Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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Unpacking cross-linguistic similarities and

differences in third language Japanese vocabulary
acquisition among Chinese college students

Haomin Zhang, Yuting Han, Xi Cheng, Jie Sun & Shoran Ohara

To cite this article: Haomin Zhang, Yuting Han, Xi Cheng, Jie Sun & Shoran Ohara (2021):
Unpacking cross-linguistic similarities and differences in third language Japanese vocabulary
acquisition among Chinese college students, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development,
DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2020.1865987

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1865987

Published online: 17 Jan 2021.

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JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1865987

Unpacking cross-linguistic similarities and differences in third

language Japanese vocabulary acquisition among Chinese
college students
a
Haomin Zhang , Yuting Hana, Xi Chenga, Jie Suna and Shoran Oharab
a
Department of English, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; bDepartment of
Japanese, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The study examined the role of Chinese-Japanese cognate awareness in Received 7 August 2020
Japanese vocabulary acquisition among college Chinese learners of Accepted 14 December 2020
Japanese. Thirty-seven college-level students participated in this study and
KEYWORDS
they completed a bilingual cognate awareness test which covered both Cognate awareness; false
crosslinguistic similarities and differences. In addition, vocabulary learning cognates; word-meaning
measurements including vocabulary knowledge and lexical inference inference; logographic
ability were also administered to them. The results showed that Chinese- reading; Japanese as a
Japanese cognate awareness in general predicted vocabulary knowledge foreign language education
and lexical inference. More critically, the awareness of false cognates was in China
found to systematically predict all the tested vocabulary measurements.
The discussion emphasised the cognitive demands and language
specificity underlying the cognate facilitation of vocabulary acquisition.

Vocabulary acquisition in Japanese

Vocabulary acquisition plays a vital role in language learning because vocabulary is the fundamental
building block to form the initial semantic understandings in language processing. Vocabulary
knowledge consists of three core parts, namely form, meaning and use (Nation 2001). ‘Form’
includes spoken and written forms which refer to the phonological and graphic encodings of a
word. ‘Meaning’ is defined as the mapping between word form and its conceptual representations.
Finally, ‘use’ is the knowledge of grammatical functions, collocational patterns and constraints on
language use. Existing studies have provided empirical evidence to support vocabulary knowledge
and word learning abilities among second language (L2) learners of alphabetic languages (English in
particular) (Haynes and Baker 1993; Pulido 2003; Nassaji 2004). Recently, there has been a growing
interest in the exploration of L2 vocabulary acquisition of non-alphabetic languages (Ke and Koda
2017; Zhang and Koda 2018).
Japanese language is a distinct language which has two integrated writing systems: logographic
kanji (Chinese characters) and phonographic kana (Koda 2017). Japanese kana (including cursive
hiragana and angular katakana) is also a full-fledged system that is encoded as syllabaries in the
writing system while Chinese pinyin (a Romanised alphabetic system) is an auxiliary system with-
out being encoded in the writing system (Taylor and Taylor 2014). Japanese kana and kanji are
encoded as phonographic and ideographic symbols in the Japanese writing system (Kono 1975).
There are two types of spoken sounds in the same kanji, i.e. on reading and kun reading. The former
is Chinese loan sound widely used in multiple-character kanji words, while the latter is Japanese

CONTACT Haomin Zhang hmzhang@english.ecnu.edu.cn 500 Dongchuan Road, Foreign Languages Building, East China
Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200241
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 H. ZHANG ET AL.

original sound applied to mono-kanji word (Koda 2017). On sound does not correspond to any
semantic meaningful units in spoken language only if it bounds two or more different kanjis, so
three types of errors in kanji identification may occur, i.e. kun-sound substitution, homophone
and phonological reversal, which stem from the complexity of the kanji system and its variety of
sound mappings (Koda 2017).
In first language (L1) Japanese reading research, a cross-script transfer exits between hiragana
and kanji. Through testing 142 first grade students in Japan, Inoue et al. (2019) found that hiragana
reading fluency and kanji reading fluency correlated moderately to highly over two years. In
addition, morphological awareness of Japanese appeared to play a significant role for L1 Japanese
children in cross-script transfer from hiragana to kanji by comparing the results of participants for
hiragana reading test and kanji test (Inoue et al. 2017). The reason might be that kana is also a pho-
netic system for the pronunciation of kanji.
Research has also empirically verified the cross-script transfer in word recognition between Japa-
nese and other writing systems. Kana, as noted above, are the syllabaries of the Japanese writing
system that encode sounds. Because of its phonographic nature, it resembles sound and graphic
representations in alphabetic languages. Cross-script priming effects were found from hiragana
and katakana of Japanese to upper and lowercase forms of letters in Roman alphabet (Schubert,
Gawthrop, and Kinoshita 2018). Japanese kanji was derived from Chinese characters hanzi. In
Korea, hanja, Chinese character, was previously used as one component of the Korean writing
system. Therefore, the effect of cross-script transfer may be more direct and transparent within
the cultural circle of characters (hanzi, kanji, hanja). CNS (Chinese native speakers who learn
Japanese), JNS (Japanese native speakers who learn Chinese) and KNS (Korean native speakers
who learn Japanese) are the target participants to test the cross-script transfer. Empirical evidence
has affirmed that phonological and orthographic similarities enhance cross-language transfer in L2
Chinese and Japanese learners with logographic backgrounds (Han 2017; Wei 2017; Zhang 2018).
Fei (2015) argues that CNS utilise both Chinese orthographic and phonological representations of
lexicon to learn Japanese kanji.
In summary, Japanese visual word identification is cognitively and linguistically demanding
because of the mixture of different writing systems (ideograph and syllabary) in Japanese. Japanese
vocabulary learning requires both Romanised alphabetic knowledge and logographic character
knowledge.

