Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T19:35:18.752Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How does home language influence early spellings? Phonologically plausible errors of diglossic Malay children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

SAJLIA BINTE JALIL  and
SUSAN J. RICKARD LIOW
SAJLIA BINTE JALIL
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
SUSAN J. RICKARD LIOW*
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Susan J. Rickard Liow, Department of Psychology and Division of Graduate Medical Studies, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore119260. E-mail: psysusan@nus.edu.sg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Diglossia, or the use of two forms of a language in a single speech community, is widespread. Differences between the nonstandard form, used for everyday conversations, and the standard form, used for formal occasions and writing, often extend to phonology as well as grammar and vocabulary. Most preschoolers from diglossic families are routinely exposed to the colloquial nonstandard form during conversations at home because the social setting determines the form their parents use. If early spellings are speech based, exposure to nonstandard phonology should influence the kinds of errors diglossic children make. We investigated this prediction in Rumi Malay that, unlike English, has unambiguous phonology–orthography mappings. For Study 1, two spelling tests (51 words, 26 nonwords) were dictated with standard Malay pronunciation. For words, but not nonwords, the diglossic Singaporean children (N = 52, mean age = 6.5 years) made vowel errors that are consistent with the nonstandard Malay pronunciation they use at home. Study 2 confirmed that these errors are rare for equally proficient Malay spellers from Indonesia who speak standard Malay at home. These results are interpreted as strong evidence for the view that beginners' spellings are based on phonological redintegration of their own speech-based representations.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 535 - 552
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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

Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, D. A., & Loosemore, P. W. (1995). A computational approach to dyslexic reading and spelling. In Leong, C. K. & Joshi, R. M. (Eds.), Developmental and acquired dyslexia (pp. 195–219). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruck, M., Genesee, F., & Caravolas, M. (1997). In Blachman, B. A. (Ed.), Foundations of reading acquisition and dyslexia: Implications for early intervention (pp. 145–162). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Caravolas, M. (2004). Spelling development in alphabetic writing systems: A cross-linguistic perspective. European Psychologist, 9 3–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caravolas, M., & Bruck, M. (1993). The effect of oral and written language input on children's phonological awareness: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 55 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caravolas, M., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. J. (2001). The foundations of spelling ability: Evidence from a 3-year longitudinal study. Journal of Memory and Language, 45 751–744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caravolas, M., Kessler, B., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. (2005). Effects of orthographic consistency, frequency, and letter knowledge on children's vowel spelling development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92 307–321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cataldo, S., & Ellis, N. (1988). Interactions in the development of spelling, reading and phonological skills. Journal of Research in Reading, 11 86–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaney, C. (1998). Preschool language and metalinguistic skills are links to reading success. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19 433–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheung, H., Chen, H.-C., Lai, C. Y., Wong, O. C., & Hills, M. (2001). The development of phonological awareness: Effects of spoken language experience and orthography. Cognition, 81 227–241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cook, V., & Bassetti, B. (Eds.). (2005). Second language writing systems. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durgunoglu, A. Y., & Oney, B. (1999). A cross-linguistic comparison of phonological awareness and word recognition. Reading and Writing, 11 281–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehri, L. C. (1997). Learning to read and learning to spell are one and the same, almost. In Perfetti, C. A., Rieben, L., & Fayol, M. (Eds.), Learning to spell: Research, theory, and practice across languages (pp. 237–269). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ellis, N. C., & Hooper, A. M. (2001). Why learning to read is easier in Welsh than in English: Orthographic transparency effects evinced with frequency-matched tests. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22 571–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, S. E. (2006). Nonword repetition and word learning: The nature of the relationship. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27 513–543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, S. E., & Hitch, G. (1993). The development of rehearsal: A revised working memory perspective. In Collins, A., Gathercole, S., Conway, M., & Morris, P.. (Eds.), Theories of memory. Hove: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gathercole, S. E., Pickering, S. J., Hall, M., & Peaker, S. M. (2001). Dissociable lexical and phonological influences on serial recognition and serial recall. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 54A, 1–30.Google Scholar
Gathercole, S. E., Willis, C., & Baddeley, A. D. (1991). Dissociable influences of phonological memory and phonological awareness on reading and vocabulary development. British Journal of Psychology, 82 387–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, U., & Bryant, P. E. (1990). Phonological skills and learning to read. London: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Harris, M., & Hatano, G. (Eds.). A cross-linguistic perspective on learning to read. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Howell, D. C. (2002). Statistical methods for psychology (5th. ed.). London: Thomson Learning.Google Scholar
Hulme, C., Maughan, S., & Brown, G. D. A. (1991). Memory for familiar and unfamiliar words: Evidence for a long-term memory contribution to short-term memory span. Journal of Memory & Language, 30 685–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikram, A., Saleh, S., Mutiara, P. M., Augusdin, J., & Rukmi, M. I. (1985). Kamus Melayu-Indonesia. Jakarta: Pusat Pembinaan dan Pembangunan Bahasa Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.Google Scholar
