Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-qxsvm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-12T02:50:27.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Automatic phonetic transfer in bidialectal reading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Agnes S. L. Lam ,
Charles A. Perfetti  and
Laura Bell
Agnes S. L. Lam*
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Charles A. Perfetti
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Laura Bell
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
Dr. Agnes Lam, c/o Mr. Philip Lam, Blk. 1, Flat B18, 23, Sha Wan Drive, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigated phonetic activation in reading a nonalphabetic script – Chinese. Since the Chinese ideographic script can be read with more than one dialectal pronunciation, a reader who has learned to read in two dialects will have two pronunciations for the same word stored in his memory. Thus, interference effects will occur. Sixteen subjects who read in Cantonese and Mandarin and 16 subjects who read in Mandarin but not in Cantonese were tested in a similarity judgment task based on pairs of Chinese words that were pronounced the same or differently in one or both of the dialects. That automatic phonetic activation would occur even for an ideographic script such as Chinese was supported by the results.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 299 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baron, J. (1973). Phonemic stage not necessary for reading. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25, 241–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chu-Chang, M., & Loritz, D. J. (1977). Phonological encoding of Chinese ideographs in short-term memory. Language Learning, 27, 341–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowder, R. G. (1982). The psychology of reading: An introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gass, S., & Selinker, L. (Eds.). (1983). Language transfer in language learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
LaBerge, D. (1972). Beyond auditory coding. In Kavanagh, J. F. & Mattingly, I. G. (Eds.), Language by ear and by eye: The relationships between speech and reading (pp. 241–248). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Lam, A. S. L. (1984). The relative importance of content words and function words as related to syntactic complexity, English proficiency and first language transfer in the reading comprehension of English as a second language (ESL) learners. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms.)Google Scholar
Lehtonen, J., & Sajavaara, K. (1984). Phonology and speech processing in cross-language communication. In Eliasson, S. (Ed.), Theoretical issues in contrastive phonology (pp. 85–99). Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag.Google Scholar
Lotz, J. (1972). How language is conveyed by script. In Kavanagh, J. F. & Mattingly, I. G. (Eds.), Language by ear and by eye: The relationships between speech and reading (pp. 57–80). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lukatela, G., Poradic, D., Ognjenovic, P., & Turvey, M. T. (1980). Lexical decision in a phonologically shallow orthography. Memory and Cognition, 8, 124–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, D. E., Schvaneveldt, R. W., & Ruddy, M. G. (1974). Functions of graphemic and phonemic codes in visual word recognition. Memory and Cognition, 2, 309–323.Google Scholar
Morton, J. (1969). Interaction of information in word recognition. Psychological Review, 76, 165–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perfetti, C. A., Bell, L., & Delaney, S. (1988). Automatic phonetic activation in silent word reading: Evidence from backward masking. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 59–70.Google Scholar
Rubenstein, H., Lewis, S. S., & Rubenstein, M. A. (1971). Evidence for phonemic reading in visual word recognition. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 10, 645–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumelhart, D. E., & McClelland, J. L. (1981). Interactive processing through spreading activation. In Lesgold, A. M. & Perfetti, C. A. (Eds.), Interactive processes in reading (pp. 37–60). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stroop, V. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643–662.Google Scholar
Tzeng, O. J. L., Hung, D. L., & Wang, W. S.-Y. (1977). Speech recoding in reading Chinese characters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 3, 621–630.Google Scholar
Van Orden, G. C. (1987). A rows is a rose: Spelling, sound and reading. Memory and Cognition, 15, 181–198.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yen, S. C. (1985). Speech recoding in reading Chinese. Master’s thesis, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Yik, W. F. (1978). The effect of visual and acoustic similarity on short-term memory for Chinese words. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 30, 487–494.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed