ABSTRACT
This chapter comprises two studies on Uyghur children's phonological awareness development. In the first study, Uyghur bilingual children are compared to Han monolingual children in their Chinese and English phonological awareness. Results shows that they excelled in Chinese syllable, vowel and phoneme awareness as well as English phoneme and onset–rime awareness. These findings suggest their sensitivity to various phonological structures, influenced by factors like the perceptual assimilation model and phonological salience. Customized training programs leveraging their native phoneme learning can enhance their phonological awareness and literacy skills. The second study explores how Uyghur and Chinese bilingual phonological awareness influences the development of English (L3) phonological awareness among Uyghur children in a trilingual context. Initially, native language phonological awareness significantly impacts English phonological awareness. However, as bilingual phonological experience and L2 proficiency grow, the native language's influence wanes, and L2 phonological awareness becomes more influential. Chinese initial awareness remains vital for Uyghur children's English phonological awareness, along with Chinese tone awareness. This underlines that differences in orthography and phonological structure don't hinder cross-language phonological awareness transfer, emphasizing the role of L2 in L3 phonological acquisition and the universality of phonological awareness as a cognitive mechanism.
