关键词: 复合语素意识, 词语结构意识, 词汇知识, 汉语儿童, 交叉滞后模型

Abstract: Morphological awareness is one of the core components of metalinguistic awareness and plays an important role in children's language development. Morphological awareness in Chinese has three aspects: word level, character level and sub-lexical level. Compounding morphological awareness and word structure awareness are two components of morphological awareness at the word level. They are studied from the perspective of morpheme meaning and grammatical structure respectively. With the help of these two kinds of morphological awareness, children can grasp semantic and grammatical information in vocabulary knowledge more accurately and comprehensively, and improve the quality of vocabulary learning. Compounding morphological awareness, word structure awareness and vocabulary knowledge are closely intertwined in the process of children's language development, so it is necessary to consider the interrelationship among them. The study included 278 third-graders who participated in three follow-up tests over two years to examine changes in the developmental relationship among compounding morphological awareness, word structure awareness and vocabulary knowledge in elementary school children from third to fifth grade. The interval between the tests was 1 year, at Time 1 (fall semester of Grade 3), Time 2 (fall semester of Grade 4) and Time 3 (fall semester of Grade 5). In addition, IQ, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming of digits as control variables and measured at Time 1. A cross-lagged model was conducted to explore the relationship between compound morpheme awareness, word structure awareness and vocabulary knowledge of children at different time points. The results showed that after controlling for the above additional variables: (1) Vocabulary knowledge at Time 1 significantly predicted the compounding morphological awareness and word structure awareness at Time 2; Compounding morphological awareness at Time 1 significantly predicted word structure awareness and vocabulary knowledge at Time 2. However, word structure awareness at Time 1 did not significantly predict compounding morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge at Time 2. (2) Compounding morphological awareness at Time 2 significantly predicted word structure awareness and vocabulary knowledge at Time 3; Word structure awareness at Time 2 significantly predicted compounding morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge at Time 3. However, vocabulary knowledge at Time 2 did not significantly predict compounding morphological awareness and word structure awareness at Time 3. In general, the development relationship between compounding morphological awareness, word structure awareness and vocabulary knowledge in grades 3 to 5 was dynamic and had stage characteristics. The findings of this study made up for the deficiency of ignoring the grammatical properties of words in the previous studies of Chinese morphological awareness, and provided a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge at the word level. It also had certain enlightenment significance to the vocabulary teaching of children in the middle and upper grades of primary school.

Key words: Compounding morphological awareness, Word structure awareness, Vocabulary knowledge, Chinese children, Cross-lagged study