本 研究主要探討句法意識在香港兒童篇章閱讀理解及篇章寫作中的作用，包括三个研究。研究一主要探討句法意識是否能夠獨立預測香港兒童的篇章閱讀理解能力。 受試者為89名母語為粤語的香港五年級兒童。實驗中，受試者接受一系列認知及語言相關的個別測試。主要包括智力測驗、中文篇章閱讀理解測驗、語音意識測 驗、語素意識測驗、語義知識測驗、句法意識測驗、記憶能力測驗及詞彙能力測驗。相關分析表明兩種句法意識測驗顯著與兒童中文閱讀理解能力相關。回歸分析表明即使在控制了兒童在智力水平，語音意識，語義意識，語素意識，詞彙能力及工作記憶能力的差异的情況下，句法意識，尤其是連詞應能力，仍能夠顯著地預測兒 童在中文篇章理解的成绩。 / 研究二應用追踪研究探討句法意識在中文閱讀中的重要作用及中文篇章理解與句法意識是否是雙向相關。即兒童在低一年級的句法意識是否可以用來預測兒童在高一年的篇章閱讀理解成績及兒童在低一年級的阅读理解成績是否可以用來預測兒童在高一年級的句法能力。相關分析表明兒童在五年級的句法能力顯著與兒童六年 級的閱讀理解能力相關，五年级的阅读理解能力显著与儿童六年级的句法能力相关。回歸分析表明，兒童在五年級的句法能力能夠顯著預測兒童在六年級的篇章閱讀 理解成绩。路徑分析表明兒童的句法能力與篇章閱讀理解能力是相互影響的關係。即兒童的句法能力可以用來預測兒童的篇章閱讀理解成绩， 同時兒童的篇章閱讀理解成绩同樣可以用來測兒童的句法能力。 / 研究三主要探討句法意識在兒童篇章寫作中的重要作用。研究三主要採用追踪研究的方法。受试者与测量任务同研究二相同，这些儿童同时接受了写作能力测验。 句法任务包括句法判断和连词填写任务。同时，我们还采用了句 / 法错误分析的方法来探讨儿童写作中句法能力的发展。 相關分析表明兩種句法能力測驗顯著與兒童的寫作能力相關。回歸分析表明，兒童的 句法能力是兒童寫作能力的一個顯著预测因子。路徑分析表明兒童的句法能力與兒童的寫作能力是相互影響的關係。即兒童的句法能力可以用來預測兒童的寫作能 力， 同時兒童的寫作能力同樣可以用來測兒童的句法能力。 句法錯誤分析表明兒童在語序，詞性，成份完整性及標點符號的使用上表現出規律性的語法錯誤。本研究揭示了句法能力在兒童篇章閱讀理解及篇章寫作中的重要作用， 為中文篇章閱讀及篇章写作的困難兒童的診斷提供了重要參考。 / This research aimed to explore the role of syntactic awareness in text reading comprehension and writing composition in Hong Kong Chinese children. Three studies were included. In Study 1, the question of whether syntactic awareness uniquely correlated with text reading comprehension in Hong Kong Chinese fifth graders was examined. A total of 89 fifth graders from two primary schools were recruited (45 boys, and 44 girls, mean age = 9.15 years, SD = .43). These children were administered a set of cognitive and linguistic measures including two tasks on syntactic awareness, i.e. syntactic judgment/correction task and conjunction cloze task. The results of Study1 indicated that syntactic skills, especially knowledge of conjunctive word usage, accounted for unique variance in text reading comprehension in Chinese children even when age, nonverbal IQ, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, semantic knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, morhosyntactic knowledge and working memory as well as word reading were statistically controlled. / The purpose of Study 2 was twofold. First, it aimed to investigate the longitudinal predictive effect of syntactic awareness on text reading comprehension in Hong Kong Chinese children. Second, the bidirectional relationship between syntactic awareness and text reading comprehension was explored. A total of 129 children (50 boys and 79 girls), from a ten-year longitudinal study, were sampled. They were tested on a set of cognitive and linguistic measures including the same two syntactic tasks used as those in Study1. Results showed that syntactic awareness was longitudinally predictive of text reading comprehension, even when the contributions of children’s age, nonverbal and verbal abilities, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness were taken into account. In addition, children’s early reading comprehension was significantly correlated with their growth in syntactic awareness, suggesting a bidirectional relationship between syntactic awareness and reading comprehension. / In Study 3, the relationship between syntactic awareness and writing composition was examined in Hong Kong Chinese children. The participants and measures were the same as those in Study 2. In addition, those children were administered a writing composition task both at age 11 and 12. Results revealed that syntactic awareness was significantly predictive of children’s writing, controlling for the contribution of age, nonverbal and verbal abilities, phonological awareness and morphological awareness. Children’s performance in early writing compositions was also significantly associated with their later syntactic skills. This may suggest a reciprocal relationship between syntactic awareness and writing. In addition, syntactic error analyses revealed that children made certain syntactic errors in sentence construction and these errors were not random. / Findings in this study not only help us unravel the relations between syntactic awareness and reading comprehension and writing composition, contributing to a fuller understanding of the foundation of Chinese reading comprehension and writing composition, but also provide a potentially useful direction for the diagnosis of reading and writing difficulties for Chinese children. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Tong, Xiuhong. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-149). / Abstract also in Chinese; appendixes in Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.II / Abstract (in English) --- p.IV / Abstract (in Chinese) --- p.VII / List of Tables --- p.X / List of Figures --- p.XII / Chapter CHAPTER ONE: --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHATPER TWO: --- SYNTACTIC AWARENESS AND READING --- p.17 / Syntactic Awareness Reading in Readers of Alphabetic Languages --- p.18 / Syntactic Awareness in Chinese Children’s Reading --- p.25 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE: --- SYNTACTIC AWARENESS AND WRITING COMPOSITION --- p.31 / Model of Writing --- p.32 / Syntax and Writing in Alphabetic Languages --- p.35 / Syntax and writing in Chinese children --- p.39 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR: --- THE PRESENT STUDY --- p.42 / Study 1 --- p.46 / Study 2 --- p.62 / Study 3 --- p.78 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE: --- DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION --- p.103 / REFERENCES --- p.127 / APPENDIX --- p.150

Gu, Chenjie. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-168). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Contents / Acknowledgements / List of Abbreviations / List of Tables / Abstract / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Issues in Bilingual First Language Acquisition / Chapter 1.2 --- Minimal Default Grammar and Acquisition Stages in Child Language / Chapter 1.3 --- Input Ambiguity in Bilingual First Language Acquisition / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization of the Thesis / Chapter Chapter Two --- Theoretical Framework / Chapter 2.1 --- Dative Constructions in English and Cantonese / Chapter 2.1.1 --- English Dative Constructions / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Cantonese Dative Constructions / Chapter 2.1.3 --- The Syntax and Semantics of Dative Constructions / Chapter 2.1.3.1 --- Larson (1988): VP Shell / Chapter 2.1.3.2 --- Decomposing Dative Verbs / Chapter 2.1.3.3 --- English Double Object Datives as Low Applicative Constructions / Chapter 2.2 --- Previous Acquisition Studies on Dative Constructions / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Chan (2003): Acquisition of Cantonese Inverted Double Object Datives / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Snyder and Stromswold (1997): Acquisition Order and Parameter Setting / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Viau (2006): Lexical Decomposition and Primitives in Acquisition / Chapter Chapter Three --- "Acquisition Tasks, Hypotheses and Methodology" / Chapter 3.1 --- Acquisition Task for Bilingual Children / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Acquisition of English Dative Constructions / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Acquisition of Cantonese Dative Constructions / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Possible Areas of Crosslinguistic Influence in Bilingual Acquisition / Chapter 3.2 --- Methodology / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Cantonese-English Bilingual Children: The Hong Long Bilingual Child Language Corpus / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Monolingual English-speaking Children / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Monolingual Cantonese-speaking Children: The Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus (CANCORP) / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Measure for Acquisition / Chapter Chapter Four --- The Acquisition of English Dative Constructions / Chapter 4.1 --- Order of Emergence of Double Object Datives and Prepositional Datives / Chapter 4.2 --- The Acquisition of To-datives / Chapter 4.2.1 --- To-datives and Triadic Directional to in Bilingual Children / Chapter 4.2.2 --- To-datives and Triadic Directional to in Monolingual Children / Chapter 4.3 --- The Acquisition of For-datives / Chapter 4.3.1 --- For-datives in Bilingual Children / Chapter 4.3.2 --- For-datives in Monolingual Children / Chapter 4.3.3 --- To-datives and for-datives / Chapter 4.4 --- Double Object Datives and Dative Alternation / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Double