Article published In:
Cross-linguistic transfer in reading in multilingual contexts – recent research trendsEdited by Elena Zaretsky and Mila Schwartz
[Written Language & Literacy 17:1] 2014
► pp. 139–164
Edited by Elena Zaretsky and Mila Schwartz
[Written Language & Literacy 17:1] 2014
► pp. 139–164
The role of L1 and L2 reading on L1 preservation and positive cross-linguistic transfer among sequential bilinguals
Previous research shows strong evidence of positive cross-linguistic transfer as a factor of L1 literacy. Moreover, research shows that L1 literacy supports the preservation of L1 language skills while learning L2, as oral and written languages are highly interdependent. Two theoretical frameworks can be instrumental in accounting for cross-linguistic transfer: The constructive analysis hypothesis suggests that the closer L1 and L2 are typologically, the more cross-linguistic transfer should be observed. The interdependence hypothesis postulates that bilingual transfer is also supported by L1 proficiency. These hypotheses were tested in oral language experiment, comparing typologically different languages (L1 Russian and L2 English) with different orthographic depth and language-specific characteristics. The study examines the use of morphosyntactic and lexical structures through story retelling in L1 and L2 by 13 Russian-English bilingual children (Mage = 8;2) who were readers in their L1 as well as in their L2. The results indicate a strong effect of L1 reading skills on children’s ability to use appropriate lexical and syntactic processes in their L1 and L2 narratives as well as on the reduction of L1 grammatical errors, one of the most sensitive aspects of Russian inflectional morphology. These results support the interdependence hypothesis of cross-linguistic transfer. Keywords: bilingual transfer; literacy; morphosyntax; lexicon; language-specific structures
References
Abu-Rabia, Salim
(2001) Testing the interdependence hypothesis among native adult bilingual Russian-English students. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 301: 437–455. 
Brysbaert, Mark & Wouter Duyck
(2010) Is it time to leave behind the revised hierarchical model of bilingual language processing after fifteen years of service? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13(3): 359–371.
Cenoz, Jasone
(2001) The effect of linguistic distance, L2 status and age on cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition. In Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen & Ulrike Jessner (eds.), Cross-linguistic influence in third language acquisition, 8–20. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
(2003) The role of typology in the organization of the multilingual lexicon. In Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen & Ulrike Jessner (eds.), The multilingual lexicon, 103–116. Kluwer Academia Publishers.
Chacón Beltràn, Ruben
(2006) Towards a typological classification of false friends (Spanish-English). RESLA 191: 29–39.
Cho, Jeung-Ryeul & Catherine McBride-Chang
(2005) Levels of phonological awareness in Korean and English: A 1-year longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology 91: 564–571.
Cummins, Jim
(2000) Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in crossfire. Ontario, Canada: Matters.
(2004) Review of Oller & Eilers’ language and literacy in bilingual children. Journal of Child Language 31(2): 424–429.
(2001) Empowering minority students: A framework for intervention. Harvard Educational Review 71(4): 656–675.
Cunningham, Anne E., Kathryn E. Perry & Keith E. Stanovich
(2001) Converging evidence for the concept of orthographic processing. Reading and Writing 141: 549–568.
Deacon, S. Helene, Lesley Wade-Woolley & John Kirby
(2009) Flexibility in young second-language learners: Examining the language specificity of orthographic processing. Journal of Research in Reading 32(2): 215–229.
Dijkstra, Ton, Mark Timmermans & Herbert Schriefers
(2000) On being blinded by your other language: Effects of task demands on interlingual homograph recognition. Journal of Memory and Language 421: 445–464.
Durgunoğlu, Aydin Y
(2002) Cross-linguistic transfer in literacy development and implications for language learners. Annals of Dyslexia 521: 189–204.
Durgunoğlu, Aydin Y., Montserrat Mir & Sofia Ariño-Martin
(2002) The relationship between bilingual children’s reading and writing in their two languages. In Sarah Ransdell & Marie-Laure Barbier (eds.), Psycholinguistic approaches to understanding second-language writing, 81–100. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Durgunoğlu, Aydin Y., William E. Nagy & Barbara J. Hancin-Bhatt
(1993) Cross-language transfer of phonological awareness. Journal of Educational Psychology 851: 453–465.
Geva, Esther & Linda Siegel
(2000) Orthographic and cognitive factors in the concurrent development of basic reading skills in two languages. Reading and Writing 12(1–2): 1–30.
Isurin, Ludmila
(2005) Cross linguistic transfer in word order: Evidence from L1 forgetting and L2 acquisition. In James Cohen, Kara T. McAlister, Kellie Rolstad & Jeff MacSwan (eds.),
Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
, 1115–1130. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Jia, Gisela & Doris Aaronson
(2003) A longitudinal study of Chinese children and adolescents learning English in the United States. Applied Psycholinguistics 241: 131–161.
Jia, Gisela, Doris Aaronson & Yanhong Wu
(2002) Long-term attainment of bilingual immigrants: Predictive factors and language group differences. Applied Psycholinguistics 231: 599–622.
Kaushanskaya, Margarita & Viorica Marian
(2007) Bilingual language processing and interference in bilinguals: Evidence from eye tracking and picture naming. Language and Learning 57(1): 119–163.
(2009) Bilingualism reduces native-language interference during novel-word learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology 35(3): 829–835.
Kerek, Eugenia & Pekka Niemi
(2009) Russian orthography and learning to read. Reading in a Foreign Language 21(1): 1–21.
Kohnert, Kathryn J., Elizabeth Bates & Arturo E. Hernandez
(1999) Balancing bilinguals: Lexical-semantic production and cognitive processing in children learning Spanish and English. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research 421: 1400–1413.
Köpke, Barbara
(2007) Language attrition at the crossroads of brain, mind, and society. In Barbara Köpke, Monica Schmid, Merel Keijzer & Susan Dostert (eds.), Language attrition: Theoretical perspectives, 9–39. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kroll, Judith F. & Erika Stewart
(1994) Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations. Journal of Memory and Language 331: 149–174.
Lado, Robert
(1964) Language teaching: A scientific approach. New York: McGraw Hill.
Lardiere, Donna
(2009) Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research 25(2): 173–227.
Leikin, Mark, Mila Schwartz & David Share
(2010) General and specific benefits of bi-literate bilingualism: A Russian-Hebrew study of beginning literacy. Reading and Writing 23(3–4): 269–292.
Lesaux, Nonie K., Esther Geva, Keiko Koda, Linda S. Siegel & Timothy Shanahan
(2008) Development of literacy in second-language learners. In Diane August & Timothy Shanahan (eds.), Developing reading and writing in second-language learners: Lessons from the report of the national literacy panel on language-minority children and youth, 27–60. New York, NY: Routledge.
McElree, Brian, Gisela Jia & Annie Litvak
(2000) The time course of conceptual processing in three bilingual populations. Journal of Memory and Language 421: 229–254.
Melby-Lervåg, Monica & Ame Lervåg
(2011) Cross-linguistic transfer of oral language, decoding, phonological awareness and reading comprehension: A meta-analysis of the correlational evidence. Journal of Research in Reading 34(1): 114–135.
Odlin, Terence
(1989) Language transfer: Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Polinsky, Maria
(2006) Acquisition of Russian: Uninterrupted and incomplete scenarios. 1–64. Glossos. The Slavic and East European Language Research Center. Retrieved from [URL]
Proctor, C. Patrick, Diane August, Maria S. Carlo & Catherine Snow
(2006) The intriguing role of Spanish language vocabulary knowledge in predicting English reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology 98(1): 159–169.
Sparks, Richard, Jon Patton, Leonore Granschow & Nancy Humbach
(2009) Long-term crosslinguistic transfer of skills from L1 to L2. Language Learning 59(1): 203–243.
Tunmer, William E. & James W. Chapman
(2001) The relation of metalinguistic abilities, phonological recoding skill and the use of sentence context to beginning reading development: A longitudinal study. Paper presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute, II Cicco, Italy.
Yeni-Komshian, Grace H., James E. Flege & Serena Liu
(2000) Pronunciation proficiency in the first and second languages of Korean-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 31: 131–149.
Zaretsky, Eelena & Eva Bar-Shalom
(2010) Does reading in shallow L1 orthography slow attrition of language-specific morphological structures? Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 24(4–5): 401–415.
Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Beauchamp, Myriam L. H. & Andrea A. N. MacLeod
2022. The role of exposure on school-aged bilingual language abilities – it depends on what you measure. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 25:9 ► pp. 3404 ff. 
Chan, Tracy K. S., Simpson W. L. Wong, Anita M.-Y. Wong & Vina Wing-Hei Leung
2019. The Influence of Presentation Format of Story on Narrative Production in Chinese Children Learning English-as-a-Second-Language: A Comparison Between Graphic Novel, Illustration Book and Text. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 48:1 ► pp. 221 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.