The effect of first written language on the acquisition of English literacy

COGNITION

Cognition 59 (1996) 119-147

ELSEVIER

The effect of first written language on the acquisition of English literacy Alison Holm, Barbara Dodd* Department of Speech and Hearing, University of Queensland, St. Lucia 4072, Australia

Received 27 June 1995, final version accepted 15 August 1995

Abstract

The relationship between first and second language literacy was examined by identifying the skills and processes developed in the first language that were transferred to the second language. The performance of 40 university students from The People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Australia were compared on a series of tasks that assessed phonological awareness and reading and spelling skills in English. The results indicated that the Hong Kong students (with nonalphabetic first language literacy) had limited phonological awareness compared to those students with alphabetic first language literacy. The reading and spelling tasks showed no differences between the groups on real word processing. However, the students from Hong Kong had difficulty processing nonwords because of their poor phonological awareness. The results supported the hypothesis that people learning English as a second language (ESL) transfer their literacy processing skills from their first language to English. When the phonological awareness required in English had not been developed in the first language, ESL students were limited to a wholeword, visual strategy. The findings indicate that students from non-alphabetic written language backgrounds might have difficulties with new, or unfamiliar words when attending universities where English is the medium of instruction.

1. Introduction

T h e frequently quoted statement that we "only learn to read o n c e " (Saville-Troike, 1976, p. 87) highlights the expectation that skills learned in one language will be transferred to another. Prior literacy in a first language greatly increases the ability of a person becoming literate in a second * Corresponding author. Fax: 07 365 4754. 0010-0277/96/$15.00 © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved S S D I 0(110-0277(95)00691-5

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language (Collier, 1989; Swain, 1981; Tarone, 1990). That is, adult language learners, literate in their first language, can draw on the skills and knowledge of literacy practices from their first language. In alphabetic languages the process of assembling phonology from letters relies on phonological awareness: knowledge of the sound structure of the language and the skill to manipulate sound units. However, different orthographies represent their units of phonology differently. Chinese characters, for example, represent one-syllable morphemes, not phonemes. Since phonological awareness develops in relation to orthography (Huang & Hanley, 1995; Read, Zhang, Nie, & Ding, 1986), literacy in different orthographies results in differences in phonological awareness. This raises an interesting question: how will phonological awareness derived from one orthography affect the acquisition of a second written language which has a different phonology-orthography relationship? Fluent reading is characterised by rapid, context-free word recognition. At higher cognitive levels, appropriate comprehension strategies support fluency. Skilled reading, however, can only result from a constant interaction between these higher processes and bottom-up phonological processing that allows the recognition of unfamiliar words. Despite the emergence of interactive models of reading (Lesgold & Perfetti, 1981; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981) much of the second language literacy literature continues to exhibit a strong top-down bias. The role of bottom-up processes, although recognised as vital for proficient reading (Eskey, 1988), has been largely ignored. In contrast to second language research, there has been extensive research into first language bottom-up processes, such as word recognition through decoding the phonology-orthography relationship. Evidence from a number of first language studies support the conclusion that the ability to use phonological information to process written and oral language is related to the acquisition of reading skills (see Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Stanovich, 1986; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987, for reviews). A review of literature concerning models of first language reading and the role of phonological information across various orthographies reveals a number of striking similarities. The main differences between models within and across orthographies occur in the process of using the information: • the time-course of activation, that is, whether phonological or orthographic access is faster; • the order in which units of the models are used; • whether or not the phonological access is pre- or postlexical; and • the process that is used with differences in frequency and regularity of the words. Dual-route models (e.g., Coltheart, 1982; McCusker, Hillinger, & Bias, 1981) provide separate pathways for phonological and orthographic information to access the lexicon; analogy models (e.g., Kay & Marcel, 1981)

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claim that orthographic information is only used to activate some phonological forms (e.g., words with rare spellings such as antique); and interactive models (e.g., Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989) claim there is only one pathway along which both sources of information interact. In summary, most models of skilled reading in alphabetic orthographies allow for the processing of both orthographic and phonological information. However, evidence for the use of both phonological and orthographic information in reading is not limited to alphabetic orthographies. There is a general consensus that both activation sources are used to read all orthographies: alphabetic, syllabic and logographic. For example, both alphabetic and logographic orthographies have been shown to involve phonological coding (Hung & Tzeng, 1981; Lam, Perfetti, & Bell, 1991; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). This does not mean that phonology mediates identification in all orthographies, rather, it is a component of identification in all orthographies. Seidenberg (1992, p. 114) concluded that "humans seem to converge on remarkably similar mechanisms in reading, despite apparent differences among orthographies". The "division of labour" between the phonological and orthographic components of reading has been suggested to be a more relevant issue than an either/or debate (Seidenberg, 1992). Besner and Smith (1992, p. 60) argued that while some experimental tasks given to readers of various orthographies required assembled phonology (i.e., indirect word recognition via grapheme-phoneme conversion: in English, this process is used mainly for unfamiliar or low-frequency words) others required addressed phonology (i.e., direct word recognition: in English this process is used for known, familiar words), therefore, "the overall data are most compatible with the hypothesis that the addressed and the assembled routines are available in virtually all orthographies". How then do readers of different orthographies differ in terms of their cognitive processing of text? Given that the nature of the orthography learned determines levels of phonological awareness of the sound structure of the language, perhaps the most important difference lies in how the process of assembling phonology from graphemes occurs, regardless of when or why this process takes place. That is, while the need to assemble phonological forms from graphemes is critical for all orthographies, the skills required to carry out this process effectively might vary according to the nature of the orthography. It is well established that those acquiring a second written language use the strategies that they found useful in learning their first written language (Coady, 1979). The significant issue is not whether the skills used in the first language transfer to the second language, but how these skills are applied. Difficulties are likely to arise if the skills used in the first language are inadequate or inappropriate for the second language. For example, readers of a logographic orthography might associate a character with the total phonological form of a morpheme; therefore they could find it difficult acquiring the phonological parsing skills necessary for reading an alphabetic

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language such as English. Phonological awareness is an important skill for processing unknown words in English (Campbell & Butterworth, 1985). A number of studies indicate that phonological awareness is developed only through acquisition of an alphabetic orthography (Mann, 1986; Read et al., 1986). Further, people identified as having specific reading disability in English typically show evidence of deficits in phonological processing (Goswami & Bryant, 1990). Consequently, students whose first written language is non-alphabetic might acquire functional literacy using the same strategies they use to read their first language, but they are likely to have trouble reading unfamiliar words. The study reported here investigates this issue by comparing the literacy skills (ability to process real words and nonwords in English) of ESL (English as a second language) learners from different orthographic backgrounds. Their phonological awareness was also assessed to determine how it affects literacy acquisition in English. It was hypothesised that: • ESL learners transferring the skills formed by a logographic language, without exposure to an alphabetic system, will have limited phonological awareness. This limitation will restrict them to reliance on visual processing. Nonwords that require use of the phonological route will be difficult if not impossible for them to process. • ESL learners transferring the skills formed by another alphabetic language, or who have learned an alphabetic language in conjunction with a non-alphabetic language, will have developed some phonological awareness. They will be able to use the same processes as monolingual English learners, including assembling phonology, when confronted with nonwords.

2. Method

2.1. Subjects Four groups of subjects participated in the study. The groups were selected on the basis of their first language literacy acquisition process. The four groups were selected to represent different combinations of orthographies, to determine which linguistic skills had developed in the native language and could be transferred to the learning of English. All subjects were students of the University of Queensland and were selected from students at International House (a residential college) or contacted through the Queensland Council for Overseas Students. There were five males and five females in each group. Each of the ESL subjects had achieved a score of 6.5 on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) (the University of Queensland requires at least a score of 6.5 for entry) or had

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completed their Secondary Senior Certificate in Australia. All of the subjects had completed at least 1 year of university study and had no previous spoken language or literacy difficulties in their first language. The characteristics of each of the groups are outlined in Table 1.

2.2. Selection process 2.2.1. People's Republic of China subjects Ten Chinese (People's Republic of China) subjects were selected. Although the Chinese language is represented by logographs, a group of subjects from the People's Republic of China was chosen because alphabetic literacy was established in the process of learning to read the logographs. In 1958 China introduced an alphabetic system employing Latin symbols, called pinyin, as part of a general language reform movement. Pinyin is a phonemic representation of the language in Roman letters (Huang & Hanley, 1995; Read et al., 1986). Children are first introduced to pinyin as a transitional alphabet for learning literacy of the Chinese logographic system (Barnitz, 1978). Today, pinyin is used to promote the standard dialect and to facilitate initial learning of reading. All the Chinese subjects studied English at university in China. Most participants were initially exposed to English through lessons broadcast on television; however, the only interactive English instruction they received was through the subjects they chose at university. Four subjects were involved in English intensive courses prior to coming to study in Australia. These courses focused primarily on spoken language.

