. (1987). The nation’s report card: Learning to be literate: Reading. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.Google Scholar
Ard, J., & Homburg, T. (1983). Verification of language transfer. In Gass, S. & Selinker, L. (Eds.), Language transfer and language learning (pp. 157–176). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Clark, H. (1973). The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy: A critique of language statistics in psychological research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12, 335–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durgunoglu, A., & Hancin, B. (1992). An overview of cross-language transfer in bilingual reading. In Harris, R. J. (Ed.), Cognitive processing in bilinguals (pp. 391–411). Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durgunoglu, A., Nagy, W., & Hancin, B. (1991). Cross-language transfer of phonemic awareness (Tech. Rep. No. 541). Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading.Google Scholar
Feldman, L. B. (1991). The contribution of morphology to word recognition. Psychological Research, 53, 33–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freyd, P., & Baron, J. (1982). Individual differences in acquisition of derivational morphology. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 310–332.Google Scholar
Garcia, G. (1988). Factors influencing the English reading test performance of Spanish-English bilingual children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Garcia, G. (1991). Factors influencing the English reading test performance of Spanish-speaking Hispanic students. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 371–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gass, S., & Selinker, L. (Eds.). (1983). Language transfer and language learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Hahn, L. (1983). A study of second-language learners’ knowledge of English derivational morphology. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jimenez, R., Garcia, G., & Pearson, P. D. (1991, December). The strategic reading process of bilingual Hispanic children who are good readers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Reading Conference, Palm Springs, CA.Google Scholar
Kellerman, E. (1986). An eye for an eye: Crosslinguistic constraints on the development of the L2 lexicon. In Kellerman, E. & Smith, M. Sharwood (Eds.), Crosslinguistic influences in second language acquisition (pp. 35–47). New York: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Kellerman, E., & Smith, M. Sharwood (Eds.), (1986). Crosslinguistic influences in second language acquisition. New York: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Koda, K. (1988). Cognitive process in second language reading: Transfer of L1 reading skills and strategies. Second Language Research, 4(2), 133–156.Google Scholar
Nagy, W., & Anderson, R. C. (1984). How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagy, W., Diakidoy, I., & Anderson, R. C. (1993). The acquisition of morphology: Learning the contribution of suffixes to the meanings of derivatives. Journal of Reading Behavior, 25, 155–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagy, W., Garcia, G. E., Durgunoglu, A., & Hancin, B. (1993). Spanish-English bilingual students’ use of cognates in English reading. Journal of Reading Behavior, 25, 241–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Randall, J. (1985). Morphological structure and language acquisition. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Randall, J. (1988). Of butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers: The problem of morphology in understanding words. In Davison, A. & Green, G. (Eds.), Linguistic complexity and text comprehension (pp. 223–245). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ringbom, H. (1986). Crosslinguistic influence and the foreign language learning process. In Kellerman, E. & Smith, M. Sharwood (Eds.), Crosslinguistic influences in second language acquisition (pp. 150–162). New York: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Sajavaara, K. (1986). Transfer and second language speech processing. In Kellerman, E. & Smith, M. Sharwood (Eds.), Crosslinguistic influences in second language acquisition (pp. 66–79). New York: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Saville-Troike, M. (1984). What really matters in second language learning for academic achievement? TESOL Quarterly, 18, 199–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading. Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taft, M. (1988). A morphological-decomposition model of lexical representation. Linguistics, 26, 657–667.Google Scholar
Tyler, A., & Nagy, W. (1989). The acquisition of English derivational morphology. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 638–647.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wysocki, K., & Jenkins, J. R. (1987). Deriving word meanings through morphological generalization. Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 66–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar