Acoustic Scanning and Syntactic Processing Three Reading Experiments — First and Second Language Learners

Hatch, Evelyn; Polin, Pam; Part, Susan

doi:10.1080/10862967409547101

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Although one could infer that the possibility of different processing of nouns and of verbs is another reflection of the impact of linguistic characteristics on word recognition, more research is needed to substantiate this suggestion. With respect to word class, English readers tended to process content words to a greater extent than they did function words, in agreement with the findings in previous studies (Hatch et al, 1974;Healy, 1976;Schindler, 1978;Taylor & Taylor, 1983).…”

Section: The Effect Of Linguistic Characteristics On the Reading Processsupporting

confidence: 82%

Word recognition in two languages and orthographies: English and Greek

Chitiri

Willows

1994

Mem Cogn

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Word recognition processes of monolingual readers of English and of Greek were examined with respect to the orthographic and syntactic characteristics of each language. Because of Greek's direct letter-to-sound correspondence, which is unlike the indirect representation of English, the possibility was raised of a greater influence of the phonological code in Greek word recognition. Because Greek is an inflected language, whereas English is a word order language, it was also possible that syntax might influence word recognition patterns in the two languages differentially. These cross-linguistic research questions were investigated within the context of a letter cancellation paradigm. The results provide evidence that readers are sensitive to both the orthographic and the linguistic idiosyncracies of their language. The results are discussed in terms of the orthographic depth hypothesis and the competition model.In this research, we examined word recognition in English and Greek, two languages with different orthographies and syntactic characteristics. We examined the relationship of orthography to the role of the phonological code in word recognition as it is exemplified in the processing of syllabic and stress information. To study the role of the syntactic system, we investigated whether word recognition patterns in the two languages would differ when readers were processing function words and the different parts of content words. Of special importance in Greek, an inflected language, was whether readers would pay more attention to inflected function words and to the parts of content words carrying inflections. Greek Language and OrthographyAn Indo-European language, Greek depends primarily on inflections to denote semantic and syntactic relationships. In modem Greek, the noun, its modifiers, and the verb carry inflections. Noun inflections give information about the gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), the num-

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Section: The Effect Of Linguistic Characteristics On the Reading Processsupporting

confidence: 82%

Word recognition in two languages and orthographies: English and Greek

Chitiri

Willows

1994

Mem Cogn

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“…It may be that subjects took longer to fmd and judge pronounced letters because there were more phonemes to scan in these words. Corcoran (1966Corcoran ( , 1967 and Hatch et al (1974) have proposed acoustic scanning as a process operating when spellings are inspected for letters. Some evidence for acoustic scanning was uncovered in Experiment 4, in which plausible-sounding absent letters were found to take longer to reject than implausible letters.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He found that in both tasks, silent Es were missed more often than pronounced Es. Venezky (cited in Hatch, Polin, & Part, 1974) attempted to replicate the cross-out task with the letters H, D, and A, as well as E, but did not find a silent-pronounced difference. Instead, he found that letters in function words (e.g., articles, prepositions, and conjunctions) were more frequently left unmarked than were letters in content words (e.g., nouns, adjectives, and verbs).…”

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“…Instead, he found that letters in function words (e.g., articles, prepositions, and conjunctions) were more frequently left unmarked than were letters in content words (e.g., nouns, adjectives, and verbs). Hatch et al (1974) limited their analysis to content words and found evidence favoring pronounced letters. In a cross-out task, their subjects missed letters in digraphs (e.g., CinCH) more often than single pronounced letters, and they missed letters in unstressed syllables more often than letters in stressed syllables.…”

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The salience of silent letters in children’s memory for word spellings