2.2.2. Hong Kong subjects Ten Hong Kong subjects were selected. A group of subjects from Hong Kong was chosen because they did not achieve literacy in the Chinese logographs through the use of pinyin. These subjects did not learn an alphabetic system before they were exposed to English. The approach to reading in Hong Kong is largely "look and say", with the whole character as the basic unit. Children are taught character-to-pronunciation mappings without the mediation of an alphabetic system (Taft & C h e n , 1992). A new character is pronounced and explained at the beginning of a lesson and then related to its context. English as a second language is introduced usually in the third year of primary school. The "look and say" process of instruction is also used for English learning (Huang & Hanley, 1995; Leong, 1973). All Hong Kong subjects learned English at primary school. English instruction was maintained throughout their primary and secondary education. With one exception, all subjects completed the final 2 years of their secondary education in Australia, passing Senior Certificate English requirements. The other subject attended an English language high school in Hong Kong and obtained entry to the University of Queensland on the basis of a TOEFL

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(Test of English as a Foreign Language) score of 573 (comparable to an IELTS score of 6.5).

2.2.3. Vietnamese subjects Ten Vietnamese subjects were selected. Vietnamese is an alphabetic language that uses Roman characters, although the phoneme represented by the grapheme is not always the same in English as it is in Vietnamese (Barnitz, 1985). Prior to migrating to Australia none of the subjects had learned English. All subjects undertook an intensive English program (a whole language program as well as some instruction in phonics) when they immigrated to Australia. They then completed the final 2 years of their secondary education in Australia, passing Senior Certificate English requirements. 2.2.4. Australian subjects Ten Australian subjects were selected. Each subject had English as a first language. 2.3. Procedure The subjects were tested individually in one 90-minute session. The testing was administered in a quiet, comfortable room at International House, a residential college at the University of Queensland. Consent forms were obtained and subjects were instructed that they could discontinue Table 1 Subject characteristics for each group Subjects

Mean number of years

SD

Hong Kong Age English literacy exposure Residence in Australia

23.2 15.0 5.0

3.71 3.19 0.67

Chinese Age English literacy exposure Residence in Australia

31.5 10.4 2.1

3.37 3.37 0.73

Vietnamese Age English literacy exposure Residence in Australia

22.0 4.9 4.9

1.49 0.73 0.73

19.4 14.4 19.4

1.07 1.07 1.07

~4ustralian

Age English literacy exposure Residence in Australia

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testing at any time although no subject did so. A series of tasks, described below, assessed phonological awareness, reading and spelling of real and nonwords. Stimulus lists are provided in Appendix A. All subjects received the tasks in the same order.

2.4. Phonological processing tasks Tasks to elicit various levels of phonological skills were adapted from the literature assessing first language literacy. The tasks targeted hypothesised requisite phonological skills for operating in English as an alphabetic language: segmentation of phonemes; phonemic manipulation; and onsetrime awareness.

2.4.1. Phoneme segmentation This task, adapted from Dodd, Sprainger, and Oerlemans (1989), required subjects to analyse the internal composition of words at the phonemic level by identifying the number of constituent sounds. Three lists of eight words, increasing in number of sounds, were presented orally. The three lists included: real words with a one-to-one phoneme to grapheme correspondence (e.g., stamp); real words with a one-to-many phoneme to grapheme correspondence (e.g., whistle); and nonsense words with a one-toone phoneme to grapheme correspondence (e.g., stelp). Three practice items from each list were given. 2.4.2. Spoonerisms This task tested the subject's ability to segment words and apply a novel phonological rule (adapted from Perin, 1983). It assessed the subject's ability to manipulate complex phonemic information. The subjects were required to make spoonerisms of 10 word pairs by transposing the initial phonemes of each pair (e.g., big dog---~dig bog). The pairs of words varied according to the nature of the first sound/grapheme, and the lexical status of the resultant spoonerism. The 10 pairs of words included: two pairs of words where both words began with a single letter/sound (e.g., poor teddy); four pairs of words where a digraph occurred in the first or second element of the spoonerism (e.g., soft cheese); two pairs of words where both initial elements contained digraphs (chip shop); and two pairs of words which began with clusters (e.g., crowd play). One correct spoonerism in each set of two pairs resulted in the generation of two words (e.g., dark ship--~ shark dip). The other resulted in the generation of two nonwords (e.g., short date---~ dort shate). Five practice items, including examples of each item type, were provided to ensure the subjects understood the task. Feedback was given emphasising the need to transpose sounds rather than letters. The subjects were encouraged to make some response to each item.

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2.4.3. Rhyme judgement For this task the subjects were required to decide whether a word pair rhymed (adapted from Dodd et al., 1989). Twenty pairs of words were presented in written form and 20 pairs were presented orally. Four different types of word pairs were presented: orthographically similar rhyming words (e.g., rang/sang); orthographically dissimilar rhyming words (e.g., through/ new); orthographically similar non-rhyming words (e.g., said/paid); and orthographically dissimilar non-rhyming words (e.g., wait/wet). Five pairs from each group were presented in each condition following one practice trial from each group. The written and oral tasks were not presented consecutively to avoid fatigue.

2.5. Reading tasks 2.5.1. Auditory~visual matching words This task required the subject to listen to a word and select from an array of written stimuli the word that matched the auditory stimulus. This assessed the subject's ability to access a phonological code from graphemic information, following priming with an auditorily presented stimulus with available lexical knowledge. Each set of words had a target and three distractors. The distractors varied in terms of the prevocalic unit, the postvocalic unit or the semantic content of the target. For example: Auditory stimulus: purse Visual stimuli: wallet - purge - nurse - purse Two practice items were given.

2.5.2. Auditory~visual matching nonwords This task was identical to the auditory/visual matching words task except that the use of nonwords required the subjects to use simple phonemegrapheme correspondence in a context of low semantic information. The distractors in this task varied in terms of the prevocalic unit, the vowel or visual dissimilarity. For example: Auditory stimulus: stob Visual stimuli: stom - blek - stib - stob Only one practice item was given for the nonword task.

2.5.4. Nonword reading Treiman, Goswami, and Bruck (1990) specifically designed a test of nonword reading to determine the strategies readers use when confronted with a nonword. They developed two lists of nonwords. The graphemes of one list were arranged so that the vowel-consonant (VC) units of the items

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were more frequent in real words than those items in the other list. The theory behind the task was that if experience with real words like main and rain helped the subjects pronounce nonwords like tain, there would be a difference between the accuracy in reading the two lists. If a straightforward grapheme-phoneme conversion occurred the accuracy of reading the two lists should be similar. The task reported by Treiman et al. (1990) was replicated in this assessment. Venezky's (1970) grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules were used to identify the pronunciation counted as correct. The order of the nonwords was the same for each subject. Responses were recorded using a Marantz CP130 cassette recorder and transcribed by an independent phonetically trained speech-language pathologist as well as by the researcher.

2.5.3. Real word reading In addition to the nonword reading task, Treiman et al. (1990) included a test of real word reading designed to determine whether the subjects knew the real words that could help them pronounce the nonwords. The subjects were asked to pronounce a list of 30 words that contained the same VCs as the nonwords. The same procedure as the nonword reading task was used for the real word reading.

2.6. Spelling tasks The spelling tasks used were adapted from Dodd et al. (1989). The spelling tasks were administered to one group of three subjects; all the other subjects were tested individually. All of the spelling stimuli were recorded using a Marantz CP130 cassette recorder to ensure consistent pronunciations and to remove visual cues. Three-second breaks were given between the real word items and 5-second breaks between the nonword items. The subjects were instructed that they would be given time to finish one item before the next was presented: the recording would be paused until the subject was satisfied with the spelling of the word.

2.6.1. Real word spelling Twenty-four real words were presented. Each word was spoken twice in isolation and once in a phrase for writing to dictation. Subjects were encouraged to attempt all the words presented even if they were unsure of the spelling or meaning. The selected stimulus items allowed for spellings that might have been generated by using direct phoneme-grapheme correspondences or rules (e.g., impediment). Some spellings were irregular or unusual and required lexical knowledge of the correct spelling (e.g., aquarium).

