Morphology-based cross language transfer from Korean to literacy acquisition in English and Chinese

This study examined the nature of morphology-based cross language transfer from Korean to reading and writing acquisition in English and Chinese among Korean-speaking 9th graders who had studied English for seven years and Chinese for one year as foreign languages. One hundred and sixty students were administered a set of comparable Korean (L1), English (L2), and Chinese (L3) tasks tapping into morphological awareness, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing. Correlation and hierarchical regression analyses revealed that (a) morphological awareness strongly correlated with reading comprehension and writing in all three languages; (b) morphological awareness in Korean significantly contributed to reading comprehension in English and Chinese; and (c) the transfer from Korean morphology to English reading was more likely to occur in students with more advanced English reading skills. No significant transfer was observed in morphological awareness in Korean to writing in English or Chinese. These findings point to the unique morphology-based transfer that facilitated reading comprehension across different orthographies and the importance of proficiency in the target language that determines the occurrence of such transfer in third language acquisition. Finally, learners in an L1 dominant setting are able to apply their general knowledge about shared morphological structure from L1 to reading, not only in L2, but in L3 as well. The empirical results were discussed within the theoretical framework of the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and Interdependence Hypothesis.