Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T13:25:44.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

RUSSIAN PHONO-LEXICAL ACQUISITION AND ORTHOGRAPHIC INPUT

NAÏVE LEARNERS, EXPERIENCED LEARNERS, AND INTERVENTIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

Catherine E. Showalter*
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be referred to Catherine E. Showalter. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

We investigated how grapheme familiarity and grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) congruence affect adult learners’ ability to make use of orthographic input (OI) during phono-lexical acquisition. Native English speakers, with no Russian experience (naïve) or learners of Russian, heard auditory forms, saw pictured meanings, and saw written input either in a No Orthography condition or an Orthography condition for words that contained unfamiliar Cyrillic graphemes, familiar graphemes and congruent GPCs, and familiar graphemes and incongruent GPCs. Naïve participants evidenced incongruent GPC interference effects. Experienced learners acquired targetlike GPCs, although beginner learners did not. In a separate experiment, naïve learners were exposed to an intervention to mitigate effects of OI; the interventions did not improve test accuracy. Results support previous findings that incongruent GPCs interfere with phono-lexical acquisition. We also found evidence that target language experience mitigates negative effects of OI, but interventions may not sufficiently aid naïve learners’ phono-lexical acquisition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alsadoon, R., & Heift, T. (2015). Textual input enhancement for vowel blindness: A study with Arabic ESL learners. The Modern Language Journal, 99, 5779. doi: 10.1111/modl.121880026-7902/15/57–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassetti, B. (2006). Orthographic input and phonological representations in learners of Chinese as a foreign language. Written Language and Literacy, 9, 95114.Google Scholar
Bassetti, B., & Atkinson, N. (2015). Effects of orthographic forms on pronunciation in experienced instructed second language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36, 6791. doi: 10.1017/S0142716414000435CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassetti, B., Sokolović-Perović, M., Mairano, P., & Cerni, T. (2018). Orthography-induced length contrasts in the second language phonological systems of L2 speakers of English: Evidence from minimal pairs. Language and Speech, 61, 577597.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bown, J., Bown, T., Christiansen, C., Dudley, S., Gibbons, S., & Green, J. (2007). Now I know my AБВ’s: A comparison of inductive and deductive methods of teaching on the acquisition of the Cyrillic alphabet. Russian Language Journal, 57, 89107.Google Scholar
Burki, A., Spinelli, E., & Gaskell, M. G. (2012). A written word is worth a thousand spoken words: The influence of spelling on spoken-word production. Journal of Memory and Language, 67, 449467. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2012.08.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comer, W. J., & Murphy-Lee, M. (2004). Letter-sound correspondence acquisition in first semester Russian. Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, 46, 2335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeBenedette, L., Comer, W. J., Smyslova, A., & Perkins, J. (n.d.). Mezhdu nami. Retrieved from http://mezhdunami.org/.Google Scholar
Erdener, V. D., & Burnham, D. K. (2005). The role of audiovisual speech and orthographic information in nonnative speech production. Language Learning, 55, 191228. doi: 10.1111/j.0023-8333.2005.00303.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escudero, P. (2015). Orthography plays a limited role when learning the phonological forms of new words: The case of Spanish and English learners of novel Dutch words. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36, 722. doi: 10.1017/S014271641400040XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escudero, P., Hayes-Harb, R., & Mitterer, H. (2008). Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 345360. doi: 10.1016/j.wocn.2007.11.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escudero, P., Simon, E., & Mulak, K. E. (2014). Learning words in a new language: Orthography doesn’t always help. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 384395. doi: 10.1017/S1366728913000436CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forster, K. I., & Forster, J. C. (2003). DMDX: A Windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 35, 116124. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195503CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frost, R., & Katz, L. (1989). Orthographic depth and the interaction of visual and auditory processing in word recognition. Memory and Cognition, 17, 302310. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198468CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Han, Z., Park, E., & Combs, C. (2008). Textual enhancement of input: Issues and possibilities. Applied Linguistics, 29, 597618. doi: 10.1093/applin/amn010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes-Harb, R., Brown, K., & Smith, B. L. (2017). Orthographic input and the acquisition of German final devoicing by native speakers of English. Language and Speech, 61, 547564. https://doi-org.ezproxy.neu.edu/10.1177%2F0023830917710048.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hayes-Harb, R., & Cheng, H.-W. (2016). The influence of the Pinyin and Zhuyin writing systems on the acquisition of Mandarin words forms by native English speakers. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 113. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00785CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hayes-Harb, R., & Hacking, J. F. (2015). The influence of written stress marks on native English speakers’ acquisition of Russian lexical stress contrasts. The Slavic and East European Journal, 59, 91109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes-Harb, R., Nicol, J., & Barker, J. (2010). Learning the phonological forms of new words: Effects of orthographic and auditory input. Language and Speech, 53, 367381. doi: 10.1177/0023830910371460.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackson, J. L. (2016). The Effects of Novel Orthographic Input and Phonetic Instruction in Second Language Phonological Acquisition (Master’s thesis). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 10159125).Google Scholar
Katz, L., & Frost, R. (1992). The reading process is different for different orthographies: The orthographic depth hypothesis. In Ram, F. & Leonard, K. (Eds.), Advances in psychology (Vol. 94, pp. 6784). North-Holland, The Netherlands: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0166-4115(08)62789-2Google Scholar
Mathieu, L. (2016). The influence of foreign scripts on the acquisition of a second language phonological contrast. Second Language Research, 32, 145170. doi: 10.1177/0267658315601882CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ota, M., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Haywood, S. L. (2009). The KEY to the ROCK: Near-homophony in nonnative visual word recognition. Cognition, 111, 263269. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.12.007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Özçelik, Ö., & Sprouse, R. A. (2016). Decreasing dependence on orthography in phonological development: Evidence from vowel harmony in English–Turkish interlanguage. In Gürel, A. (Ed.), Second language acquisition of Turkish (pp. 4974). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rafat, Y. (2016). Orthography-induced transfer in the production of English-speaking learners of Spanish. The Language Learning Journal, 44, 197213. doi: 10.1080/09571736.2013.784346CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharwood Smith, M. (1993). Input enhancement in instructed SLA. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 165179. doi: 10.1017/S0272263100011943CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Showalter, C. E. (2018). Impact of Cyrillic on native English speakers’ phono-lexical acquisition of Russian. Language and Speech, 61, 565576. doi: 10.1177/0023830918761489CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Showalter, C. E., & Hayes-Harb, R. (2013). Unfamiliar orthographic information and second language word learning: A novel lexicon study. Second Language Research, 29, 185200. doi: 10.1177/0267658313480154CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Showalter, C. E., & Hayes-Harb, R. (2015). Native English speakers learning Arabic: The influence of novel orthographic information on second language phonological acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36, 2342. doi: 10.1017/ S0142716414000411CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, E., Chambless, D., & Kickhöfel Alves, U. (2010). Understanding the role of orthography in the acquisition of a non-native vowel contrast. Language Sciences, 32, 380394. doi: 10.1016/j.langsci.2009.07.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veivo, O., & Järvikivi, J. (2013). Proficiency modulates early orthographic and phonological processing in L2 spoken word recognition. Bilingualism, 16, 864883. doi: 10.1017/S1366728912000600CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vokic, G. (2011). When alphabets collide: Alphabetic first-language speakers’ approach to speech production in an alphabetic second language. Second Language Research, 27, 391417. doi: 10.1177/0267658310396627CrossRefGoogle Scholar