Cross-linguistic interactions are the hallmark of bilingual development. Theoretical perspectives highlight the key role of cross-linguistic distances and language structure in literacy development. Despite the strong theoretical assumptions, the impact of such bilingualism factors in heritage-language speakers remains elusive given high variability in children's heritage-language experiences. A longitudinal inquiry of heritage-language learners of structurally distinct languages – Spanish–English and Chinese–English bilinguals (N = 181, Mage = 7.57, measured 1.5 years apart) aimed to fill this gap. Spanish–English bilinguals showed stronger associations between morphological awareness skills across their two languages, across time, likely reflecting cross-linguistic similarities in vocabulary and lexical morphology between Spanish and English. Chinese–English bilinguals, however, showed stronger associations between morphological and word reading skills in English, likely reflecting the critical role of morphology in spoken and written Chinese word structure. The findings inform theories of literacy by uncovering the mechanisms by which bilingualism factors influence child literacy development.

中文翻译：

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双语儿童语音和形态意识技能的跨语言迁移：纵向视角


跨语言互动是双语发展的标志。理论观点强调跨语言距离和语言结构在读写能力发展中的关键作用。尽管有强有力的理论假设，但鉴于儿童传统语言体验的高度可变性，这种双语因素对传统语言使用者的影响仍然难以捉摸。对结构不同的语言的传统语言学习者——西班牙语-英语和汉语-英语双语者（N = 181，Mage = 7.57，测量间隔 1.5 岁）进行的纵向调查旨在填补这一空白。西班牙语-英语双语者在两种语言的形态意识技能之间表现出更强的关联性，随着时间的推移，这可能反映了西班牙语和英语之间词汇和词汇形态的跨语言相似性。然而，汉英双语者在英语中表现出形态和单词阅读技能之间更强的关联，这可能反映了形态在汉语口语和书面单词结构中的关键作用。这些发现通过揭示双语因素影响儿童识字发展的机制，为识字理论提供了信息。