Cognate awareness and its role in vocabulary learning

Second language or bilingual development benefits from dual language involvement because cross-
linguistic resource sharing enhances learning processes. The cross-linguistic similarity may induce
the cognate facilitation effect that refers to the phenomenon that second language or bilingual stu-
dents have cognate strategies in word recognition and production (Costa, Caramazza, and Sebas-
tian-Galles 2000; Costa, Santesteban, and Caño 2005; Rosselli et al. 2014). Cognates refer to the
lexical items whose graphic forms are encoded similarly across languages (Beinborn, Zesch, and
Gurevych 2014). Cognate awareness was defined as the learners’ sensitivity to the relationship
between two phonologically or orthographically similar words in different languages and the ability
to derive the meaning of an unknown word in one language from a familiar counterpart in another
language (Cunningham and Graham 2000; Malabonga et al. 2008; Nagy et al. 1993).
Early bilingual exposure entails learners to use cognateness as an important vocabulary learning
strategy (Bravo, Hiebert, and Pearson 2007; Jiménez, García, and Pearson 1996; Méndez-Pérez,
Peña, and Bedore 2010; Proctor and Mo 2009). Jiménez, García, and Pearson (1996) explored stra-
tegic learning processes among eightEnglish-Spanish bilingual children who were proficient in Eng-
lish. Through think-alouds, interviews, measurements of prior knowledge and passage recalls, they
identified three critical learning strategies among successful English learners: (1) cross-linguistic
transfer of information (2) translation from one language to another, and (3) access to cognate
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 3

vocabulary in reading. Bilingual children constantly encountered English novel words in reading.
Successful readers were able to draw on crosslinguistic resources, cognates in particular, to con-
struct meanings. Similarly, Proctor and Mo (2009) examined the contribution of Spanish-English
cognate knowledge to English vocabulary acquisition among school-age English language learners
(ELLs). Both ELLs and monolingual English students were tested on cognate awareness and voca-
bulary performance. The findings demonstrated that cognate awareness facilitated English vocabu-
lary acquisition and was positively related to reading comprehension in the ELL group. Méndez-
Pérez, Peña, and Bedore (2010) further tested the kindergarten and first grade Spanish-English
bilingual children’s ability to recognise Spanish cognates thus probing into the relationship between
cognate recognition and English vocabulary. Cognate and non-cognate vocabulary knowledge was
measured by the Test of Language Development-Primary:3 (TOLD-P:3). Their performance was
compared based on bilingual exposure (balanced exposure, high English exposure and high Spanish
exposure). The results exhibited a significant relationship between cognate awareness and the
amount of language exposure. Children with intensive Spanish exposure were advantageous in pro-
cessing cognate vocabulary knowledge. More strikingly, the results demonstrated that kindergar-
teners were aware of Spanish-English cognates as long as they had extended language exposure.
In addition to the exploration of cognates in Spanish-English bilingual and biliteracy develop-
ment, a few studies have explored cognates in other language pairs including Dutch–English,
Dutch–German, Dutch–French (De Groot and Keijzer 2000), Polish-English (Otwinowska and
Szewczyk 2019; Otwinowska et al. 2020), and French-English (Hipfner-Boucher et al. 2016). De
Groot and Keijzer (2000) scrutinised Dutch speakers’ foreign language vocabulary development
in English, German and French. The cognate status was included as an indicator of paired-associate
learning. Retention accuracy and response times of vocabulary performance were coded to analyse
the pattern of vocabulary development. The findings attested to the evidence that Dutch-speaking
foreign language learners were able to learn cognate words more efficiently. Hipfner-Boucher et al.
(2016) explored the development of cognate awareness and its role in French as a second language
development among students in the Canadian French immersion context. They tested cognate
awareness and reading comprehension, and the results also found that cognate awareness were
acquired at an early elementary age and it progressed across time. Most recently, Otwinowska
and her colleagues (2019, 2020) further explored the developmental pattern of both cognate and
false cognates among Polish-speaking English learners. Otwinowska and Szewczyk (2019) found
that Polish speakers identified cognate vocabulary more accurately whereas false cognates were
retrieved worse than non-cognate vocabulary. Interestingly, Otwinowska et al. (2020) conducted
a quasi-experimental study to examine whether cognate awareness raising enhances cognate voca-
bulary learning. The experiments controlled L2 frequency and concreteness in choosing target cog-
nates, false cognates and noncognates. Before the intervention, the participants were more likely to
recognise cognate vocabulary. However, awareness-raising intervention did not enhance the acqui-
sition of cognates and false cognates.
The aforementioned studies have explored the development of cognate awareness and its role in
vocabulary learning. Cognate awareness comes into play once learners have language exposure.
Cognate vocabulary seems to be retrieved and memorised more efficiently, however, the role of cog-
nate awareness in vocabulary development is uncertain given that awareness raising does not
necessarily enhance cognate vocabulary acquisition. Most of the studies have emphasised cognate
awareness in alphabetic languages and a dearth of studies have examined the development of cog-
nate awareness and its role in non-alphabetic languages (logographic languages in particular).

