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Acquisition of compound words in Chinese–English bilingual children: Decomposition and cross-language activation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2011

CHENXI CHENG ,
MIN WANG  and
CHARLES A. PERFETTI
CHENXI CHENG
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
MIN WANG*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
CHARLES A. PERFETTI
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Min Wang, Department of Human Development, 3304C Benjamin Building, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. E-mail: minwang@umd.edu
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Abstract

This study investigated compound processing and cross-language activation in a group of Chinese–English bilingual children, and they were divided into four groups based on the language proficiency levels in their two languages. A lexical decision task was designed using compound words in both languages. The compound words in one language contained two free constituent morphemes that mapped onto the desired translations in the other language, such as tooth(牙) brush(刷).Two types of compound words were included: transparent (e.g., toothbrush) and opaque (e.g., deadline) words. Results showed that children were more accurate in judging semantically transparent compounds in English. The lexicality of translated compounds in Chinese affected lexical judgment accuracy on English compounds, independent of semantic transparency and language proficiency. Implications for compound processing and bilingual lexicon models are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 583 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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