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2.6.2. Nonword spelling Twenty-four nonwords were presented. Each word was repeated three times. It was emphasised that there was no correct spelling for the nonwords, that the words should be written according to how they sounded. One-third of selected stimulus items were composed of segments analogical to real words (e.g., complefation), one-third had morphemic unit endings (e.g., kleppering), and one-third were made up of discrete morphemes, not easily spelled by an overt analogy strategy with derivational endings (e.g., shepelartoe).

3. Results

Individual test data, from all assessment tasks (phonological, reading and spelling), were combined for cluster analysis. The data divided into two distinct clusters. The dendrogram, based on Ward's method, using squared Euclidean distance as the similarity measure, is presented in Fig. 1. All of the Hong Kong subjects were included in the last cluster of subjects incorporated into the sample. The inclusion of the Hong Kong subjects caused a large jump in correlation coefficients from 15397.5 to 31916.8, indicating that the homogeneity of the group reduced greatly with their inclusion. The Australian, Chinese and Vietnamese subjects were all included in the other cluster. These results indicate that the Hong Kong subjects, as individuals and as a group, performed differently from all of the other subjects on the tasks. To determine the actual patterns of performance for each of the individual tasks, and across related tasks, analysis of variance was used. These results are presented in the following sections.

3.1. Phonological processing tasks 3.1.1. Phoneme segmentation A two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures compared the groups' proportion of correct (GPC) responses in each of the three conditions (1 : 1 GPC; m a n y : l GPC; nonwords). There was a significant main effect of group ( F = 94.33, df= 3, 36; p < .001). Post hoc analysis using Scheff6's procedure showed that the Hong Kong subjects' performance was significantly inferior to the other three groups, and the Vietnamese subjects' performance was significantly inferior to the Chinese and Australian subjects (Table 2). The main effect of word type was also significant (F = 63.49, df = 2, 72; p < .001). Inspection of Fig. 2 indicates significantly fewer correct responses to words with more letters than phonemes. The interaction of group and word type was also significant (F = 9.43, df = 6, 72; p < .001). Fig. 2 suggests that the interaction arose from the Hong Kong group being the only group to have fewer correct responses for nonwords than words

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A7 A9 A8 A6 A1 A3 A2 A5 A4 A10 V3 V9 V5 V10 V1 V2 V6 V8 C4 C8 C5 C6 C7 C1 C10 C3 C2 C9 V4 V7 1-13 H5 H4 H9 H10 1-12 2 H6 H1 I"17 H8 Fig. 1. Cluster analysis dendrogram. Cluster subjects: 1, Australian (A), Chinese (C), Vietnamese (V); 2, Hong Kong (H).

/

I

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'I

.

i

60

/

A

.

40

20

. 1:1

°""i~T~. . . . . . . . . . . . . " 0 3:

I

,

Many:l

Nonwords

Conditions Fig. 2. Group interaction: phoneme segmentation. Subjects: squares, Chinese; diamonds, Australian; circles, Hong Kong; triangles, Vietnamese. Values are means +-SEM. with a 1 : 1 GPC. Newman-Keuls post hoc testing confirmed that observation statistically: while there was a significant difference between the Hong Kong subjects' performance on the 1 : 1 condition and the nonword condition (critical value -- 12.95, observed value = 20; p < .01), there was no significant difference between these two conditions for the other groups. 3.1.2. Spoonerisms

Comparison of the performance of each group using a two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures for the four spoonerism conditions (single letter pairs; letter-digraph pairs; digraph pairs; cluster pairs) yielded a significant groups' term (F = 60.10, d r = 3, 36; p < .001). Scheff6 comparisons revealed that the mean number of correct responses of the Hong Kong subjects was significantly below those of all other groups. The Chinese group's mean was significantly higher than every other group. These results are shown in Table 2. The conditions terms was also significant ( F = 137.08, d r = 3, 108; p < .001). However, as Fig. 3 indicates, different groups had difficulty with different conditions. The Chinese subjects performed consistently well over all four conditions. The Australian subjects had significant difficulty with the

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Table 2 Total percentage correct (SD) on experimental tasks Mean

SD

H o n g Kong

7.42 4.58 10.30 8.24

* * *

8.64 5.40 3.33 4.38

* * *

Chinese

Vietnamese

Australian

Phoneme segmentation HK Chin.

Viet. Aust.

36.9% 89.9% 66.9% 84.6%

* *

Spoonerism creation HK Chin.

Viet. Aust.

60.5% 97.5% 80.0% 80.5%

Total percentage correct on verbal HK Chin.

