Pub Date : 2014-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.855619
Adeetee Bhide, Soniya Gadgil, Courtney M. Zelinsky, C. Perfetti
The extent to which speakers of alphasyllabaries develop phonemic awareness is unclear. In alphasyllabaries, diacritics are used to mark all vowels following consonants, except for the schwa vowel, which is inherent in every consonant, and is marked or unmarked depending on its position within a word. We used Marathi as an example alphasyllabary language to explore schwa awareness. We tested the awareness shown by Marathi-English bilinguals for the schwa vowel compared with awareness for marked vowels and with vowel awareness in English. In Marathi, participants were significantly more accurate at identifying initial schwas (expressed by a graph) than medial (unexpressed) or final schwas (expressed by a diacritic) and were more accurate at identifying other vowels in the medial or final positions than the schwa. Across languages, participants were significantly more likely to omit medial and final schwa vowels in Marathi than in English. The results suggest that biliterate speakers of alphasyllabaries have general awareness of phonemes but not inherent vowels. More generally, the results suggest that phonemic awareness depends specifically on the expression of the phoneme in writing, in alignment with previous research that shows literacy effects on phonemic awareness.
{"title":"Does reading in an alphasyllabary affect phonemic awareness? Inherent schwa effects in Marathi-English bilinguals","authors":"Adeetee Bhide, Soniya Gadgil, Courtney M. Zelinsky, C. Perfetti","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.855619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.855619","url":null,"abstract":"The extent to which speakers of alphasyllabaries develop phonemic awareness is unclear. In alphasyllabaries, diacritics are used to mark all vowels following consonants, except for the schwa vowel, which is inherent in every consonant, and is marked or unmarked depending on its position within a word. We used Marathi as an example alphasyllabary language to explore schwa awareness. We tested the awareness shown by Marathi-English bilinguals for the schwa vowel compared with awareness for marked vowels and with vowel awareness in English. In Marathi, participants were significantly more accurate at identifying initial schwas (expressed by a graph) than medial (unexpressed) or final schwas (expressed by a diacritic) and were more accurate at identifying other vowels in the medial or final positions than the schwa. Across languages, participants were significantly more likely to omit medial and final schwa vowels in Marathi than in English. The results suggest that biliterate speakers of alphasyllabaries have general awareness of phonemes but not inherent vowels. More generally, the results suggest that phonemic awareness depends specifically on the expression of the phoneme in writing, in alignment with previous research that shows literacy effects on phonemic awareness.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"73 - 93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.855619","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60436708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.846844
M. A. D. K. Wijayathilake, R. Parrila
We examine the association between phoneme awareness, phonological memory and RAN and word reading as a function of early reading skill (struggling vs. good) and word characteristics (presence of consonant clusters and word length). Sixty Grade 3 good readers and 60 struggling readers learning to read Sinhala completed the phonological, RAN and word reading tasks. Struggling readers performed poorer than good readers in all tasks and had only mastered reading of short words with no consonant clusters. Both groups had difficulties in reading longer words and words with consonant clusters. RAN, phoneme awareness and phonological memory were robustly associated with word reading. We discuss the need for further studies to fully understand the role of phonological processes and word characteristics in learning to read alphasyllabaries.
{"title":"Predictors of word reading skills in good and struggling readers in Sinhala","authors":"M. A. D. K. Wijayathilake, R. Parrila","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.846844","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.846844","url":null,"abstract":"We examine the association between phoneme awareness, phonological memory and RAN and word reading as a function of early reading skill (struggling vs. good) and word characteristics (presence of consonant clusters and word length). Sixty Grade 3 good readers and 60 struggling readers learning to read Sinhala completed the phonological, RAN and word reading tasks. Struggling readers performed poorer than good readers in all tasks and had only mastered reading of short words with no consonant clusters. Both groups had difficulties in reading longer words and words with consonant clusters. RAN, phoneme awareness and phonological memory were robustly associated with word reading. We discuss the need for further studies to fully understand the role of phonological processes and word characteristics in learning to read alphasyllabaries.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"120 - 131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.846844","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60436417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.846843
S. Lew
Standard Lao, the official language in the Lao PDR, is spoken in and around the capital Vientiane. Lexicon, vowels and especially tone inventories of the many Lao dialects in the nation differ tremendously. A new orthography to replace the traditional Pali-based orthography which was hard to teach and learn was established during the Lao language reform in 1975. This study investigates the grapheme-phoneme correspondences of Lao orthography and its applicability to other languages in the multilingual nation. After a short introduction to the Lao language and the linguistic situation in the country, the Lao phoneme inventory and a description of the nature and historical development of Lao script are presented, including some taxonomic considerations discussing the segmental, suprasegmental and syllabic features of this script. This is followed by a linguistic evaluation of the orthography and a summary in the light of how to apply Lao script to other languages spoken in the country. Three minority orthographies based on Lao script illustrate that the almost entirely direct phonemic correspondences, consistency in the formation of multigraphs, the rich grapheme inventory and the both segmental and syllabic characteristics of this semi-alphabetic script support a direct application to other, even unrelated languages with contrastive suprasegmental features like tone or voice quality. No orthography testing or studies on literacy acquisition have been done on these or any other Lao-script based minority scripts yet, so that firm recommendations regarding the creation of new Lao-script based orthographies cannot be given.
{"title":"A linguistic analysis of the Lao writing system and its suitability for minority language orthographies","authors":"S. Lew","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.846843","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.846843","url":null,"abstract":"Standard Lao, the official language in the Lao PDR, is spoken in and around the capital Vientiane. Lexicon, vowels and especially tone inventories of the many Lao dialects in the nation differ tremendously. A new orthography to replace the traditional Pali-based orthography which was hard to teach and learn was established during the Lao language reform in 1975. This study investigates the grapheme-phoneme correspondences of Lao orthography and its applicability to other languages in the multilingual nation. After a short introduction to the Lao language and the linguistic situation in the country, the Lao phoneme inventory and a description of the nature and historical development of Lao script are presented, including some taxonomic considerations discussing the segmental, suprasegmental and syllabic features of this script. This is followed by a linguistic evaluation of the orthography and a summary in the light of how to apply Lao script to other languages spoken in the country. Three minority orthographies based on Lao script illustrate that the almost entirely direct phonemic correspondences, consistency in the formation of multigraphs, the rich grapheme inventory and the both segmental and syllabic characteristics of this semi-alphabetic script support a direct application to other, even unrelated languages with contrastive suprasegmental features like tone or voice quality. No orthography testing or studies on literacy acquisition have been done on these or any other Lao-script based minority scripts yet, so that firm recommendations regarding the creation of new Lao-script based orthographies cannot be given.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"25 - 40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.846843","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60436797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.855622
Pramod Pandey
The present paper brings to focus the main issues of regularity and inconsistency in orthography-phonology relation in Hindi arising out of an attempt at developing a program of Akshara-to-Sound rules for a pronunciation lexicon of Hindi for use in language technology for voice browser applications. The program of rules is based on interdisciplinary insights from research on writing systems, phonology and rule writing for a computer program. The paper first discusses the motivations for the Akshara-to-Sound rule set formulated to generate two levels of output—one of phoneme level and the other of phonemes and the prosodic structures of words in terms of strong and weak syllables. The irregularities in the correspondence between the Akshara and the sound are taken up next for an account. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of the study for research on the acquisition and processing of written words in Hindi.
{"title":"Akshara-to-sound rules for Hindi","authors":"Pramod Pandey","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.855622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.855622","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper brings to focus the main issues of regularity and inconsistency in orthography-phonology relation in Hindi arising out of an attempt at developing a program of Akshara-to-Sound rules for a pronunciation lexicon of Hindi for use in language technology for voice browser applications. The program of rules is based on interdisciplinary insights from research on writing systems, phonology and rule writing for a computer program. The paper first discusses the motivations for the Akshara-to-Sound rule set formulated to generate two levels of output—one of phoneme level and the other of phonemes and the prosodic structures of words in terms of strong and weak syllables. The irregularities in the correspondence between the Akshara and the sound are taken up next for an account. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of the study for research on the acquisition and processing of written words in Hindi.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"54 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.855622","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60437138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.855621
Sonali Nag
This study examined the reading and spelling of consonant clusters in Kannada among native speaking Grade 3 children (N = 62). The consonant cluster is represented by a CCV akshara and while the frequency of specific CCV akshara in child-directed texts is medium to very low, the generic akshara type is exceptionally productive and frequently encountered. The CCV akshara is an orthographic syllable that encodes a phonological syllable in a matched mapping of akshara-to-phonology, but within a word, can also encode other phonological information depending on neighbouring syllables. The study tested whether children are supported better when akshara-phonology mapping is matched and whether error patterns differ when reading and when spelling words with matched and mismatched mappings. The results showed that awareness of the principles of akshara-phonology mapping appears to be available early in literacy acquisition in Kannada, yet there are word level differences in children's awareness of these principles and mismatched mappings are more vulnerable to error. The results are used to discuss orthographic learning in akshara languages.
{"title":"Akshara-phonology mappings: The common yet uncommon case of the consonant cluster","authors":"Sonali Nag","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.855621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.855621","url":null,"abstract":"This study examined the reading and spelling of consonant clusters in Kannada among native speaking Grade 3 children (N = 62). The consonant cluster is represented by a CCV akshara and while the frequency of specific CCV akshara in child-directed texts is medium to very low, the generic akshara type is exceptionally productive and frequently encountered. The CCV akshara is an orthographic syllable that encodes a phonological syllable in a matched mapping of akshara-to-phonology, but within a word, can also encode other phonological information depending on neighbouring syllables. The study tested whether children are supported better when akshara-phonology mapping is matched and whether error patterns differ when reading and when spelling words with matched and mismatched mappings. The results showed that awareness of the principles of akshara-phonology mapping appears to be available early in literacy acquisition in Kannada, yet there are word level differences in children's awareness of these principles and mismatched mappings are more vulnerable to error. The results are used to discuss orthographic learning in akshara languages.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"105 - 119"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.855621","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60436916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2014.883787
Sonali Nag, C. Perfetti
A written text, at its core, brings a linguistic message to a reader visually through a specific system of graphs organised around mapping principles and display conventions. The wide variety of th...
{"title":"Reading and writing: Insights from the alphasyllabaries of South and Southeast Asia","authors":"Sonali Nag, C. Perfetti","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2014.883787","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2014.883787","url":null,"abstract":"A written text, at its core, brings a linguistic message to a reader visually through a specific system of graphs organised around mapping principles and display conventions. The wide variety of th...","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"1 - 9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2014.883787","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60437781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.843440
Heather Winskel, Manuel Perea
One controversial question in the field of eye movements and reading is whether there is evidence of parafoveal-on-foveal effects. This is an important issue because some models of eye movements in reading make quite different predictions in this respect (e.g., E-Z Reader vs. SWIFT models). The aim of the current study was to investigate if parafoveal-on-foveal effects occur when reading Thai, an unspaced, alphasyllabic orthography. Word frequency (high and low) of the word to the right of the currently fixated word was manipulated to examine if it would influence processing of the fixated word. Thirty-six participants read single sentences while having their eye movements monitored. There was no evidence of the effect of word frequency of the parafoveal word on fixation duration measures of the foveal word, as assessed by p(H0∣D) values—except for a marginal effect in the skipping rates. Thus, the present data are in line with previous studies using spaced Indo-European languages which have found small/null results for parafoveal effects of word frequency during one-line sentence reading.
