Morphological and cognate awareness in L2 Japanese word learning: evidence from Chinese-speaking learners

The current study reported an empirical investigation that tested the collective and individual effects of morphological awareness and cognate awareness on Japanese word learning among Chinese learners of Japanese. 131 Chinese learners of Japanese participated in this study. They completed morphological awareness measurements (morpheme segmentation, morpheme analysis and homophone awareness), cognate awareness measurements that tapped into three different types of bilingual cognates, as well as two word-learning measurements (definitional knowledge and lexical inference). Drawing upon multivariate regression analysis, the study demonstrated that cognate awareness contributed to L2 Japanese word learning. Awareness of false cognates yielded stronger predictions in both outcome measurements. Regarding morphological awareness, the study indicated that morphological awareness had a unique contribution to L2 Japanese word learning above and beyond cognate awareness. More specifically, the findings underscored the importance of morpheme analysis and homophone awareness in Japanese word learning.