scholarly journals Below the surface: The application of implicit morpho-graphic regularities to novel word spelling

Morphology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Heyer
Keyword(s):  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Spelling Ability ◽  
Rule Application ◽  
Word Spelling ◽  
English Spelling ◽  
Novel Words

Abstract Previous corpus studies have shown that the English spelling system is ‘morpho-graphic’ (Berg and Aronoff 2017) in that affixes are spelt in a consistent way (e.g., ‹ous› in famous) that distinguishes them from homophonous word endings without grammatical function (e.g., ‹us› in bonus). The present paper investigates if English spellers apply these regularities to the spelling of novel words implicitly and whether the application of those regularities is modulated by experience with the English writing system. Participants with varying degrees of expertise in the English writing system were asked to spell novel words ending in /əs/, which were presented orally in either an adjective context (i.e., biasing towards the affix spelling ‹ous›) or a noun context (i.e., biasing towards an alternative spelling such as ‹us›). The results showed that the adjective context elicited significantly more ‹ous› spellings than the noun context, indicating that participants applied morpho-graphic spelling regularities to novel words to mark the appropriate lexical category. Additionally, there was a modulation by spelling ability: The higher participants’ expertise in the English spelling system was, the more novel words they spelt according to morpho-graphic spelling regularities. In conclusion, English spellers are aware of the morpho-graphic spelling regularities without explicit instruction and apply these to novel words. They gradually induce the regularities from the input, which results in more robust rule application with increased experience and expertise in the English writing system.

“She Doesn’t Have the Basic Understanding of a Language”: Using Spelling Research to Challenge Deficit Conceptualizations of Adolescent Bilinguals

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maneka Deanna Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
Home School ◽  
Writing System ◽  
English Learner ◽  
Formal Schooling ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Basic Understanding ◽  
English Spelling

This article examines the alternative English spelling practices of a student who is considered to be a long-term English learner. It draws on a theoretical framework that integrates a social perspective on spelling with a rejection of idealized conceptions of bilingualism. The analyzed English spellings presented in this article were identified in eight texts that the focal student composed during her English language arts class. Notably, this examination was contextualized within the focal student’s linguistic and schooling history. The resulting findings document that the focal student was a simultaneous bilingual who had a troubled history with formal schooling—the place where many young people learn spelling conventions. The predominant practice that characterized her alternative spellings was her use of conventional English sound-to-letter relationships to create a written echo of the speech patterns of her home, school, and community. When her alternative spelling did not reflect these Englishes, they typically illustrated her familiarity with the normative spelling of particular words. Yet the practices that characterized her spelling meant that they strayed from accepted conventions (e.g., transposition/omission/insertion of letters). The focal student’s alternative spelling practices illustrated her familiarity with the English writing system and the depth of her knowledge of multiple Englishes.

scholarly journals The Dramatic Impact of Explicit Instruction on Learning to Read in a New Writing System

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-484
Author(s):  
Kathleen Rastle ◽  
Clare Lally ◽  
Matthew H. Davis ◽  
J. S. H. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Method ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Reading Acquisition ◽  
Writing System ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Novel Words

There is profound and long-standing debate over the role of explicit instruction in reading acquisition. In this research, we investigated the impact of teaching regularities in the writing system explicitly rather than relying on learners to discover these regularities through text experience alone. Over 10 days, 48 adults learned to read novel words printed in two artificial writing systems. One group learned spelling-to-sound and spelling-to-meaning regularities solely through experience with the novel words, whereas the other group received a brief session of explicit instruction on these regularities before training commenced. Results showed that virtually all participants who received instruction performed at ceiling on tests that probed generalization of underlying regularities. In contrast, despite up to 18 hr of training on the novel words, less than 25% of discovery learners performed on par with those who received instruction. These findings illustrate the dramatic impact of teaching method on outcomes during reading acquisition.

scholarly journals Effects of Explicit Instruction on Text Structure in Process Writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 433
Author(s):  
Sachi Oshima
Keyword(s):  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Process Writing ◽  
Advanced Level ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Efl College Students

This study investigates the effectiveness of explicit instruction on text structure in the development of Japanese EFL college students’ English writing skills by examining two research questions: (1) How does students’ writing change after being given lessons on explicit instruction and process writing?; and (2) How do students’ perceptions of English writing change due to process writing and explicit instruction on text structure? Two groups of students were given four lessons on process writing and explicit instruction. While one group of advanced-level students wrote an argumentative essay, the other group with beginner-level students wrote a descriptive essay. The results suggest that explicit instruction on text structure can be a useful means of developing English writing skills regardless of students’ English proficiency levels. Students self-report indicated that their ability to organize ideas was highly improved, and they exhibited positive changes in writing in terms of organization and awareness of readers. 本研究では、EFL環境下にある日本人大学生を対象に、文章構成（text structure）の明示的指導がライティングにどのような効果を有するかを、次の2点について考察し、検証した。（1）プロセスライティングと文章構成の明示的指導により、学習者の英語ライティングはどのように変化するか。（2）プロセスライティングと文章構成の明示的指導により、学習者の英語ライティングに対する認識はどのように変化するか。2グループの学生に対しプロセスライティングと文章構成に関する明示的な指導を4レッスンずつ行った。英語上級者のグループにはargumentative essay（議論型エッセイ）を、初級者のグループにはdescriptive essay（記述型エッセイ）を書かせた。結果、文章構成の明示的指導は、学習者の英語運用能力に関わらず、英語ライティングの向上に効果的であることが分かった。学習者は文章構成力が最も上がったと回答しており、ドラフトにも文章構成力の向上や読み手を意識した文章への変容といった効果が表れた。

scholarly journals English spelling among the top priorities in pronunciation teaching: Polglish local versus global(ised) errors in the production and perception of words commonly mispronounced

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Nowacka
Keyword(s):  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
First Year ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Routine Procedure ◽  
Absolute Minimum ◽  
Individual Word ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
English Spelling

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire and recording-based study on production and recognition of a sample of 60 items from Sobkowiak’s (1996:294) ‘words commonly mispronounced’ by 143 first-year BA students majoring in English. 30 lexical items in each task represent 27 categories defined by Porzuczek (2015), each referring to one aspect of English phonotactics and/or spelling-phonology relations. Our aim is to provide evidence for the occurrence of local and globalised errors in Polglish speech. This experiment is intended to examine what types of errors, that is, seriously deformed words, whether avoidable, ‘either-or’ or unavoidable ones, as classified in Porzuczek (2015), are the most frequent in production and recognition of words. Our goal is to check what patterns concerning letter-to-sound relations, are not respected in the subjects’ production and recognition of an individual word and what rules should be explicitly discussed and practised in a phonetics course. The results of the study confirm the necessity for explicit instruction on the regularity rather than irregularity of English spelling in order to eradicate globalised and ‘either-or’ pronunciation errors in the speech of students. The avoidable globalised errors which have turned out to be the most numerous in a production task include such areas of English phonotactics as: the letters <-old> and <oll>, ‘mute consonant letters’, ‘isolated errors’ and two categories related to the reduction of unstressed syllables: ‘reduce the vowel in stress-adjacent syllables and in syllables following the stressed one to /ə/ or /ɪ/’ and ‘reduce <-ous>, <-age>, and <-ate> in nouns and adjectives.’ The hope is also expressed that once introducing spelling-to-sound relations becomes a routine procedure in pronunciation training, the strain on part of the students of memorizing a list of true local errors, phonetically challenging pronunciation exceptions, will be reduced to the absolute minimum.

Intelligent English writing system based on fusion of herding effect and artificial intelligence

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Liu Guifang
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Training System ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Traditional Teaching ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Herd Effect ◽  
College English ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Relative Attractiveness ◽  
Information Sharing Mechanism

The use of intelligent college English writing training system will certainly promote the traditional teaching structure and realize a new and efficient English writing teaching mode. On the basis of machine learning and the herd effect algorithm, this article constructs an artificial intelligence-based English intelligent writing system. Moreover, in view of the shortcomings of traditional models and the characteristics of intelligent English writing, this paper proposes an improved algorithm for optimization of swarm particle walking paths. In addition, this article proposes a relative attractiveness to initialize the formation of small-scale groups based on the herd effect. Then, in the process of intelligent writing, by establishing an information sharing mechanism between groups, each group is continuously updated and reorganized according to the relative attractiveness of the group, so that the writing process can be simulated more realistically. From the experimental research, it can be seen that the model constructed in this paper has a certain degree of intelligence.

The need for addressing multilingualism, ambiguity and interoperability for visual resources management across metadata platforms

First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Russo ◽  
Abebe Rorissa
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Significant Percentage ◽  
Resources Management ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Visual Resource Management ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Image Metadata ◽  
Visual Resource

The digitization of visual resources and the creation of corresponding metadata that meets the criteria of clarity and interoperability, while also approaching the needs of the multilingual Web, are pressing concerns. Because visual resources make up a significant percentage of digital information, this paper focuses on the aforementioned concerns and proposes ways to address them, including swift progression and adoption of cohesive, multi-user, multilingual metadata standardization to improve digital access and to allow all descriptive image metadata to be approachable and translatable. We offer some recommendations such as those involved in visual resource management moving away from using primarily the English writing system based metadata schemas in order to provide flexible lexicon in non-Roman languages, which can easily be recognized and interpreted by both monolingual and multilingual users alike as well as facilitate digital metadata interoperability.

A Theoretical Analysis of the Effects of Writing System Characteristics on Learning to Read

1971 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
William B. Gillooly
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Verbal Learning ◽  
Behavioral Effects ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Learning Models ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Reading Experience ◽  
Mediation Processes ◽  
System Characteristics

This paper summarizes the work of those seeking to analyze English orthography as well as the data which bear on the behavioral effects of writing system characteristics. English writing is shown to involve at least two levels of representation. One level is sound-related (phonographic representation) but another, deeper level of representation is meaning-related (orthographic representation). The results of this analysis are combined with verbal learning models in order to explain the experimental data. Reading is viewed as involving mediation processes which depend, in part, on reading experience. Hence, the effects of increased reading experience involve not only changes in the functional stimuli for reading as Gibson has proposed but also changes in the nature of the responses to those stimuli. The implications of this notion are discussed briefly.

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