{"title":"Can parafoveal-on-foveal effects be obtained when reading an unspaced alphasyllabic script (Thai)?","authors":"Heather Winskel, Manuel Perea","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.843440","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.843440","url":null,"abstract":"One controversial question in the field of eye movements and reading is whether there is evidence of parafoveal-on-foveal effects. This is an important issue because some models of eye movements in reading make quite different predictions in this respect (e.g., E-Z Reader vs. SWIFT models). The aim of the current study was to investigate if parafoveal-on-foveal effects occur when reading Thai, an unspaced, alphasyllabic orthography. Word frequency (high and low) of the word to the right of the currently fixated word was manipulated to examine if it would influence processing of the fixated word. Thirty-six participants read single sentences while having their eye movements monitored. There was no evidence of the effect of word frequency of the parafoveal word on fixation duration measures of the foveal word, as assessed by p(H0∣D) values—except for a marginal effect in the skipping rates. Thus, the present data are in line with previous studies using spaced Indo-European languages which have found small/null results for parafoveal effects of word frequency during one-line sentence reading.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"104 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.843440","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60436691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2013-10-01DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.827563
Jumana Dai, Raphiq Ibrahim, D. Share
The present study focuses on the specific question of letter ligatures in reading Arabic in the context of Share's self-teaching framework for printed word learning. The study examined the hypothesis that novel letter strings with connecting letters are harder to decode initially but easier to learn (orthographically) in the long run. As hypothesised, the findings showed that connectedness helps the reader learn the word-specific orthographic forms of individual words: Although post-test reading speeds were no faster for the connected items, spelling was superior. Thus, there is modest support for the view that position-specific letter-forms joined in a single contiguous word-form may promote orthographic learning. Unexpectedly, words with many consonant diacritics were found to slow reading considerably. The psycholinguistic implications of these findings are discussed in light of recent data and models of visual word recognition in Arabic.
{"title":"The influence of orthographic structure on printed word learning in Arabic","authors":"Jumana Dai, Raphiq Ibrahim, D. Share","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.827563","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.827563","url":null,"abstract":"The present study focuses on the specific question of letter ligatures in reading Arabic in the context of Share's self-teaching framework for printed word learning. The study examined the hypothesis that novel letter strings with connecting letters are harder to decode initially but easier to learn (orthographically) in the long run. As hypothesised, the findings showed that connectedness helps the reader learn the word-specific orthographic forms of individual words: Although post-test reading speeds were no faster for the connected items, spelling was superior. Thus, there is modest support for the view that position-specific letter-forms joined in a single contiguous word-form may promote orthographic learning. Unexpectedly, words with many consonant diacritics were found to slow reading considerably. The psycholinguistic implications of these findings are discussed in light of recent data and models of visual word recognition in Arabic.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"5 1","pages":"189 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.827563","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60435946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2013-10-01DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.834244
A. Khateb, H. Taha, Inas Elias, Raphiq Ibrahim
Previous research has suggested that reading Arabic is more challenging than reading Hebrew or English, even among native Arabic readers due to the visual complexity of the Arabic orthography. In particular, the fact that most of the Arabic letters connect to each other and change their basic form according to their place in the written word (beginning, middle or end) has been hypothesised to constitute a visual load affecting reading efficiency. Here, we tested this visual complexity hypothesis by manipulating word-internal orthographic connectivity during visual word recognition. Fifty-eight adult skilled readers and 20 disabled readers of Arabic performed a lexical-decision task using words (and nonwords) whose letters were naturally fully connected (Cw), partially connected (PCw) and nonconnected (NCw). Behavioural measures for words as a function of word connectivity (and word frequency) were analysed using repeated measures analysis of variance. The results revealed that within both groups of readers, higher accuracy rates were measured for the Cw rather than for the NCw, with PCw falling in between. The analysis of the individual standard deviations of the response times within each word condition revealed that Cw yielded a response variance lower than NCw, again with PCw in between. These results indicate that Cw tend to be processed more efficiently and accurately than NCw, in both reader groups. The results presented here extend recent findings in normal readers and indicate that word connectivity does not negatively impact word recognition processes among adults. The psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic implications of these findings are discussed.