Ehri

Wilce

1982

Memory & Cognition

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To compare children's memory for silent and pronounced letters in familiar spellings of words, 7-to lO-year-olds were given two tasks. First, they imagined word spellings and decided whether target letters were present. Then they recalled the words associated with the target letters. Five experiments yielded similar findings. Pronounced letters were recognized somewhat more accurately than silent letters. However, silent letters were detected more rapidly in words than pronounced letters were, and silent letters prompted superior recall of words. The influence of several factors, such as the particular words chosen, the position of letters, and the expectancies of subjects, was ruled out in one or another experiment. Two explanations for findings are proposed. The favorite is that effects reflect the way silent letters are stored in long-term memory when spellings are learned. The other is that events occurring in the experiment enhanced episodic memory for silent letters.One of the properties of English word spellings that is especially bothersome to beginning readers concerns letters that do not symbolize any sound in a word's pronunciation. Although in a linguistic analysis some silent letters (e.g., final E) may be considered to participate in functional spelling units that as a whole map sounds systematically (Venezky, 1970), it is doubtful that beginning reader/spellers are aware of or use such complex spelling-sound relationships. More likely, if beginners cannot find a separate sound for a single letter and if they do not see it as part of a digraph (e.g., sh, ch, th), then the letter is regarded as silent. Categorization of letters as "silent" is probably a common explanation given to beginning readers and spellers when they stumble over letters lacking a correlate in sound. Rather than attempt a complicated and possibly futile explanation regarding how one letter changes the pronunciation of another, teachers in the early grades and also parents are likely to assert simply that the letter is silent. That this distinction may be acquired early is suggested in Chomsky's (1979) observation of her own preschooler, who saw the word "Joan," sounded it out as "Jane," and upon learning of his mistake explained, "Oh, I see. The A is silent. I thought the 0 was silent." To the extent that unpronounced letters are learned as silent rather than as instances of complex spelling rules, their occurrence must appear This research was supported by Grant NIE-G-77-Q009, awarded by the National Institute of Education, and Grant HD-12903-Ql, awarded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We express our gratitude to the Davis Unified School District and to S1. James Elementary School in Davis for their cooperation. Authors' address: Department of Education, University of California, Davis, California 95616.capncious, a property unique to those printed words containing them. Because silent letters are characteristic of many English words encountered by children as they learn to read, it is important...

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“…Some evidence suggests that such slowed second-language reading may arise, in part, from a reduced sensitivity to orthographic, syntactic, and semantic redundancies of the language (Favreau et al, 1980;Hatch, Polin, & Part, 1974), which increases the reader's dependency on the purely visual information (Massaro, 1975). Slower secondlanguage reading has also been associated with differences in the fixation time of eye movements.…”

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Automatic and controlled processes in the first- and second-language reading of fluent bilinguals

1983

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Many fluent bilinguals read their two languages with equal levels of comprehension but read their second language at a slower rate. The present study examined whether, compared with firstlanguage reading, slower second-language reading is associated with reduced involvement of automatic processing during lexical access. Subjects were bilinguals with fluent speaking and listening skills under ordinary conditions of communication and with equivalent comprehension of their first and second languages when reading and listening under speeded conditions. Half these subjects, however, read their first and second languages equally fast, and half read the second language more slowly than the first. Subjects were tested on a lexical decision task that manipulated expectations about the semantic relatedness of prime and target words and the stimulus onset asynchrony between them. Bilinguals with equal first-and second-language reading rates produced in each language a pattern of reaction times suggesting automatic processing, whereas bilinguals with a slower second-language reading rate did so in their first language but not in their second. 565So-called balanced or fluent bilinguals often have been the object of research into cognitive processes underlying bilingualism. One reason for research interest in fluent bilinguals is that, although under ordinary communication conditions they may demonstrate equivalent speaking, listening, and reading skills in their two languages, some aspects of a specific skill may be relatively weaker in one of the languages. In this case, the fluent bilingual presents an opportunity to compare skilled and less skilled performance by the same individual. Such a comparison may provide an opportunity to study the cognitive processes underlying the activity in question while avoiding the usual confound due to individual differences (Baron & Treiman, 1980). The present study was concerned with the reading performance of two types of fluent bilinguals in their first and second languages and examined the possibility of an association between reading skills and processes underlying retrieval from semantic memory. (The term fluent is used here because it emphasizes that, under normal

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Acoustic Scanning and Syntactic Processing Three Reading Experiments — First and Second Language Learners

Cited by 26 publications

References 4 publications

Word recognition in two languages and orthographies: English and Greek

Word recognition in two languages and orthographies: English and Greek

The salience of silent letters in children’s memory for word spellings

Automatic and controlled processes in the first- and second-language reading of fluent bilinguals

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