Crosslinguistic similarities and differences: cognateness in Chinese and Japanese

Chinese-Japanese cognates are words which share the same orthographic representations of char-
acters in both languages (Liu 2006). The characters include: identical characters in Chinese and
Japanese, such as ‘学校-学校(school)’; variants which are formed by character-simplification
4 H. ZHANG ET AL.

respectively in Chinese and Japanese, such as ‘车-車(vehicle)’; Japanese kanji ended with gramma-
tical hiragana, such as ‘打-打つ(hit)’; and reverse-order words like ‘命运-運命(destiny)’.
If we take a dictionary of 8,000 lexical entries as an example, the proportion of Chinese-Japanese
cognates in modern Japanese and Chinese ranges from 41.00% to 55.50% (Han 2017; Wan 2004).
Among them, the number of two-character words is the largest, accounting for more than 90% of all
Chinese-Japanese cognates (Wan 2004). Due to the large number of shared characters and cognate
words, Japanese kanji is easier to learn for native Chinese speakers compared with learners from
other language backgrounds (Lien 2013). CNS make semantic inferences by kanjis in reading
while the transliterating strategy leads to semantic transfer which may raise misunderstandings.
It should be noted that cognates with different semantic categories enhance or hinder semantic
understandings across languages. Chinese-Japanese cognates can be divided into three categories
base on the semantic relationship between the Chinese hanzi and the Japanese kanji: Same (S),
Overlapped(O) and Different(D). The S type indicates the same meaning underlying one bilingual
cognate. The D type (false cognate) implies the different semantic meanings under one cognate. The
O type is intricate because it includes different linguistic situations (e.g. part of speech, semantic
scope, frequency). The most salient feature of the O-type is that pairs of words in two
languages have some common meanings whereas the most frequent meaning of each language var-
ies (Zhu 2009). Based on various data sources, the S-type takes a proportion of 85%; the O-type has
approximately 10% and the D-type has 5% (Han 2017; Li 1990; Qu 2006; Wan 2004). Examples of
the three types are shown below in Table 1.
The presumed level of difficulties is ordered as S < D < O indicating that the O type is the most
difficult for nonnative L2 speakers. It is self-evident that the S-type true cognates share the same
semantic and orthographic representations which enhance rapid memorisation. Because of the
cross-linguistic difference, the D-type false cognates are relatively easy to distinguish although
efforts are needed to memorise the different semantic meanings. However, the O-type seems to
be most challenging because learners need to be aware of word frequency and its corresponding
meanings in both languages (Lu 2000; Wang 1999; Zhu 2009). Empirical studies emphasising the
JNS and CNS learner population have found that error rates in the O and D types are higher
than those in the S type based on a semantic judgment task (Chen 2003; Han 2017). In terms of
the reaction times, O-type processing takes longer than D-type processing (Komori, Tamaoka,
and Shindo 2008). The O-type cognates have shared semantic inferences but are used across differ-
ent semantic scopes and categories, which entail metalinguistic awareness and subsequently con-
tribute to vocabulary and reading acquisition (Han 2017; Lu 2000).
Word frequency is an extensively studied factor in vocabulary difficulty. Moreover, understand-
ing semantic relationships has a significant effect on processing Chinese-Japanese cognates from ab
initio learners to highly competent learners (Komori, Tamaoka, and Shindo 2008). Focusing on the
semantic recognition of S-type words, for instance, Han (2017) found that the predicting effects of
Chinese vocabulary were more closely related with semantic categories than word frequency among
JNS without Chinese learning experience. It is relatively easy to identify synonymies with high-fre-
quency, early, or daily-life vocabulary (Li 2014) as well as low-frequency academic interloans (loan
and anti-loan) (Beinborn, Zesch, and Gurevych 2014; Wang 2009) because academic words are
contextually constrained and can hold semantic information as context-bound chunks.