Object Datives and Dative Alternation in Bilingual Children / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Double Object Datives and Dative Alternation in Monolingual Children / Chapter 4.5 --- Summary / Chapter Chapter Five --- The Acquisition of Cantonese Dative Constructions / Chapter 5.1 --- Order of Emergence of Cantonese Dative Constructions / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Order of Emergence in Bilingual Children / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Order of Emergence in Monolingual Children / Chapter 5.2 --- The Acquisition of Inverted Double Object Datives / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Order of Emergence and Preference of Target vs. Non-target Forms / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Underlying Form and Surface Order / Chapter 5.3 --- The Acquisition of Serial Verb Dative Constructions / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Target and Non-target Serial Verb Dative Constructions / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Serial Verb Dative Constructions and [Bei2-Goal-Theme] Constructions / Chapter 5.4 --- Summary / Chapter Chapter Six --- Discussions / Chapter 6.1 --- Crosslinguistic Influence in the Acquisition of Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Crosslinguistic Influence on English Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Crosslinguistic Influence on Cantonese Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.2 --- Vulnerable Domains in Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Vulnerable Domains in English Dative Construction / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Vulnerable Domains in Cantonese Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.3 --- Other Factors in the Acquisition of Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Input frequency / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Parameters in Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Default Grammars of Dative Constructions / Chapter 6.4 --- Summary / Chapter Chapter Seven --- Conclusions and Suggestions for Future Research / Chapter 7.1 --- Conclusions / Chapter 7.2 --- Open Questions / Chapter 7.3 --- Suggestions for Future Research / Chapter 7.3.1 --- Experimental Studies of Dative Constructions / Chapter 7.3.2 --- Dative Constructions in Other Languages / Chapter 7.3.3 --- Other Related Constructions / References

Chow Wing-yin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-73). / Abstracts in English and Chinese; questionnaires in Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.i / Table of contents --- p.iii / Abstract (English) --- p.v / Abstract (Chinese) --- p.vi / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Emergent Literacy and Language Development / Situation in Hong Kong / Parent-child Reading / Interaction during Parent-child Reading / Dialogic Reading / Dialogic Reading and Linguistic Skills / Phonological Awareness and Chinese Acquisition / Morphological Awareness and Chinese Acquisition / "Objectives, Design and Hypothesis of the Present Study" / Chapter Chapter Two --- Method --- p.22 / Participants / Measures / Procedure / Chapter Chapter Three --- Results --- p.35 / Pretest Measures / Storybook Identification / Group Improvement / Follow-up Questionnaire / Responses to the Morphological Construction task / Dialogic reading and morphology trainingiv / Chapter Chapter Four --- Discussion --- p.49 / Effectiveness of Dialogic Reading / Effectiveness of Dialogic Reading with Morphology Training / Effectiveness of Typical Reading / Significance of the Results from the Present Study / Limitations and Suggestions / Conclusion / References --- p.62 / Appendices --- p.74 / Chapter A. --- Children's questionnaire on reading / Chapter B. --- Storybook identification task / Chapter C. --- Demographic questionnaire / Chapter D. --- Follow-up questionnaire for the dialogic reading condition / Chapter E. --- Follow-up questionnaire for the dialogic reading with morphology condition / Chapter F. --- Titles of storybooks / Chapter G. --- Dialogic reading guideline / Chapter H. --- Dialogic reading bookmark / Chapter I. --- Morphology training guideline / Chapter J. --- Sample items of morphological construction training / Chapter K. --- Sample items of homophone training

