The Role of Orthography to Phonology Mapping in Bilingual Word Reading: An Electrophysiological Investigation
Open Access
- Author:
- Botezatu, Mona Roxana
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Sciences and Disorders
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- January 15, 2013
- Committee Members:
- Carol Anne Miller, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Carol Anne Miller, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Krista M Wilkinson, Committee Member
Kathryn D R Drager, Committee Member
Judith Fran Kroll, Committee Member
Adriana Van Hell, Committee Member
Maya Misra, Committee Member - Keywords:
- visual word recognition
bilingual word reading
orthographic depth
cross-linguistic transfer
spelling-sound consistency - Abstract:
- English monolinguals and highly proficient L1-dominant Spanish-English, Chinese- English and Dutch-English bilinguals made rhyme judgments of semantically unrelated English word pairs presented sequentially in the visual modality, while behavioral and EEG measures were recorded. The spelling-sound consistency and orthographic similarity of rhyming and non-rhyming prime-target word pairs were varied systematically. To manipulate consistency, graphemically dissimilar primes and targets that either matched or did not match in consistency were compared in both the rhyming (consistent/consistent: WHITE-FIGHT versus inconsistent/consistent: HEIGHT-FIGHT) and non-rhyming conditions (consistent/inconsistent: CHURCH-COUGH versus inconsistent/inconsistent: CHILD-COUGH). To manipulate orthographic similarity, primes and targets that were matched on spelling-sound consistency, but varied in the degree of graphemic similarity were compared in both rhyming (orthographically similar: RIGHT-FIGHT versus orthographically dissimilar: WHITE-FIGHT) and non-rhyming conditions (orthographically similar: DOUGH-COUGH versus orthographically dissimilar: CHILD-COUGH). All participant groups were facilitated in responding to rhyming relative to non-rhyming conditions. In processing consistency, all participant groups were facilitated by consistency congruent (WHITE-FIGHT) relative to incongruent (HEIGHT-FIGHT) prime-target pairs in making rhyming decisions. In making non-rhyming decisions, English monolinguals were facilitated by consistency congruent (CHILD-COUGH) relative to incongruent (CHURCH-COUGH) conditions, whereas Spanish-English and Chinese-English bilinguals showed the opposite direction of the effect and Dutch-English bilinguals did not show an effect. In processing orthographic similarity, all participant groups were facilitated by convergent orthographic and phonological cues (RIGHT-FIGHT) in making rhyme decisions, but inhibited by divergent orthographic and phonological cues (DOUGH-COUGH) in making non-rhyme decisions. A second group of highly proficient L1-dominant Dutch-English bilinguals made rhyme judgments of semantically unrelated Dutch-English word pairs presented sequentially in the visual modality, while behavioral and EEG measures were recorded. The spelling-sound consistency of the English targets was varied systematically within both rhyming (consistent target: KREET [kreɪt] – TRAIT versus inconsistent target: KREET [kreɪt] – WEIGHT) and non-rhyming conditions (consistent target: KREET [kreɪt] – DARK versus inconsistent target: KREET [kreɪt] – TEAR). Dutch-English bilinguals were facilitated in responding to rhyming conditions that contained consistent (KREET [kreɪt] – TRAIT) relative to inconsistent English targets (KREET [kreɪt] – WEIGHT), as well as in responding to non-rhyming conditions that contained inconsistent (KREET [kreɪt] – TEAR) relative to consistent English targets (KREET [kreɪt] – DARK). Across the five experiments reported in this dissertation, the results suggested that bilinguals’ transfer of spelling-sound consistency expectations from the L1 to the L2 was modulated by the orthographic distance between the L1 and L2. More specifically, bilinguals whose L1 and L2 orthographies shared the same alphabetic script were more likely to transfer reading strategies from the L1 to the L2, regardless of language immersion and task-specific context, relative to bilinguals whose L1 and L2 orthographies used different scripts. Nonetheless, bilinguals whose L1 and L2 used different scripts judged the degree of English (L2) spelling-sound consistency in comparison with the degree of consistency encountered in their L1.