Table 1. Examples of Chinese-Japanese cognate types (extracted from Wan 2004).

Type Examples
S-type 練習-练习　The word means ‘practice’ in both Chinese and Japanese
O-type 人間-人间　In both Chinese and Japanese, the word can mean ‘world/real life’. However, in Japanese,
the high frequent meanings are ‘human beings’ and ‘characteristics’.
D-type (false 顔色-颜色 In Chinese, the word refers to ‘color’ where it means ‘skin color/complexion’ in Japanese
cognates)
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 5

As noted above, cognates can be learned efficiently and stored in memory for a long period of
time. The overlap of form and sound in cognates facilitates L2 reading comprehension (Matsumi,
Fei, and Cai 2012). Prior research has shown that cognates correlate with skimming and free written
recall (Souza 2003), and found a positive correlation between the number of cognates in the text and
its text readability (Uitdenbogerd 2005). However, false cognates (O and D type words) have the
opposite effect on readability given that they may engender inaccurate intepretations(Beinborn,
Zesch, and Gurevych 2014).
The review of literature has underlined the role of vocabulary knowledge in Japanese language
learning as well as the uniqueness of the Japanese orthography. The mixed writing system of Japa-
nese creates challenges for L2 learners to memorise and retrieve lexical information. Given the
cross-linguistic similarities and differences of cognates between Chinese and Japanese, Japanese
vocabulary development among Chinese-speaking students is an interesting and valuable research
venue. Through unpacking the effects of cognates on vocabulary acquisition, we would be able to
understand the mechanism and utilities of cross-linguistic resources in Japanese vocabulary devel-
opment. To be more specific, the current study aims to address the role of different cognate types in
Japanese vocabulary development (vocabulary knowledge and word-meaning inference ability)
among Chinese-speaking learners. Two research questions were addressed in the study: (1).
What are the developmental patterns of Chinese-Japanese cognate awareness among Chinese lear-
ners of Japanese? (2). To what extent does Chinese-Japanese cognate awareness contribute to Japa-
nese vocabulary acquisition among Chinese learners of Japanese?

Method
Participants
Thirty-seven college-level Chinese learners of Japanese (10 males and 27 females, Mean age = 19.7) par-
ticipated in this study. The participating students were from a leading university in Shanghai, China.
Their second language or first foreign language was English and they were enrolled in Japanese as a
second and foreign language class. Prior to data collection, they had formally studied Japanese in the
classroom setting for at least one year. Based on the self reporting, the average months of learning
were 22.5. All the participants were recruited from an e-flyer. The researchers obtained their written
consent before the test. All measurements were administered to them individually or in a small
group session (2–3 students per session). The total time allotment for the entire test was 60 minutes.

The study context

Japanese language education remains relatively stable yet promising in China, due to the geographic
proximity and frequent cultural communication between China and Japan. According to the stat-
istics from the Japan Foundation (2018), the population of Chinese people who learn Japanese has
reached 1,004,000, which ranked the first place around the world. In detail, there are more than
600,000 students who study Japanese language during the college period, among whom 245,700 stu-
dents study as their major (Xiu 2018). Driven by this trend, 506 colleges and universities in China,
nearly one-half of undergraduate institutes in China, have now established the major of Japanese
language and culture. Japanese learners have become the second largest foreign language learner
population in China and the number of college Japanese majors has exceeded that of less commonly
taught foreign languages in China (e.g. Russian, Korean, French, German, Spanish) (Xiu 2011). As
for the curriculum design of college-level Japanese courses, it lays emphasis on core linguistic com-
petencies including listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation (Xiu 2018). For Japanese
major students, they are supposed to achieve an advanced level of competence after 4-year college
study; and most of them are employed in Japanese foreign-invested companies in China or
language-related consulting firms.
6 H. ZHANG ET AL.

Test battery
Chinese-Japanese cognate awareness
The cognate semantic judging task modelled after Wang (2013) was designed to capture learners’ abil-
ities to distinguish semantic similarities or differences between Chinese and Japanese word-pairs. The
test consisted of 21 word-pairs and the target Japanese words were selected from the JLPT (Japanese-
Language Proficiency Test) Test (10 items from level 2 and 11 items from level 3). Of the 21 word-
pairs, 3 sematic categories – S, O, D – were balanced (7 word pairs in each category), and the testing
order was randomised. For example, a cognate pair, 经济-経済 (economy) was shown to the partici-
pants and they were then asked to indicate whether the two words in the word-pair shared the same
meaning by drawing √ or ×. The Japanese meaning of the word 経済 needed to be written down if
the participants judged that the two words did not share the same meaning. Responses to the three
semantic categories were coded respectively as below: (1) in the S category, 3 points were given for
each accurate answer (√ was drawn), 0 was given for each wrong answer (× was drawn); (2) in
the O category, 3 points were awarded if × was marked along with the correct meaning translation;
2 points were given if × was marked along with an inaccurate or null meaning translation; and 1 point
was awarded if √ was drew; (3) in the D category, 3 points were given if × was marked with the cor-
rect meaning production; 1 point was given if inaccurate and null meaning translations were provided
after the marked ×, finally 0 point was given if √ was marked. The inter-rater reliability for the
measurement was .90.

Japanese vocabulary knowledge

The Japanese vocabulary knowledge measurements consisted of two tasks, including kana knowl-
edge and kanji knowledge. All test items were adopted from the JLPT.

Kana knowledge
Kana knowledge asked the participants to map graphic kana symbols onto visually presented kanji
words. A total of 20 kana items were adapted from the JLPT level 2, and the correct answers were
balanced on on reading and kun reading. In this task, four multiple choices were presented in kana
to assess whether students could successfully choose the right kana representations of lexical items.
For example, 腕 (wrist) was presented in decontextualised situation together with four possible
choices: A. うで, B．むね, C．わき, D. ひじ. The reliability of all 20 items was α＝.832.

Kanji knowledge
Kanji knowledge asked the participants to map kanji onto visually presented kana. With regard to
kanji knowledge, a total of 20 items were also adapted from the JLPT level 2 and level 3 (ten items
from each level). When selecting the items, we controlled and balanced part of speech, spelling
(mono-kanji words; multiple-character kanji words; mono-kanji words with kana followed) and
pronunciation (on reading and kun reading), in order to ensure the ratio of test items were even
in each facet. In this task, students were asked to choose the right kanji in a sentence based on pro-
nunciations of underlined kana items. For example, ‘ 昨日からかたが痛いんです’ (Since yester-
day, my shoulder has been aching). Four choices were visually presented: A. 腰, B. 腹, C.背, D. 肩.
The reliability of all 20 items was α＝.754.

Japanese word-meaning inference ability

In the measurements of word-meaning inference, the participants were asked to infer the meanings
of visually presented Japanese words. Each Japanese word was chosen from the JLPT test. To
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 7

eliminate the possibility of familiarity and reduce potential inference of context surrounding the
words, a pilot test was conducted and administered to six level-appropriate Japanese
learners prior to the actual testing.

Definitional knowledge
The definitional knowledge task measured the students’ ability to choose appropriate word mean-
ings based on given prompts. The participants were expected to utilise both morphological (kanji-
induced cues) and semantic (prompt-induced meanings) information to choose the most appropri-
ate Japanese word according to the descriptions. For example, one description, 苦労や心配がな
く、のんびりしているさま (In a relaxing state without any tiredness or worry) was presented
to the participants and two-kanji words with different morphological cues were provided in Japa-
nese, 手軽 (portable), 簡易 (simple), 軽快(nimble), 気楽 (relaxed). The last option ‘気楽’ would be
chosen if the participants accurately retrieved the meaning from the prompt and identified the
differences among the four kanji words. The reliability of all 20 items was α = .854.

Lexical inference ability

The lexical inference ability measured the students’ ability to infer word meanings in context.
The target words were controlled based on the difficulty level, spelling and part of speech. The
participants were expected to utilise both word-internal (character/kanji) and word-external (con-
textual) information to choose the appropriate Japanese word to fill in the blank. For instance, one
incomplete sentence, 全員が自分の意見を＿＿をしたので、会議がなかなか終わらなかった
(Given that everyone ___ his ideas, it is time to end this meeting) was presented to the participants
and four grammatically identical options (Japanese gerund) were provided in Japanese, 命令
(order), 返信 (reply), 主張 (raise), 注文 (book). The third option ‘主張’ would be chosen if the
participants used both character/kanji and contextual information. The reliability of all 20 items
was α = .796.

Results
The Table 2 shows the descriptive results of the tested variables. In the tasks of cognate aware-
ness, the S-type of Chinese-Japanese bilingual cognate awareness had the highest accuracy rate
(95%) while the D-type of cognate awareness had the lowest accuracy rate (40.5%). The voca-
bulary knowledge measurements (kana and kanji knowledge) had adequate spread with appro-
priate accuracy rates. The word-meaning inference tasks had relatively wide dispersion based
on the standard deviations. The accuracy rates were lower compared with those of kana
and kanji knowledge.
The correlation table (Table 3) presents the results of correlational coefficients between bilingual
cognate awareness and Japanese vocabulary knowledge measurements (including vocabulary

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of cognate awareness (S-O-D types), vocabulary knowledge and word-meaning inference abilities.
Variables Min Max M SD
Cognate-Same (21) 12 21 19.95 1.90
Cognate-Overlap (21) 7 17 12.41 2.70
Cognate-Different (21) 0 21 8.51 4.39
Kana Knowledge (20) 10 20 15.16 2.67
Kanji Knowledge (20) 13 20 17.84 1.91
Definitional Knowledge (20) 5 20 13.35 3.67
Lexical Inference (20) 3 20 13.46 4.27
Note: N = 37. Numbers in the parentheses represent the maximum score of each task/component.
8 H. ZHANG ET AL.

Table 3. Correlational matrix of cognate awareness and vocabulary measurements in Japanese.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Cognate-Same –
2. Cognate-Overlap −.012 –
3. Cognate-Different −.013 .413** –
4. Kana Knowledge .232 .279 .471** –
5. Kanji Knowledge .204 .347* .471** .583*** –
6. Definitional Knowledge .198 .352* .435** .615*** .699*** –
7. Lexical Inference .267 .361* .440** .648*** .793*** .782*** –
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Table 4. Multiple regressions predicting Japanese vocabulary knowledge by cognate awareness measurements.
Regression 3:
Regression 1: Kana Regression 2: Kanji Definitional Regression 4:
Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Lexical Inference
β t β t β t β t
Cognate-Same .239 1.62 .212 1.45 .205 1.38 .274 1.89
Cognate-Overlap .104 .634 .185 1.16 .210 1.28 .218 1.37
Cognate-Different .432 2.68* .395 2.48* .352 2.15* .354 2.23*
R2 .288 .295 .268 .308
Standard Error (SE) 2.36 1.67 3.28 3.71
ΔF 4.44* 4.61** 4.02* 4.89**
*p < .05, **p < .01.

knowledge and word-meaning inference). Within the types of cognate awareness, the S-type had no
correlations with the O-type and the D-type. The O-type cognate awareness had a significant and
moderate correlation with the D-type cognate awareness (r = .41, p < .005). Within the four voca-
bulary measurements, the results demonstrated that all variables had moderate to high
correlations (r = .58, p < .01 to r = .79, p < .001). The S-type cognate awareness had weak
correlations with kana knowledge, kanji knowledge, definitional knowledge and lexical inference
(r = .20, p > .05 to r = .27, p > .05). The O-type cognate awareness had weak to moderate correlations
with the tested vocabulary measurements (r = .28, p > .05 to r = .36, p < .05). The D-type cognate
awareness had significant and moderate correlations with the tested variables (r = .44, p < .01 to
r = .47, p < .01).
A series of multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the relative contributions of
cognate awareness facets to vocabulary knowledge and word-meaning inference abilities. Over-
all, the three-predictor models (three facets of cognate) were able to account for the significant
variance of vocabulary knowledge and word-meaning inference (c.f. Table 4). In the first
regression, the facets of cognate awareness explained 28.8% of the total variance in kana
knowledge, F(3, 33) = 4.44, p < .05, R2 = .288. The D-type cognate awareness had a significant
effect on kana knowledge, β = .432, t = 2.68, p<.05. In the second regression, the three facets
of cognate awareness collectively predicted 29.5% of the total variance in kanji knowledge,
F(3, 33) = 4.61, p < .01, R2 = .295. More specifically, the D-type cognate was the only significant
indicator, β = .395, t = 2.48, p < .05. In the third regression, the three facets explained 26.8%
of the total variance in definitional knowledge, F(3, 33) = 4.02, p < .05, R2 = .268. Similarly,
the D-type cognate awareness made a significant and unique contribution to definitional
knowledge, β = .352, t = 2.15, p < .05. Finally, the collective contribution to lexical inference
was significant given that 30.8% of the total variance was predicted by cognate awareness,
F(3, 33) = 4.89, p < .01, R2 = .308. The D-type cognate awareness was still the only significant
indicator, β = .354, t = 2.23, p < .05.
To summarise, Chinese-Japanese cognate awareness in general contributed to vocabulary
knowledge and word-meaning inference. More critically, the D-type cognate awareness was
found to systematically predict all the tested vocabulary measurements.
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 9

Discussion
The current study verifiedthe evidence that Chinese-speaking Japanese learners had various levels
of cognate awareness with regard to the word types. The learners had the 95% accuracy of true cog-
nate awareness (S-type cognates) while they only had the 40.5% accuracy rate in false-cognate
awareness (D-type cognates). In addition, cognate awareness generally predicted vocabulary
measurements including vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary meaning inference. To be more
precise, awareness of false cognates (D-type cognates) systematically contributed to all the outcome
measurements. The study yielded some unique and interpretable empirical evidence that need
further explication. We would like to discuss the findings based on the mechanism of cognate voca-
bulary and awareness as well as the role of cognate awareness in Japanese vocabulary acquisition.

Patterns of cognate awareness

Word learning is fundamental to second or foreign language learning because vocabulary creates
basic semantic bundles in local and global meaning construction. Cognate vocabulary provides a
natural window for us to explore associative word learning given that bilingual cognates enhance
the linkage between L2 words and their L1 counterparts. De Groot and Keijzer (2000) tested
Dutch speakers’ foreign language (English, German and French) vocabulary learning and retention
through the lens of paired-associate learning. The cognate status was one of the indicators in pair
association. The results indicated that cognate words in foreign language were easier to recall and
memorise, which were in line with the findings of the current study that Japanese learners were
able to identify true cognates (the S-type). However, the question remains as to whether cognates
and false cognates triggered different patterns of development. False cognates are phonologically or
orthographically similar words but have different meanings. Recall of false cognates necessitates a dis-
tinct cognitive route and bilingual speakers suppress the awareness of crosslinguistic similarities
(Baird, Palacios, and Kibler 2016). As mentioned above, Otwinowska and Szewczyk (2019) explored
the developmental pattern of cognates and false cognates among Polish-speaking English learners and
found that Polish learners of English recognised cognates better than non-cognate words and that
false cognates were known worse than the non-cognate controls. It is also worth noting that the mean-
ing retrieval of cognates and false cognates was not influenced by the frequency of their corresponding
L1 words and that accurate recognition and activation of meanings were modulated by the ortho-
graphic similarity between L2 words and L1 equivalents. In conjunction with the findings of the pre-
sent study, meanings of Chinese-Japanese cognates (the S-type) were retrieved more accurately than
false cognates (the D-type). When encountering graphically-similar words, L2 learners tend to acti-
vate L1 equivalents (Dressler et al. 2011; Nagy et al. 1993). Activation of true cognates is less demand-
ing because a direct lexical link can be established between L1 and L2, however, activation of false
cognates seems to be more challenging because learners have to be aware of the orthographic simi-
larity as well as the semantic discrepancy. Previous studies underscored the trajectories of cognates
and false cognates in alphabetic languages. Chinese-Japanese cognates provide a unique venue for
the examination of word recognition and meaning activation in logographic languages. Cognates
of characters (Chinese hanzi or Japanese kanji) entail the graphosemantic or graphomorphological
identification instead of the pure graphophonological activation. Chinese learners of Japanese can
recognise the graphic similarities between L2 and L1 equivalents; however, the low accuracy rate of
false cognates suggests that the development of false-cognate vocabulary do not benefit from cross-
linguistic resources. Learners have to discern the crosslinguistic differences between L1 and L2,
and memorise false cognates as non-homographic words.

Cognate awareness and vocabulary acquisition

The tested outcomes further testified to the significant relationship between cognate awareness and
Japanese vocabulary acquisition. Proctor and Mo (2009) explored the effect of Spanish-English
10 H. ZHANG ET AL.

cognate knowledge on English vocabulary acquisition among Spanish-English ELLs and found that
cognate knowledge gave ELLs facilitations in understanding English vocabulary knowledge. Simi-
larly, Baird, Palacios, and Kibler (2016) focused on the Spanish-English bilingual population and
found that bilingual children who had strong cognate awareness tended to have advantages in bilin-
gual vocabulary outcomes. A majority of existing studies have shown that the positive relationship
between cognate awareness and bilingual advantages in vocabulary and literacy among alphabetic
readers (August et al. 2005; Dressler et al. 2011; Hipfner-Boucher et al. 2016). The current study
further expanded the results to the Chinese-Japanese bilingual population and found that cognate
awareness in general contributed to vocabulary knowledge (kanji and kana knowledge) and voca-
bulary learning abilities (definitional knowledge and meaning inference).
Before we interpret the distinctiveness of cognate awareness in Japanese vocabulary acquisition,
it is crucial to discuss two potential measurement biases that may attribute to the non-significance
of true cognate awareness. To begin with, the ceiling effect of true cognates seemed to be reached. It
is hard to unravel the unique contribution of true cognate awareness due to its limited variability.
Moreover, the guessing effect may occur in the measurements of cognate awareness (Otwinowska
and Szewczyk 2019). Guessing cognates and knowing cognates may have been intertwined in the
measurements. The overall abilities of cognates and false cognates may be overestimated or
underestimated.
The uniqueness of the current study lies in the systematic contributions of the awareness of false
cognates to Japanese vocabulary abilities. Baird, Palacios, and Kibler (2016) found that awareness of
false cognates predicted crosslinguistic vocabulary knowledge in Spanish-English bilingual stu-
dents. The current study highlighted the exclusive effect of the D-type cognate awareness (aware-
ness of false cognates) on all vocabulary measurements. There are a few important interpretations
about the unique contributions of false cognates. First, the sensitivity to crosslinguistic differences
outweigh the awareness of crosslinguistic similarities in vocabulary acquisition. As mentioned
above, bilingual vocabulary acquisition may undergo multiple routes and cognates can help to
establish the direct lexical and semantic link across languages. The proportion of Chinese-Japanese
cognates in the two languages can reach roughly 50% (Han 2017; Wan 2004; Zeng 1988). Etymo-
logical relations can provide an initial assistance building lexical connections; nonetheless, they do
not guarantee the success of comprehensive vocabulary learning because words are productive and
changing in contexts. Shared crosslinguistic resources are the breakthrough to vocabulary develop-
ment. More importantly, the learning process should be elevated to the understandings of crosslin-
guistic differences and vocabulary learning seems to benefit from the sensitivity to crosslinguistic
discrepancies. Second, recognition of false cognates is more cognitively challenging which enhances
the overall vocabulary performance. When learners recognise true cognates, the lexico-semantic
connection is straightforward because there is one-on-one mapping between form and meaning.
Nevertheless, recognition of false cognates goes through additional routes, i.e. identification of
crosslinguistic differences, processing of possible semantic meanings, and retrieval of the accurate
meaning. The current study was consistent with the findings of Baird, Palacios, and Kibler (2016)
that the ability to identify false cognates was related to vocabulary learning.
Additionally, logographic cognates may induce a different pathway in word recognition and sub-
sequent vocabulary meaning retrieval. Dressler et al. (2011) suggest that phonology is a major
resource to build cognate connections because Spanish-English cognate recognition indicates pho-
nological resemblances in cognates, thus activating pronunciations of cognate pairs. However, the
current study highlighted cognates in logographic symbols (kanji and hanzi). Most Chinese-Japa-
nese cognate pairs have visual orthographic similarities and learners are inclined to activate both
phonological and orthographic representations of cognates (Fei 2015). As mentioned above, pro-
cessing of false cognates is more cognitively demanding because learners have to identify the
visual-orthographic representations, discriminate the grapho-semantic discrepancies, and ulti-
mately activate the accurate meanings of false cognates. Comparatively, the learning process of Chi-
nese-Japanese false cognates is more parallel to that of non-cognate vocabulary knowledge because
 JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 11

learning non-cognate kanji may also undergo the procedures of identification, discrimination and
activation. Therefore, it is plausible that logographic cognate awareness focuses more on the gra-
pho-semantic activation and recognition of false cognates can enhance general vocabulary learning.
To summarise, the current study provided empirical evidence to justify the utilities of Chinese-
Japanese cognate awareness in Japanese vocabulary acquisition among Chinese college students.
The study expanded the existing literature of alphabetic reading to logographic reading. The results
indicate that cognate awareness entails understandings of crosslinguistic similarities and differ-
ences, which subsequently contributes to vocabulary acquisition. More critically, the findings
attested to the significant role of false cognates in vocabulary acquisition given the cognitive
demands and the language specificity.

Limitations and implications

The study had a few limitations that warrant future explorations. First, the current study had a
focused learner group and limited sample size. To enhance the generalisability, future studies
need to include more diverse groups of L3 Japanese learners. Second, the researcher-designed
measurements in the study need further validation. The overlap between kana and kanji represen-
tations needs to be teased apart. More important, Chinese-Japanese cognate awareness measure-
ment may consider the concreteness, frequency and Levenstein distance in designing items
(Otwinowska et al. 2020; Schepens, Dijkstra, and Grootjen 2012). The guessing effect should also
be teased apart. The construct validity of cognate awareness in the logographic writing system is
still underexplored. Finally, because of the focused learner group, the current study did not control
for confounding variables, i.e. working memory and orthographic knowledge. General cognitive
abilities and knowledge about written language may also shape learners’ foreign language abilities.
Future studies should be aware of the potential confounds in predicting outcomes.

Acknowledgements
The study was sponsored by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No.: 2017ECNU-
HLYT007).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number 2017ECNU-
HLYT007].

ORCID
Haomin Zhang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9439-1625

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