Prosody beyond L1 boundary: Cantonese tone sensitivity predicts English text reading comprehension in Cantonese-English bilingual children

摘要

PURPOSE: Prosodic sensitivity refers to an individual’s ability to perceive and manipulate phonetic distinctions realized through pitch, duration, or amplitude, such as Cantonese lexical tone and English lexical stress. A growing number of studies consistently report that prosodic sensitivity appears to transfer to reading across languages; Cantonese tone sensitivity has been found to be related to English word reading in Cantonese-English bilingual children. However, the cross-linguistic effect of Cantonese tone sensitivity on English reading comprehension has been less explored in Cantonese-English bilingual children. In addressing this issue, this 2-year longitudinal study evaluated the ...