Viet. Aust.

65.0% 86.0% 88.5% 99.5%

4.08 3.94 7.47 1.58

rhymejudgement task * * *

*

Total percentage correct on visual rhyme judgement task HK Chin. Viet.

Aust.

62.0% 83.5% 82.0% 98.5%

6.74 3.37 7.88 2.41

* * *

*

Total percentage correct on spelling tasks: real words HK

Viet. Chin.

Aust.

81.6% 84.6% 83.4% 98.4%

5.94 3.16 5.75 2.17

*

*

Total percentage correct on spelling tasks: nonwords HK

Viet. Chin.

Aust.

23.0% 42.6% 60.2% 88.7%

9.85 8.52 5.13 3.33

* * *

* Denotes pairs of groups significantly different at the 0.05 level.

cluster pairs, treating them more like digraphs than clusters. The Hong Kong subjects had the lowest scores of the four groups in each condition except the cluster pairs; they were the only group to make any errors on the single letter pairs. The letter-digraph pairs and cluster pairs were the most difficult for the Hong Kong subjects. The Vietnamese subjects' pattern across the four conditions was similar to the Hong Kong subjects, although they made fewer errors in each condition. These differences gave rise to the significant groups by conditions interaction term ( F = 21.19, d f = 9, 108; p < .001).

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100

80 eBc¢

"s s

qT. IL

-.

IA°

60 0

40 20 0

I

Single Letters

i

i

l

Letter Digraphs Clusters Digraph Conditions

Fig. 3. Group interaction: spoonerisms. Legend as for Fig. 2.

3.1.3. Verbal rhyme judgement A two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures was used to compare the performance of the groups on each item type (orthographically similar rhyming w o r d s - O S R ; orthographically similar non-rhyming w o r d s OSNR; orthographically dissimilar rhyming words - ODR; orthographically dissimilar non-rhyming w o r d s - ODNR). The results showed a significant groups' term (F = 98.91, df = 3, 36; p < .00l). Scheff6 comparisons revealed that the Hong Kong subjects' performance was significantly inferior to all other groups. The Australian subjects' performance was significantly superior to all other groups (see Table 2). The conditions' term was also significant (F = 59.95, df = 3, 108; p < .001). Inspection of Table 3 indicates fewer correct responses to words that were OSNR and ODR for the Hong Kong, Vietnamese and Chinese groups. The Australian group made few errors for any item type. The Hong Kong subjects made the most errors for each type and were the only group to have difficulty with words that were ODNR. This difference gave rise to the significant Groups x Condition interaction term (F = 10.34, dr= 9, 108; p < .001).

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Table 3 Mean percentage of correct rhyme judgements for each item type Condition

Chinese

Australian

Hong Kong

Vietnamese

100 66 78 100

100 98 100 100

96 30 56 74

98 76 80 I00

100 52 89 98

100 96 98 100

90 24 50 84

100 66 66 96

Verbal OSR OSNR ODR ODNR

Visual OSR OSNR ODR ODNR

3.1.4. Visual rhyme judgement A two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures was used to compare the performance of the groups on each item type (OSR, OSNR, ODR, ODNR). The results showed a significant groups' term (F--= 71.84, df= 3, 36; p < .001). Scheff6 comparisons revealed a similar pattern of differences between the groups' for visually presented items and verbally presented items. These differences are shown in Table 2. The conditions' term was also significant ( F = 90.40, dr= 3, 108; p < .001). Inspection of Table 3 shows a similar pattern of performance for the visual condition, compared with the verbal condition, across the four item types. The G r o u p × Conditions interaction was significant (F = 12.13, dr= 9, 108; p < .001).

3.2. Reading tasks 3.2.1. Auditory~visual matching words and nonwords Fig. 4 shows that all four groups performed at ceiling when matching written and spoken words. However, when asked to match written and spoken nonwords the Hong Kong group performed worst of the four groups. A one-way ANOVA was used to compare the groups' performance on the nonword matching task. The results showed a significant groups' term ( F = 23.36, df= 3, 36; p < .0001). Post hoc analysis using Scheffr's procedure confirmed that the Hong Kong subjects' performance in the nonword condition was significantly inferior to the other three groups (Table 2).