中文的一個獨特之處在於，字和詞這兩個水平的單位都可以傳達意義。在中文里，字和詞分別有其獨自的特點。大多數漢字都由部件組成，這些部件多數情況下與整字的讀音和意義有關。詞通常由兩個或兩個以上的字構成，其中多數是復合詞。根據詞中字之間的關系，復合詞有五種常見結構。由於字和詞都傳達意義，於是就產生了兩個漢語中特有的問題：一是字和詞之中哪一個是閱讀加工的基本單位，二是字詞加工之間的關系如何。之前的一些研究為回答這兩個問題提供了一些依據。一些以成人閱讀者作為被試的研究發現，雖然從形式上來講，字是中文文本的基本單位，但是在閱讀中通常作為基本加工單位的是詞。有些研究也發現詞和字的加工是相互影響的。 / 但是，這些研究很少以兒童作為對象。本文中的三個實驗試圖探索上述兩個問題在兒童閱讀者之中的答案，用三年級和五年級的香港本地兒童作為被試以探討有關加工隨著年齡發展的變化。在實驗 1 中，被試被要求讀出一些單字，以及由這些單字組成的詞。結果顯示多數在單字閱讀中出現的錯誤，在讀詞時得到了更正，說明詞有助於兒童對字的識別。與年長的兒童相比，年幼兒童更容易將單字混淆於其他意義相關的單字，或者混同於那些經常與目標字一起出現組成詞的單字，這表明年幼兒童的字加工更依賴於該字經常出現的語境。實驗 2 使用偏正結構詞，並列結構詞以及非詞等三種結構的刺激檢驗了詞的結構對於詞中字的加工的影響。同預期相反，該實驗的結果表明，在偏正結構的詞中，兒童對后一個字的反應并沒有因為其與整詞意義關聯緊密而更加準確和迅速。更有甚者，三年級和五年級的兒童對於偏正結構詞中前一個字的表現都好於后一個字，並且與並列結構詞和非詞相比，偏正結構中前一個字較之后一個字的優勢似乎更加突出。 / 雖然結果與預期不相符，但是三年級和五年級兒童表現比較一致，說明詞結構很有可能確實對其中的字的加工產生了影響，但是這個影響的機制並未由實驗 2揭示出。實驗 3 比較了字音和字形在詞加工中的作用。實驗結果顯示，與年長兒童相比，年幼兒童對於詞的閱讀更加依賴於讀音。探索字詞加工之間的關系需要更多的研究提供證據，而本研究的三個實驗則為以后的研究提供了一些方向。 / One of the unique features in Chinese is that two levels of unit, character and word, are both related to meaning. Both of them have their own features. Most characters are composed by radicals which may give a cue to the characters’ pronunciation and meaning. Words are mostly composed by no less than two characters, and most of them are compound words which usually have 5 types of morphological structures according to the relationship between the meaning of the whole word and its component characters. Since both characters and words convey meaning, two questions arise: which of them is the basic unit of processing when people read, and what is the relationship between readers’ character and word processing. Previous research has provided some evidence to answer these questions. Although characters are the basic graphic units in Chinese script, several studies have shown that adults’ reading is based on words rather than on characters. Meanwhile, it has been found that the processing of words and characters also affect each other. / However, not many studies used children as participants. In this thesis, three experiments were designed to explore these two questions. Children of grade 3 and 5 in Hong Kong primary school were used as participants to investigate the developmental change. In experiment 1, children were asked to read single characters and words that were composed by these characters. Results showed that words actually helped children to recognize characters, for most errors in single character reading got corrected in word reading. Compared to older children, younger children’s character processing was more likely to rely on the context that the character might appear, for they had more errors than older children of confusing the correct character with the word related or meaning related ones. In experiment 2, the effect of word’s morphological structure on the component characters was examined. Three types of structures, i.e., modifier words, coordinative words and nonwords were used to make comparison. The results were opposite to the expectations, for the closer relationship with the word didn’t get any advantage for the second characters in modifier words in lexical decision task. Moreover, both P3 and P5 children’s performance in modifier words on the first character was better than on the second character, and this difference was even larger than in coordinative words and nonwords. Since children of both grades showed the same pattern, the word’s morphological structure still seemed to have effects on the component characters processing, although the mechanism was not clear. Experiment 3 compared the influence of pronunciation and graphemic similarity on word reading, and compared to older children, younger children were more likely to rely on pronunciation, which was consistent with previous studies. This study provided possible directions for future study, and more evidence on the relation between children’s character and word processing is still needed. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Li, Tong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-62). / Abstracts also in Chinese; appendix includes Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Abstract (in Chinese) --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.v / Table of contents --- p.vi / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Introduction of the basic characteristics of Chinese characters and words --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- The relationship between processing of word and character --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3 --- The present study --- p.15 / Chapter 2 --- Experiment 1 --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1 --- Method --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Participants --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Material --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- Results --- p.20 / Chapter 2.3 --- Discussion --- p.26 / Chapter 3 --- Experiment 2 --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1 --- Method --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Participants --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Material --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Procedures --- p.33 / Chapter 3.2 --- Results --- p..34 / Chapter 3.3 --- Discussion --- p.35 / Chapter 4 --- Experiment 3 --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1 --- Method --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Participants --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Material --- p.38 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Procedures --- p.39 / Chapter 4.2 --- Results --- p..40 / Chapter 4.3 --- Discussion --- p.42 / Chapter 5 --- General Discussion --- p.43 / Appendix --- p.48 / Bibliography --- p.54

The results showed that the students' Chinese language ability is low, especially their literacy skills. There was significant discrepancy between the students' oral and written language competence. Further analyses were conducted in accordance with models derived from the simple view of reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), in which reading comprehension is assumed to be the product of decoding and linguistic comprehension. The analyses showed that the language-literacy discrepancy was related to the students' poor decoding ability. The students' reading comprehension performance was related more closely to Chinese character recognition ability than their linguistic comprehension competence. Moreover, the students' Chinese orthographic awareness and knowledge was found to be related to Chinese character recognition. The effect of the former on reading comprehension was mediated through the latter. / The study supports the relevance of the simple view model for understanding learning to read Chinese by second language learners. Studies of reading in alphabetic languages adopting the simple view have shown that the importance of decoding relative to linguistic comprehension depends on the developmental stage and proficiency of the readers, as well as orthographic transparency of the language. These results are consistent with our finding that for the participants in this study who were in upper primary level learning a deep orthography (i.e., Chinese), decoding accounts for more variance in reading performance than linguistic comprehension. Furthermore, just like understanding of the alphabetic principle helps reading in alphabetic languages, awareness and knowledge of the structural properties of Chinese characters, that is, the componential structures of the orthography and their phonetic and semantic functions, have a facilitative effect on Chinese character recognition and reading performance. Educational implications for the Hong Kong ethnic minority students and for Chinese second language learning were discussed. / This study investigated acquisition of Chinese literacy by ethnic minority children in Hong Kong primary schools. Ninety-seven primary-four ethnic minority students from four schools participated in the study. Their Chinese orthographic awareness and knowledge, Chinese character recognition ability, Chinese listening comprehension and reading comprehension competence were assessed. / Wong, Yu Ka. / Advisers: Pui Wan Cheng; Ling Po Shiu. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-02, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ed.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-131). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese; some appendixes also in Chinese.