Biscriptal bilingualism differentially affects segmentation of cross-language homophones: Evidence from Hindi and English users

Aims and objectives: Few previous studies of bilingual cognition have theorized the impact of being literate in distinct orthographies. This study examined: (1) How do differences in the way writing systems represent sound affect biscriptal bilinguals’ segmentation of spoken words in each language? and (2) What is the impact of the first learned orthography? These questions were addressed in native and non-native readers of Hindi and English. The primary unit of writing in Hindi is the akshara, which corresponds to a syllable in most cases, whereas for English the unit of writing corresponds to a phoneme. Method: Hindi-English users listened to cross-language homophones in Hindi and English. Participants were instructed to take away “the first sound” of each word and say aloud what remained. Data analysis: Percent deletion of the initial phoneme was examined. Exp. 1 included 44 bilinguals. Exp. 2 tested 13 bilinguals. Findings/conclusions: For native English readers the first phoneme was deleted regardless of language. For native readers of Hindi, performance differed by language: the “first sound” was a phoneme for English words but a syllable for Hindi words (except for vowel-initial words). Originality: Using a novel paradigm, this study demonstrates that biscriptal bilinguals’ conceptions of speech sounds are differentially shaped by their knowledge of the written forms of those sounds: deleting “the first sound” in /sʌfʌr/ resulted in /fʌr/ when it was presented as a Hindi word but as /ʌfʌr/ when presented as English. Thus, the very same spoken word can yield different conceptions depending on whether it is heard as a word belonging to one language or another. Significance/implications: The findings indicate that language-specific orthographic knowledge influences biscriptal bilinguals’ conceptualization of speech sounds in their respective languages. More generally, our study argues for more research on biscriptal bilinguals in the study of bilingual cognition.

Phonological Preparation in Korean: Phoneme, or Syllable or Another Unit?

With three experiments, the present study investigated the primary phonological preparation (PP) unit in spoken word production in Korean. Adopting the form preparation paradigm, 23 native Korean speakers named pictures in homogenous or heterogenous lists. In homogenous lists, the names of the pictures shared the same initial phoneme (Experiment 1), initial consonant + vowel (i.e., CV) body (Experiment 2), or initial consonant + vowel + consonant (CVC) syllable (Experiment 3); and in heterogenous lists, the names did not share any phonological components systematically. Compared to naming pictures in heterogenous lists, participants’ naming speed was significantly faster when the initial body or the initial syllable of target names was shared. However, this form preparation effect was not shown in Experiment 1, when only the initial phoneme was shared. These results suggested that the body serves as the primary PP unit in Korean, that is, native Korean speakers tend to plan spoken words in a body–coda fashion, probably due to a joint contribution from the strong prevalence of the CV structure and early literacy instructional approach.

Reinforcing preschoolers’ phonemic awareness through the use of tablets

This study aimed to implement an intervention program to examine whether tablets enhance kindergarten children’s phonemic awareness. Seventy-four (74) kindergarten children (40 boys and 34 girls) aged 4 to 6 years from 4 public kindergarten classrooms participated in the study, from which 38 children formed the experimental group while 36 children formed the control one. During the intervention program, children in the experimental group were trained through tablets in initial phoneme identification, initial phoneme deletion, and phoneme segmentation, while the control group trained in the same tasks without tablets. Results showed statistically significant differences in favor of the experimental group. In conclusion, the present research found that digital media help educational practice, but it is also how teachers use digital tools to facilitate learning.

Factors affecting L2 phonological awareness in Chinese-Dutch preschoolers

The present study compared the relationship between Dutch phonological awareness (rhyme awareness, initial phoneme isolation), Dutch speech decoding and Dutch receptive vocabulary in two groups in different linguistic environments: 30 Mandarin Chinese-Dutch bilingual children and 24 monolingual Dutch peers. Chinese vocabulary and phonological awareness were taken into account in the bilingual group. Bilingual children scored below their Dutch monolingual counterparts on all Dutch tasks. In the bilingual group, Dutch rhyme awareness was predicted by Dutch speech decoding, both directly, and indirectly via Dutch receptive vocabulary. When adding Chinese proficiency to the model, Chinese rhyme awareness was found to mediate the relationship between Dutch speech decoding and Dutch rhyme awareness. It can thus be concluded that second language (L2) phonological awareness in Chinese-Dutch kindergartners is affected by their L2 speech and vocabulary level, on the one hand, and their level of phonological awareness in the first language (L1).

Skrining Kemampuan Phonological Awareness Anak Pra Sekolah

Background. In the learning process at school, especially in pre-school education, phonological ability is the entrance for children in mastery of language. In Indonesia, research that focuses on phonological abilities in pre-school children is still very limited. Objective. This study aims to determine the profile of pre-school children's phonological awareness abilities. Method. Participants were recruited from the Surakarta ABA Thoyibah Kindergarten with a total of 27 class B children to participate in this study. Screening is given to participants. The screening results will reflect the profile of children's phonological awareness abilities. Results. There are five items that can be used to screen pre-school children's phonological awareness skills: rhyme, syllable blending, initial phoneme identification, medial phoneme identification, and final phoneme identification. The results of the internal validation analysis of phonological awareness subtest were as follows: rhyme 0.684, syllable blending 0.772, initial phoneme identification 0.880, medial phoneme identification 0.862, and final phoneme identification 0.735. Conclusion. The value of internal validity or the correlation between items in phonological awareness screening is good because all items correlated have a correlation with a low probability value.

The influence of the native language on phonological preparation in spoken word production in a second language

Three experiments investigated the phonological preparation unit in planning English spoken words, comparing English monolinguals, native Chinese and Japanese-speakers who spoke English as their second language. All three groups named pictures in English, and the names could either share the same initial phoneme, mora, or syllable, or had no systematic commonality. A phoneme preparation effect was shown among English monolinguals but not among the two bilingual groups, suggesting that the phoneme is the phonological preparation unit for English monolinguals, but not for the two bilingual groups. All three groups showed mora and syllable preparation effects, but further analysis and a follow-up experiment suggested that Chinese-English bilinguals may treat morae as open syllables. English monolinguals showed similar phoneme and mora preparation effect sizes, possibly as a result of flexibility. Together, the selection of phonological preparation could be flexible, influenced by both the nature of the target language and speakers’ language experiences.

The Effects of Speaker Accent and Target Predictability on Perception of Mispronunciations

This study makes use of a listening for mispronunciation task to examine how native English listeners perceive sentences produced by non-native speakers. The effects of target predictability and degree of foreign accent were investigated. Native and non-native speakers produced English sentences containing mispronunciation. Mispronunciations (MPs) were constructed by changing the initial phoneme of target words by a single distinctive feature along the dimensions of voicing, place, or manner. Results showed that listeners (a) were more accurate and faster in detecting MPs produced by native than non-native speakers, (b) were more accurate and faster in detecting MPs in predictable than unpredictable sentences, and (3) were more accurate in detecting MPs produced by non-native speakers with milder accents, as compared to heavier accents. These findings suggest that listening to fairly intelligible but accented speech requires increased processing effort—possibly because of subtle differences in intelligibility and increased variability characteristic of non-native speech.