目前，已有大量研究对复合词语素意识的发展及其在阅读发展中的作用进行了探讨，但语素意识究竟是如何影响儿童阅读发展的？这一作用机制仍不清晰。英文研究认为，语素意识可能会通过三个途径促进阅读理解。

第一条途径，提高词汇量（Kieffer & Lesaux，2012；Nagy，Berninger & Abbottet，2006）。研究发现，成年阅读者的心理词典是以语素方式组织的（Rastle & Davis，2008），语素意识可能为有效存储词汇提供了框架，因此，语素意识好的儿童可能更容易学会和记住合成词，最终促进阅读理解的发展（Kuo&Anderson，2006）。

第二条途径，词语阅读流畅性和准确性（Kieffer & Box，2013）。研究者指出，语素意识能帮助儿童更好地洞察语言的书写体系，更好地区分语素变体（同一语素的不同形式，如sign-signature），从而帮助阅读者更准确、流畅地阅读合成词（Kuo & Anderson，2006）。关于中国高中ESL学生[3]的研究发现，英文词汇知识广度能够显著预测英文一般阅读理解能力，但是英文词汇知识深度（词素意识和词汇定义）能够显著预测需要深层次文本加工的总结性写作（Li & Kirby，2014）。

第三条途径，语素分析（morphological analysis）和词义推论（lexical inference）（McCuthen & Logan，2011；Zhang & Koda，2012）。语素意识能够帮助学生在阅读过程中理解遇到的复杂生词，这个过程叫即时词汇学习（on-the-spot vocabulary learning）（Nagy，2007）。进一步研究发现，高语言能力的英语—西班牙语双语儿童能够利用语素分析策略理解句子阅读中遇到的生词，从而促进阅读理解；对于低语言能力的儿童而言，词语阅读流畅性在语素意识和阅读理解中起显著的中介作用（Zhang et al.，2014）。

也有研究者认为，除词汇学习能力和词语阅读外，语素意识还会以其他方式促进阅读发展。如英文语素意识能够提高句法分解（syntactic parsing），从而提高阅读理解水平（Nagy，2007）。母语为西班牙语的美国儿童的研究为这一句法假设提供了间接证据，结果发现句子阅读流畅性——而不是词语阅读流畅性——在语素意识和阅读理解中起显著的中介作用（Kieffer，Biancarosa & Mancilla-Martinez，2013）。语素意识通过工作记忆提高阅读理解能力，而且该途径对中文阅读的作用比英文阅读更重（Zhang et al.，2014）。有研究者则认为语素意识是通过动态的语素加工过程促进阅读习得（McCutchen et al.，2009）。然而，这些研究假设尚未有证据支持。

汉语相关研究则发现，词汇知识在语素意识和阅读理解中起中介作用（Ku & Anderson，2003）。一项研究对一年级学生持续追踪至二年级，结果发现，复合词语素意识的起始水平和增长速度均能显著预测学生两年后的阅读理解水平，并且词汇阅读效率（word reading efficiency）在这个预测关系中起显著的中介作用（Cheng et al.，2015）。上述结果与英文研究结论一致，表明语素意识对阅读理解的作用机制存在跨语言的一致性。然而上述研究也发现，词汇知识或词汇阅读效率只是部分中介，这表明汉语复合语素意识可能会直接作用于阅读理解，或还有其他中介途径的存在。这可能有几方面的原因：首先，中文词语的定义模糊并且没有明显的界限，阅读理解在很大程度上依赖于学生的语素知识和对复合词结构的理解（Lin et al.，2011）。其次，中文复合词的结构和句法结构高度相似（如并列、偏正、动宾、主谓），复合词意识强的儿童可能对句法也更敏感。近期研究发现，句法意识对于汉语儿童阅读理解有独特的重要作用（Chik et al.，2012；Tong et al.，2014）。最后，中文中有大量的同音字和一字多义现象，复合词结构意识能够提供关于语素如何组成口语和书面词汇的有用信息，从而帮助儿童区分同音字，深度理解一字多义。

另外，已有研究多关注语素意识在阅读发展中的作用，却忽视了两者可能存在的互为因果关系。有研究指出，语素意识能有效地促进阅读理解的发展，同时阅读能力越高，也可能越有能力和动机去接触更多的、更为复杂的文字材料，从而更频繁地暴露在相关的词汇结构中，更可能发展出良好的语素意识（Kuo & Anderson，2006）。然而，仅有少量研究对这一假设进行了探讨（McBride-Chang et al.，2008；Wu et al.，2009），其结论还有待进一步验证与细化。

目前，语素意识跨语言迁移的证据大多来自相关研究。研究发现两种语言的共同结构会促进跨语言迁移，在语言特性上的距离决定了跨语言迁移的可能性和程度。今后的研究应更多地采用干预或实验的方式，揭示跨语言迁移的条件和内在机制，从而对语言教学提供更为具体的指导意见。此外，关于复合词语素意识的干预研究相对较少，英文中几乎没有关于复合词的干预研究，原因可能是由于英文复合词的语义信息过于直接透明。然而复合词是英语儿童早期最早接触的多音节词语，在儿童早期阅读教学阶段关注复合词结构，能够帮助英语儿童提高词汇阅读和理解多音节词语的含义。中文的复合词结构意识教学是否能够促进句法意识和阅读理解还有待探讨。

摘要Abstract

Morphological awareness has gained much attention in the research on reading development across languages in recent two decades.Different from English highly productive in inflections and derivatives, more than 70% of Chinese words are compounds.Homophones and homographs are prevalent in Chinese. Therefore morphological awareness in Chinese has some unique characteristics.This article presents cross-language perspectives on children’s insight into the structure of compound words and learning to read Chinese and English.First, basics of compound structures in Chinese and English are introduced.Then empirical evidence on the acquisition of compound morphology and the role of compound awareness in learning to read Chinese and English is reviewed.A cross-language study of compound structure awareness by Zhang et al.(2012) compared knowledge of compound word structures in Chinese and English among 435 Chinese and 258 Americans, including second, fourth, and sixth graders, and college undergraduates.As anticipated, the results revealed that Chinese speakers performed better on a word structure analogy task than their English-speaking counterparts.Next, the article reviews recent research on crosslanguage transfer of compound awareness in Chinese and English, and pays special attention to Zhang et al’s (2010) experimental study of cross-language transfer.Not only was significant forward transfer from L1 (Chinese) to L2 (English) observed for Chinese fifth graders of all levels of ability, but also reverse transfer from L2 (English) to L1 (Chinese) was found for high proficiency children.The article concludes with the future direction of related research.

key words

Morphological awareness, Compound words, Compound structure awareness

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[1] 美国西肯塔基大学（Western Kentucky University）

[2] 安徽大学

[3] ESL为English as a Second Language的缩写，是针对母语非英语，并把英语作为第二语言的语言学习者的专业英文课程。——编者注