{"title":"The effect of the internal orthographic connectivity of written Arabic words on the process of the visual recognition: A comparison between skilled and dyslexic readers","authors":"A. Khateb, H. Taha, Inas Elias, Raphiq Ibrahim","doi":"10.1080/17586801.2013.834244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17586801.2013.834244","url":null,"abstract":"Previous research has suggested that reading Arabic is more challenging than reading Hebrew or English, even among native Arabic readers due to the visual complexity of the Arabic orthography. In particular, the fact that most of the Arabic letters connect to each other and change their basic form according to their place in the written word (beginning, middle or end) has been hypothesised to constitute a visual load affecting reading efficiency. Here, we tested this visual complexity hypothesis by manipulating word-internal orthographic connectivity during visual word recognition. Fifty-eight adult skilled readers and 20 disabled readers of Arabic performed a lexical-decision task using words (and nonwords) whose letters were naturally fully connected (Cw), partially connected (PCw) and nonconnected (NCw). Behavioural measures for words as a function of word connectivity (and word frequency) were analysed using repeated measures analysis of variance. The results revealed that within both groups of readers, higher accuracy rates were measured for the Cw rather than for the NCw, with PCw falling in between. The analysis of the individual standard deviations of the response times within each word condition revealed that Cw yielded a response variance lower than NCw, again with PCw in between. These results indicate that Cw tend to be processed more efficiently and accurately than NCw, in both reader groups. The results presented here extend recent findings in normal readers and indicate that word connectivity does not negatively impact word recognition processes among adults. The psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic implications of these findings are discussed.","PeriodicalId":39225,"journal":{"name":"Writing Systems Research","volume":"23 1","pages":"214 - 233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17586801.2013.834244","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60436022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2013-10-01DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2013.863086
Z. Eviatar, D. Share
“Humankind is defined by language, civilization is defined by writing” (Daniels, 1996). Modern civilisation is defined by mass literacy, first made possible by the invention of printing, and today, the electronic media and the internet. A reflection of the civilising aspects of literacy is the well-known correlation between overall literacy levels of a society and its social and economic well-being. The study of literacy has captured the attention of scholars from every discipline concerned with human behaviour, from genetics and neurobiology to cultural studies. At the centre-point of this spectrum, psychologists and linguists seek to illuminate the foundational processes of reading and writing, the units of language represented in writing and how humans go about processing these forms. While reading researchers have long acknowledged that writing represents language, only recently have they come to appreciate that writing is not a mere shadowy reflection of spoken language but a free-standing independent variable in the literacy equation (see, e.g., Olson, 1994). The exciting new field of writing systems research and the cross-disciplinary insights emerging from this work hold great promise for the field of literacy research. In this special issue we present papers from the first Haifa Conference on Writing Systems and Literacy, which took place in April 2012. The location of the conference is significant for several reasons. First, the Middle East was the birthplace of segmental writing systems (first developed nearly four thousand years ago by Semitic speakers) and the progenitor of writing systems—abjads, alphabets and alphasyllabaries, now used daily by billions (Daniels & Bright, 1996; Diringer, 1968; Naveh, 1975). Second, the Semitic languages spoken in the Middle East do not belong to the Indo-European family of languages (that includes English) that have so dominated the language and literacy research agenda (Share, 2008). Most of the world’s languages are not English-like (Evans & Levinson, 2009), and most readers and writers around the world use writing systems that are neither alphabetic (i.e., full and equal status for consonant and vowel signs) nor European. Third, as a result of social and historical events, a sizeable proportion of the population in Israel uses two or more different writing systems on a daily basis. This phenomenon has generated intense interest in research on reading and writing with different orthographies. The conference brought together researchers from a variety of disciplines on reading and literacy learning including psycholinguists, neuropsychologists and linguists. Interestingly, all but one of the papers included in this issue focus on reading and writing in Arabic. The reasons for this are many. First, whereas illiteracy and poverty go hand in hand in most parts of Asia and Africa, curiously, in the Arabic-speaking world, literacy levels are uniformly and distressingly low in wealthy and impoverished s
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