The Reciprocal Relationship between Morphological Awareness, Structure Awareness and Idiom Comprehension among Chinese Children: A Longitudinal Study

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240210

Abstract

Abstract: Idioms are a unique historical product of Chinese. And idioms are not only of great significance to the development of language and culture, but also of great value in improving children’s language learning ability in teaching. Idioms are an important part of modern Chinese vocabulary, which refer to concise and incisive phrases in Chinese. The development of idioms involves a variety of low-level cognitive skills, such as morphological awareness and structure awareness. Some linguists believe that compound words are mainly affected by the meaning of morphemes and the structure between morphemes. Morphological awareness refers to the perception and operation of the smallest unit of meaning, which plays an important role in the development of compound words. In addition, children’s decomposition of structural relations is conducive to the processing of the meaning of compound words. Thus structure awareness promotes the understanding of compound words to a certain extent. The Verbal Efficiency Theory believes that the underlying language cognitive skills (morphological awareness, structure awareness) can improve the efficiency of vocabulary processing, and high-quality vocabulary representation promotes the understanding of the meaning of compound words. Therefore, morphological awareness and structure awareness could be of great significance to the development of idiom comprehension. And as children are exposed to a rich language environment for a long time, they can have access to a large number of fresh language materials, and the learning of compound words and idioms may also help children improve their ability to decode morphemes and better grasp the structure rules among morphemes. Therefore, the acquisition of compound words also promotes the development of morphological awareness and structure awareness to some extent. The main aim of this study is to survey the reciprocal relationship between morphological awareness, structure awareness, and Chinese idiom comprehension.
The four-year longitudinal study was conducted to explore the reciprocal relationship between morphological awareness, structure awareness, and Chinese idiom comprehension over time. Participants included 136 third-grade primary school children in Shanxi Province, China, who were tracked from third to sixth grades. Morphological awareness (including homophone awareness and homograph awareness), structure awareness, idiom comprehension, phonological awareness, and IQ were measured in the study. The structural equation model was used to determine the reciprocal relationship between morphological awareness, structure awareness and idiom comprehension.
After controlling IQ and phonological awareness, the results demonstrated that: (1) Morphological awareness in the third, fourth, and fifth grades had a significant predictive effect on the idiom comprehension in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades respectively; the idiom comprehension in the fifth grade significantly predicted the subsequent morphological awareness. However, the idiom comprehension in the third and fourth grades did not significantly predict the morphological awareness one year later. (2) The structure awareness in the third and fourth grades had a significant predictive effect on the idiom comprehension in fourth and fifth grades; the idiom comprehension in third, fourth, and fifth grades significantly predicted structure awareness in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades respectively. The results showed that the reciprocal relationship between morphological awareness, structure awareness, and idiom comprehension varied with different grades.

Key words: morphological awareness, structure awareness, idiom comprehension

摘要： 以136名三年级儿童为研究对象,进行为期四年的追踪研究,调查了语素意识、构词意识与成语理解的关系。控制了智力和语音意识后,结果发现：（1）三、四、五年级的语素意识分别对随后四、五、六年级的成语理解有显著的预测作用;五年级的成语理解显著预测了六年级的语素意识。（2）三、四年级的构词意识分别对随后四、五年级的成语理解有显著的预测作用;三、四、五年级的成语理解显著预测了随后四、五、六年级的构词意识。研究结果表明语素意识、构词意识与成语理解的关系随着年级的不同而变化。

关键词: 语素意识, 构词意识, 成语理解

Li Ruiying, Li Liping, Wu Xinchun. The Reciprocal Relationship between Morphological Awareness, Structure Awareness and Idiom Comprehension among Chinese Children: A Longitudinal Study[J]. Journal of Psychological Science, 2024, 47(2): 334-341.

李瑞英, 李利平, 伍新春. 儿童语素意识、构词意识与成语理解的双向关系：追踪研究的证据^*[J]. 心理科学, 2024, 47(2): 334-341.

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