International Picture Naming Project. (2004). IPNP Database. University of California San Diego, Centre for Research in Language. Retrieved October 2004 from http://crl.ucsd.edu/~aszekely/ipnp/1stimuli.htmlGoogle Scholar
Jacquemot, C., & Scott, S. (2006). What is the relationship between phonological short-term memory and speech processing? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 480–486.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kemp, N., & Bryant, P. (2003). Do beez buzz? Rule-based and frequency-based knowledge in learning to spell plural -s. Child Development, 74 63–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kreiner, D. S., & Gough, P. B. (1990). Two ideas about spelling: Rules and word-specific memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 29 103–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, I. Y., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, F. W., & Carter, B. (1974). Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18 201–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maclean, M., Bryant, P., & Bradley, L. (1987). Rhymes, nursery rhymes, and reading in early childhood. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 33 255–281.Google Scholar
Mann, V. A., & Foy, J. G. (2003). Phonological awareness, speech development, and letter knowledge in preschool children. Annals of Dyslexia, 53 149–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McBride-Chang, C. (1995). What is phonological awareness? Journal of Educational Psychology, 87 179–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messbauer, V. C. S., & De Jong, P. F. (2006). Effects of visual and phonological distinctness on visual–verbal paired associate learning in Dutch dyslexic and normal readers. Reading and Writing, 19 393–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintz, M. W. (1992). A Course in conversational Malay. Singapore: EPB Publishers.Google Scholar
Perfetti, C. A. (1997). The psycholinguistics of spelling and reading. In Perfetti, C. A., Rieben, L., & Fayol, M.. (Eds.), Learning to spell: Research, theory, and practice across languages (pp. 21–38). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rayner, K., Foorman, B. R., Perfetti, C. A., Pesetsky, D., & Seidenberg, M. (2001). How psychological science informs the teaching of reading. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2 31–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Read, C. (1986). Children's creative spelling. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Reece, C., & Treiman, R. (2001). Children's spelling of syllabic /r/ and letter-name vowels: Broadening the study of spelling development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22 139–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickard Liow, S. J., & Lau, L. H.-S. (2006). The development of bilingual children's early spelling in English. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98 868–878.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickard Liow, S. J., & Lee, L. C. (2004). Metalinguistic awareness and semi-syllabic scripts: Children's spelling errors in Malay. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 17 7–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickard Liow, S. J., & Poon, K. L. (1998). Phonological awareness in multilingual Chinese children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19 339–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickard Liow, S. J., & Tng, S. K. (2003). Biscriptal literacy development of Chinese children in Singapore. In McBride-Chang, C. & Chen, H.-C.. (Eds.), Reading development in Chinese children (pp. 215–228). Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Rittle-Johnson, B., & Siegel, R. S. (1999). Learning to spell: Variability, choice and change in children's strategy use. Child Development, 70 332–348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roodenrhys, S., & Stokes, J. (2001). Serial recall and nonword repetition in reading disabled children. Reading and Writing, 14 379–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stage, S. A., & Wagner, R. K. (1992). Development of young children's phonological and orthographic knowledge as revealed by their spellings. Developmental Psychology, 28 287–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R. (1993). Beginning to spell: A study of first-grade children. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R. (1994). Use of consonant letter names in beginning spelling. Developmental Psychology, 30 567–580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R. (2004). Spelling and dialect: Comparisons between African American Vernacular English and White speakers. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 11 338–342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Treiman, R., Goswami, U., Tincoff, R., & Leevers, H. (1997). Effects of dialect on American and British children's spelling. Child Development, 68 229–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R., & Tincoff, R. (1997). The fragility of the alphabetic principle: Children's knowledge of letter names can cause them to spell syllabically rather than alphabetically. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 64 425–451.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turner, J. E., Henry, L. A., Smith, P. T., & Brown, P. A. (2004). Redintegration and lexicality effects in children: Do they depend upon the demands of the memory task? Memory and Cognition, 32 501–510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wagner, R. K., & Torgesen, J. K. (1987). The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin, 101 192–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, H., & Goswami, U. (1994). The influence of orthographic consistency on reading development—Word recognition in English and German children. Cognition, 51 91–103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wimmer, H., & Hummer, P. (1990). How German-speaking first graders read and spell: Doubts on the importance of the logographic stage. Applied Psycholinguistics, 11 349–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winskel, H., & Widjaja, V. (2007). Phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and literacy development in Indonesian beginner readers and spellers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28 23–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziegler, J., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin, 31 3–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar