scholarly journals Cross-Language Poetics: Proposal for an Interdisciplinary Research Program

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Francis
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Verbal Art ◽  
European Origin ◽  
Creative Writers ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Special Circumstances ◽  
Cross Language

For creative writers and for readers, opportunities to work with language in ways that engage two linguistic systems and/or two writing systems continue to expand with the growing influence of international and regional lingua francas. At the same time, we have witnessed the continuing development of literary creation in languages with fewer speakers, even in communities facing the outright erosion and replacement of their language. Alongside the tendencies of globalization, literature has also become more diverse, a new recognition of multilingualism and multiculturalism emerging among writers and readers alike. The special circumstances of composition and understanding that the different kinds of language and cultural interaction highlight also present us with an opportunity to study what it is that is fundamental in verbal art. After reviewing three historical examples of European origin (in Section 2) we will turn our attention to problems of language, writing system and poetry in East Asia (in Section 3). The examples from history will help us to put the current situation of multilingual and multicultural contexts for literature into a broader perspective. This is will allow us to return to consider a proposal for research on cross-language poetics.

Activation of L1 orthography in L2 word reading: Constraints from language and writing system

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832092776
Author(s):  
Lin Chen ◽  
Charles A Perfetti ◽  
Xiaoping Fang ◽  
Li-Yun Chang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
First Language ◽  
English Word ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
Co Activation ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Color Judgment

When reading in a second language, a reader’s first language may be involved. For word reading, the question is how and at what level: lexical, pre-lexical, or both. In three experiments, we employed an implicit reading task (color judgment) and an explicit reading task (word naming) to test whether a Chinese meaning equivalent character and its sub-character orthography are activated when first language (L1) Chinese speakers read second language (L2) English words. Because Chinese and English have different spoken and written forms, any cross language effects cannot arise from shared written and spoken forms. Importantly, the experiments provide a comparison with single language experiments within Chinese, which show cross-writing system activation when words are presented in alphabetic Pinyin, leading to activation of the corresponding character and also its sub-character (radical) components. In the present experiments, Chinese–English bilinguals first silently read or made a meaning judgment on an English word. Immediately following, they judged the color of a character (Experiments 1A and 1B) or named it (Experiment 2). Four conditions varied the relation between the character that is the meaning equivalent of the English word and the following character presented for naming or color judgment. The experiments provide evidence that the Chinese meaning equivalent character is activated during the reading of the L2 English. In contrast to the within-Chinese results, the activation of Chinese characters did not extend to the sub-character level. This pattern held for both implicit reading (color judgment) and explicit reading (naming) tasks, indicating that for unrelated languages with writing systems, L1 activation during L2 reading occurs for the specific orthographic L1 form (a single character), mediated by meaning. We conclude that differences in writing systems do not block cross-language co-activation, but that differences in languages limit co-activation to the lexical level.

An Error Analysis of Hiragana and Katakana Writing Systems in the Learning of Japanese as Third Language at UiTM

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Norhazlina Husin ◽  
Nuranisah Tan Abdullah ◽  
Aini Aziz
Keyword(s):  
Error Analysis ◽  
Foreign Students ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
The Other ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Main Challenge

Abstract The teaching of Japanese language as third language to foreign students has its own issues and challenges. It does not merely involve only teaching the four language skills. Japanese language has its own unique values. These unique values also tend to differentiate the teaching of Japanese language as a third language from other third language acquisitions. The teaching of Japanese language as third language to foreign students also involves the teaching of its writing system. This makes the teaching of Japanese language rather complicated because Japanese language has three forms of writings, namely: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Students are required to fully understand the Hiragana system of writing first before proceeding to learn the other two forms of writings. The main challenge in the teaching of Japanese writing systems is the time allocated that can be considered as very limited as other language aspects need to be taught too. This, which relates directly to students’ factor very much contribute to the challenges foreseen. Students are likely to face problems in understanding and using the writings as they simultaneously need to adhere to the findings teaching and learning schedules. This article discusses on the analysis conducted in terms of the learning of the Hiragana and Katagana systems of writing among foreign students. The discussion in this article is based on the teaching of Japanese language to students of Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Shah Alam. Keywords: Third language, Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji

In search of the perfect orthography

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Venezky
Keyword(s):  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
International Phonetic Alphabet ◽  
Experienced Reader ◽  
Cultural Considerations ◽  
Advanced Stages ◽  
One To One ◽  
The One ◽  
Psychological Processing ◽  
The Ideal

Philologists, linguists, and educators have insisted for several centuries that the ideal orthography has a one-to-one correspondence between grapheme and phoneme. Others, however, have suggested deviations for such functions as distinguishing homophones, displaying popular alternative spellings, and retaining morpheme identity. If, indeed, the one-to-one ideal were accepted, the International Phonetic Alphabet should become the orthographic standard for all enlightened nations, yet the failure of even a single country to adopt it for practical writing suggests that other factors besides phonology are considered important for a writing system. Whatever the ideal orthography might be, the practical writing systems adopted upon this earth reflect linguistic, psychological, and cultural considerations. Knowingly or unknowingly, countries have adopted orthographies that favour either the early stages of learning to read or the advanced stages, that is, the experienced reader. The more a system tends towards a one-to-one relationship between graphemes and phonemes, the more it assists the new reader and the non-speaker of the language while the more it marks etymology and morphology, the more it favours the experienced reader. The study of psychological processing in reading demonstrates that human capacities for processing print are so powerful that complex patterns and irregularities pose only a small challenge. Orthographic regularity is extracted from lexical input and used to recognise words during reading. To understand how such a system develops, researchers should draw on the general mechanisms of perceptual learning.

The relation of vowel letters to phonological syllables in English and German

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-234
Author(s):  
Martin Neef
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Language System ◽  
English I

Assuming that a writing system is inevitably dependent on a language system, the main function of written representations is to give access to the basic representations of the language system. In this paper, I want to deal with graphematic phenomena, i.e. the relations of written representations to corresponding phonological representations. In particular, I will delve into the relation of written representations to the phonological factor of the number of syllables, based on data from English and German. Though in these languages, there is neither a specific written element relating to the syllable number nor an isomorphic relation between vowel letters and the number of syllables, two questions are worth examining: Can a word have more syllables than vowel letters? Can a word have less syllables than uninterrupted sequences of vowel letters? The first question will be answered positively for both languages although there are some severe differences to be stated; the second question will be answered positively only for English. I will show that these results are side-effects of more basic regularities of the writing systems under consideration.

scholarly journals Revitalising Naxi dongba as a ‘pictographic’ vernacular script

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-67
Author(s):  
Duncan Poupard
Keyword(s):  
Future Development ◽  
Yunnan Province ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Standard Chinese

A script can be a window into a language and all the culture contained within it. China’s minority peoples have a multitude of scripts, but many are in danger of falling out of use, a decline spurred by the adoption and promotion of standard Chinese across the country. Nevertheless, efforts are being made to preserve minority writing systems. This article reveals how the primarily logographic Naxi dongba script (often labelled the world’s ‘last living pictographs’), used in China’s southwestern Yunnan province to record the Naxi language, can be practically used as a modern writing system alongside its more widely known traditional role as a means of recording religious rites, and what exactly separates these two styles of writing. The efforts that have been made to achieve the goal of modernisation over the past decades are reviewed, including the longstanding attempts at Unicode encoding. I make some suggestions for the future development of the script, and employ plenty of examples from recent publications, alongside phonetic renderings and English translations. It is hoped that overall awareness of this unique script can be raised, and that it can develop into a vernacular script with everyday applications.

scholarly journals Neurocognitive Basis of Dyslexia in Different Writing Systems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Liu ◽  
James R. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Chinese Writing System ◽  
Chinese Writing ◽  
Alphabetic Writing

An important issue in dyslexia research is whether developmental dyslexia in different writing systems has a common neurocognitive basis across writing systems or whether there are specific neurocognitive alterations. In this chapter, we review studies that investigate the neurocognitive basis of dyslexia in Chinese, a logographic writing system, and compare the findings of these studies with dyslexia in alphabetic writing systems. We begin with a brief review of the characteristics of the Chinese writing system because to fully understand the commonality and specificity in the neural basis of Chinese dyslexia one must understand how logographic writing systems are structured differently than alphabetic systems.

scholarly journals RULE-BASED SYLLABIFICATION OF KOREAN WORDS WRITTEN IN LATIN USING DETERMINISTIC FINITE AUTOMATA MODELS

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-85
Author(s):  
Rouly Doharma Sihite ◽  
Aditya Wikan Mahastama
Keyword(s):  
Success Rate ◽  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Markov Models ◽  
Finite Automata ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Research Focus ◽  
Finite State ◽  
Catch Up

Transliteration is still a challenge in helping people to read or write from one to another writing systems. Korean transliteration has been a topic of research to automate the conversion between Hangul (Korean writing system) and Latin characters. Previous works have been done in transliterating Hangul to Latin, using statistical approach (72.2% accuracy) and Extended Markov Models (54.9% accuracy). This research focus on transliterating Latin (romanised) Korean words into Hangul, as many learners of Korean began using Latin first. Selected method is modeling the probable vowel and consonant forms and problable vowel and consonant sequences using Finite State Automata to avoid training. These models are then coded into rules which applied and tested to 100 random Korean words. Initial test results only 40% success rate in transliterating due to the nature that consonants have to be labeled as initial or final of a syllable, and some consonants missed the modeled rules. Additional rules are then added to catch-up and merge these consonants into existing proper syllables, which increased the success rate to 92%. This result is analysed further and it is found that certain consonants sequence caused syllabification problem if exist in a certain position. Other additional rules was inserted and yields 99% final success rate which also is the accuracy of transliterating Korean words written in Latin into Hangul characters in compund syllables.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Aung-Thwin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Character ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Material Environment ◽  
Dry Zone ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between Ava and Pegu was a symbiotic dualism: of time, space and type. Ava was not only a reformulation of something old, and Pegu, the genesis of something new, but as one was located in the agrarian Dry Zone and the other, on the commercial coasts, each was historically, materially, and in terms of general character, distinct. Whereas the Kingdom of Ava was essentially the resurrection of an old kingdom—Pagan writ small—Pegu was a new kingdom composed of new leaders, people, and cultures. Ava was a familiar, Upper Myanmar polity: the same material environment and demographic base, the same economic, social and political institutions, the same language, writing system, cosmology, and culture. Pegu, on the other hand, was a new, independent kingdom of Lower Myanmar, led by newcomers (the Mon speakers) who had migrated from what later became Thailand. Yet, because both Ava and Pegu were built on the same foundations (Pagan), both had certain common elements. They shared virtually the same religion and thought systems; similar social customs, values, and mores; familiar political and administrative principles; a common, even if contested, history; and certainly the same writing system. Whatever the dissimilarities were, they did not produce a binary situation of two irreconcilably antagonistic ethnic entities—Burman and Mon as convention has it—rather, these dissimilarities created a dualism of geo-political and cultural differences whose energy and dynamism came from the tension created precisely by those differences. In fact, Ava and Pegu’s relationship not only epitomized Southeast Asia’s “upstream-downstream” paradigm common throughout much of its history, it continues today in Naypyidaw and Yangon.

Core syllables vs. moraic writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-51
Author(s):  
Eugene Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Language ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Syllable Weight

Abstract It is generally accepted that the units of writing systems represent categories found in spoken language; in phonographic writing, these categories traditionally include the syllable and segment, which correspond to syllabic and alphabetic systems. But it has been claimed that some or most “syllabaries” are actually based on moras, well known from phonological theory as units of syllable weight. I argue that apparent moraic systems are in fact built on signs that stand for core CV syllables, and consequently that moras do not appear to play a central role in any writing system.

Foreign schriftdenken in ausbau languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Constanze Weth ◽  
Daniel Bunčić
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Slavic Language ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
The Creation

Abstract The concept of schriftdenken describes how the knowledge of a writing system in use guides the creation of a writing system for a yet to be standardized language. Trubetzkoy described this effect with reference to the invention of the Glagolitic alphabet in the 9th century with Greek as the reference writing system. This paper demonstrates schriftdenken and measures to increase orthographic differences in two writing systems with a relatively young history: Luxembourgish (a Germanic language) and Rusyn (a Slavic language). In the Luxembourgish context, schriftdenken and orthographic separation are revealed by the historical context, whereas in the Rusyn context, both practices are related to different geographic contact situations in the countries where Rusyn is spoken and written. The reference languages for Luxembourgish are German, French and Dutch; for Rusyn, they are Russian, Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, Polish and Slovak.

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