3.2.2. Real and nonword reading The total number of correctly read words for the three conditions (real words; high-frequency VC units - H nonwords; low-frequency VC units - L nonwords) were compared in a two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures. The results showed a significant groups' term (F = 28.63, df= 3, 36; p <

134

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100-

~),.-

0

i Ii I

90

°% I° i tt

0

"Oo

0 1 It

80

'o

70

|

|

Real

Non Words

Fig. 4. Real- and non-word AV matching. Legend as for Fig. 2.

.001). Inspection of Table 4 shows that the Australian subjects performed better than the other three groups. The conditions term was also significant (F = 143.41, df = 2, 72; p < .001). Table 4 shows that real world reading was better than both nonword conditions for all groups. All groups read the high-frequency nonwords better than the low-frequency nonwords. There was a significant interaction ( F = 11.10, df= 6, 72; p < .001) between the Table 4 Percentage correct for each condition of the reading task Condition

Chinese

Australian

Hong Kong

Vietnamese

Real words Mean (%) SD

83.7 2.2

100.0 0.0

85.3 2.5

85.7 1.4

L nonwords Mean (%) SD

65.4 3.5

85.8 2.0

36.3 2.4

48.3 3.7

71.7 2.5

93.3 1.1

56.3 4.6

65.8 2.8

H nonword$ Mean (%)

SD

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groups and the reading conditions. Data in Table 4 suggest that the interaction was due to the Hong Kong and Vietnamese groups performing relatively more poorly with nonwords than with real words in comparison to the Australian and Chinese groups. To confirm this statistically, difference scores between real word reading and the two nonword reading conditions were calculated for two combined groups: Australian-Chinese (high-frequency words: M =9.33, SD 6.6; low-frequency words: M = 16.21, SD 11.3), and Vietnamese-Hong Kong students (high-frequency words: M = 42.46, SD 13.0; low-frequency words: M =43.21, SD 13.7). One-way ANOVAs showed that the Vietnamese-Hong Kong group had a greater difference between their real and nonword reading than the AustralianChinese group (real w o r d - H nonword: F = 127.53, dr= 1, 39; p < .001; real word - L nonword: F = 252.97, df = 1, 39; p < .001). 3.3. Spelling tasks 3.3.1. Real and nonword spelling A two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures was used to compare the groups' performances on real and nonword spelling tasks. The results showed a significant groups' term (F = 133.29, df = 3, 36; p < .001). Table 2 shows the post hoc comparisons of the groups' performance. The conditions' term was also significant (F = 800.36, dr= 1, 36; p < .001) with more errors made in the spelling of nonwords. The interaction was also significant ( F = 82.31, df = 3, 36; p < .001). Although all groups made more errors spelling the nonwords than the real words, the Hong Kong group showed the greatest difference between the two conditions as shown by the mean number of correct responses in Table 2. The Australian group was significantly better at real word spelling than the other three groups, although no other differences were significant according to Scheff6 comparisons. The nonword spelling task, however, evoked significant differences between the groups as shown in Table 2.

4. Discussion

The relationship between first and second language literacy was examined by investigating those skills and processes developed in the first language that might be transferred to the second language. The performance of 40 university students from the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Australia, were compared on a series of tasks that assessed phonological awareness and reading and spelling skills in English. The results indicated that the Hong Kong students (with non-alphabetic first language literacy) had limited phonological awareness compared to those students with alphabetic first language literacy. The reading and spelling tasks showed no differences between the groups on real word processing.

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However, the students from Hong Kong had more difficulty processing nonwords because of their poor phonological awareness.

