Browsing by Subject "Orthography"
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Item The effects of L1 orthographic features and phonological awareness on Chinese speakers learning to read in English(2010-12) Moody, Joe William; Sardegna, Veronica G.; Schallert, DianeThis report focuses on language transference between alphabetic (English) and logographic, non-alphabetic (Chinese) languages, with respect to the importance of phonemic awareness in literacy acquisition. Within large ESL/EFL classrooms, language learners from all cultures are taught in the same way. Instruction rarely caters for specific problems directly associated with L1 transfer or the learner’s culture. The purpose of this report is not only to gain a better understanding of the differences in literacy acquisition between the two languages (English and Chinese), but also to assess the impact of this difference on Chinese children learning how to read in English. Research is examined that focuses on the role that phonemic awareness plays in the acquisition of English literacy and in the acquisition of Chinese literacy. The relationship between Chinese orthographic features and word recognition processing in English as a second language is explored as well as cross-language transfer of phonological awareness and its effect on English literacy acquisition. Pedagogical implications are also discussed on how to apply these findings to the classroom for instructors of English as a second language.Item Explaining orthographic variation in a virtual community : linguistic, social, and contextual factors(2010-05) Iorio, Joshua Boyd; Epps, Patience, 1973-; Erk, Katrin; Hinrichs, Lars; Keating, Elizabeth; Sussman, HarveyThe purpose of this project is to investigate factors that can be used to explain orthographic variation in City of Heroes (CoH), a virtual community based in an online role-playing game. While a number of models of variation exist for speech, to date, no statistical models of orthographic variation in virtual communities exist. By combining traditional variationist methods with computational text processing, this project documents socially meaningful alternations in the linguistic code regarding two types of sociolinguistic variables, namely spelling and use of abbreviations. For each of the two variable types, two dependent variables are posited, i.e. the alternation between: 1) –ing and –in in durative verbal aspect marking in forms such as coming and comin, 2) –s and –z markers of plurality in words such as cats and catz, 3) abbreviated and full forms for referential abbreviation in terms such as Atlas Park and AP, and 4) abbreviated and full forms for conative abbreviations in terms such as looking for team and lft. The study investigates the role that the following factors play in explaining orthographic variation in CoH: 1) message length, 2) standardness of the immediate linguistic environment, 3) cognitive load, 4) relative proximity in the virtual space, 5) degree of message publicness, 6) experience in the community, 7) avatar gender, and 8) social group affiliation. Through mixed-effects, multivariate models, the study demonstrates that each of the predictors has some role in explaining the orthographic variability observed in the textual record of the community. Moreover, interactions between some of the predictors prove to be significant contributors to the models, which highlight the importance of addressing interaction terms in models of language variation. The findings from the study suggest that the socio-contextual meaning of particular structures in the CoH community lead authors to make linguistic choices, which are realized as alternations in the linguistic code. Finally, implications for the study of language variation in general are discussed.Item Improving spelling ability among speakers of African American vernacular English: an intervention based on phonological, morphological, and orthographic principles(2009-05-15) Pittman, Ramona TrinetteGiven the importance of the role of spelling in literacy, it is important to have knowledge of the linguistic features that allow students to be successful spellers. Having phonological, morphological, and orthographic knowledge is essentially important to spell conventionally. In the United States, the standard language is Academic English (AE). African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is considered a deviation from AE, with its own sound system. AAVE is the most widely used form of dialect in the United States. Many students who speak AAVE may have difficulties in producing the correct spelling of AE words. The overall purpose of this study was to provide sixth-grade students, who are speakers of AAVE, with an eight-week intervention in the principles of phonology, morphology, and orthography that would assist them in improving their spelling performance. Students had similar scores on all spelling and dialect pretest measures before the intervention began. The research design was a pretest/posttest/posttest design using waitlist- control. This study included 142 students divided into 14 class sections taught by two teachers. The two teachers provided the intervention to the students. The experimental group consisted of seven classes, and the control group consisted of seven classes. After the first implementation of the intervention, the study was replicated with the control group of students. MANOVA was utilized to determine the effect of the intervention. The intervention produced large effects for the students who received the spelling instruction. The results from the criterion-referenced spelling assessments and a sentence writing task revealed that students who received explicit instruction from the intervention made gains in their spelling performance from pretest/posttest 1/posttest 2 and maintained these gains after being tested eight weeks later. Practical and theoretical recommendations are provided for teachers and researchers. Suggested recommendations include: providing teacher training that will enable teachers to be more linguistically aware of AAVE and its features, making students aware of the difference in the AAVE and the AE sound system, and conducting more research-based studies that will assist speakers of AAVE in literacy and spelling.Item The Influence of Orthographic Opacity on Reading Development among Nyanja-English Bilinguals in Zambia: A Cross-Linguistic Study(2014-12-15) Kaani, BesternLearning to read is critical to school success and also plays an important role in everyday life. Several studies show that reading proficiency among students differ significantly according to the orthographic depth of the language of instruction. Students taught in transparent orthographies acquire reading skills almost effortlessly and faster than their counterparts taught in opaque orthographies. The English language is considered to have one of the most orthographically opaque writing systems, while Finnish is highly transparent. Accordingly, studies show that students taught to read in English face significantly more challenges than Finnish students. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of orthographic depth on reading proficiency by comparing Zambian bilingual students in a local highly transparent orthography, Nyanja, and English. Equivalent Nyanja and English versions of the Zambia Achievement Test (ZAT) were administered to 240 grades four to six participants drawn from five basic (elementary) schools in Lusaka, Zambia. The ZAT consisted of five linguistically comparable measures of letter discrimination, phonological awareness, word reading, pseudoword decoding, and reading comprehension skills. Of the 240 participants comprising the sample, 119 students received the assessments in Nyanja, while 121 were tested in English. The samples were relatively evenly distributed across the three grade levels and gender. The age of the participants varied widely ranging from 8 to 18 years. The results revealed that participants tested in Nyanja out-performed their English counterparts, and the mean reading proficiency difference was statistically significant on all measures except phonological awareness. Model analysis showed that the English data fitted the reading comprehension model better than the Nyanja data, as all the four model fit indexes used met the required thresholds for the English data, with only two meeting the threshold for Nyanja. The four measures?letter discrimination, phonological awareness, word reading, and pseudoword decoding?accounted for 58% and 49% of the English and Nyanja comprehension variance respectively. Generally, the findings reflect trends in the existing literature that acquiring reading skills is relatively easier in transparent than reading in opaque orthographies. However, in comparison to cross-national monolingual studies, the mean reading differences are slightly moderated probably by the effects of cross-linguistic transfer between Nyanja and English languages. As skills students acquired in one language may have been applied in learning to read in the other language.