4.1. Phonological awareness 4.1.1. Rhyme The results of the rhyme judgement task indicated that the Hong Kong group found the rhyme detection task more difficult than the other three groups. This result may reflect their lack of experience with subsyllabic segmentation (Bagemihl, 1987; cited in Faber, 1992; Derwing, 1992). The phonological experience that children have as they grow up (e.g., exposure to nursery rhymes, playing rhyming games) affects children's sensitivity to rhyme (Bryant, MacLean, Bradley, & Crossland, 1990; MacLean, Bryant, & Bradley, 1987). For example, Bagemihl (1987; cited in Faber, 1992), in an extensive survey of documented language games, reports that segmentbased games occur only in languages with alphabetic writing systems. In contrast, the highly compact syllables of the Chinese languages have been described as phonologically indivisible because of the syllabic unit's compact phonetic bond to tone and the nature of logographs representing whole morphemes (Hombert, 1986, cited in Derwing, 1992). Derwing (1992) argues that this phonological indivisibility is the reason Chinese (non-pinyin) subjects cannot manipulate phonemes (in contrast to their Chinese pinyin counterparts). An extension of this hypothesis explains an inability to manipulate onsets and rimes without exposure to an alphabet. People from languages that are not written alphabetically may not have had the phonological experience that increases sensitivity to rhyme. In China, when pinyin transliteration is taught, children learn to break syllables into onset and rime segments to aid recognition for reading (Daniels, 1992). Such teaching develops their awareness of rhyme, and their ability to transfer the strategy of identifying common spelling sequences. Another explanation is that judgements about rhyme may be affected by knowledge about spelling (Bryant, MacLean, & Bradley, 1990). Qualitative analysis of the rhyme item types tested suggested that the Hong Kong subjects used their knowledge of the spelling of the pairs of words rather than any awareness of sounds. Despite instruction, that included examples of how rimes of words may look similar but sound different (e.g., said/paid) and words may look different but sound similar (e.g., through/new), these trick items were more difficult for the Hong Kong subjects, presumably because of an impaired ability to disassociate orthography and sound. The Hong Kong subjects' use of an orthographic strategy suggests that the phonological skills were not available to them. A plausible reason for their reliance on spelling information is that they lack environmental exposure to subsyllabic segmentation. The two explanations may not be alternatives, but cause and effect. Sensitivity to rhyme may be a developmental precursor of phoneme detection (Bryant et al., 1990; Goswami & Bryant, 1990). While

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there is no direct evidence for interdependence between phonological awareness at the subsyllabic and phonemic levels, it is conceivable that a well-developed awareness of rhymes and subsyllabic segments is necessary for a smooth acquisition of phonemic awareness during reading instruction.

4.1.2. Phoneme segmentation The Hong Kong group also had limited phonemic awareness. Their performance on the phoneme segmentation task was significantly worse than the groups with alphabetic literacy prior to the learning of English because they used an orthographic strategy (i.e., they were frequently misled by the number of letters in a word when the number of letters failed to correspond with the number of phonemes). Children learning English as a first language often detect an "extra segment" in words like pitch and badge (Derwing, 1992; Ehri & Wilce, 1980, 1986; Tunmer & Nesdale, 1985), indicating that they sometimes confuse the task of counting phonemes with counting letters. The lower scores for all four groups in the many : 1 GPC condition supports these findings. However, over-reliance on the spelling of a word is only reported in studies where phonemic awareness is defective (Campbell & Butterworth, 1985; Perin, 1983). The results of the current study are consistent with those of Huang and Hanley (1995) who found that their Hong Kong subjects relied on spelling knowledge when counting the number of phonemes in a word. The ability to detect, isolate and manipulate single phonemes that are coarticulated in speech does not develop spontaneously (Bentin, 1992; Morais, Bertelson, Cary, & Alegria, 1986; Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979). Learning to read an alphabetic orthography provides the opportunity to develop phonemic awareness. In contrast to speech, writing represents phonemes as clearly defined orthographic segments: the letters. It seems likely that during the acquisition of reading skills children become explicitly aware that words are formed by the sounds that the letters represent. Indeed, most studies reveal a significant gap between the phonemic segmentation skills of kindergarten children and first-graders. For example, Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer and Carter (1974) found no pre-kindergarteners and only 17% of the kindergarteners tested were able to parse words into phonemes, compared with 70% of the first-graders they tested. Huang and Hanley (1995) reported similar results of phonemic awareness development in Chinese children upon acquisition of a phonetic script. Further evidence that awareness of phonemes develops through alphabetic literacy comes from comparisons of illiterate and literate groups, and logographic and alphabetic groups. A number of important studies (Morais et al., 1979; Morais, Cluytens, Alegria, & Content, 1986) showed that illiterate adults have limited awareness of phonemes in contrast to their literate counterparts. Comparisons of logographic and alphabetic orthographic groups have also been made (Huang & Hanley, 1995; Mann, 1986;

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Read et al., 1986); therefore, "It is not literacy in general which leads to segmentation skill, but alphabetic literacy in particular" (Read et al., 1986, p. 41). The absence of orthographic information (i.e., a known spelling), as in the nonword condition, is one way of trying to minimise reliance on spelling, and achieve a more direct measure of phonemic awareness. However, the Hong Kong subjects' awareness of phonemic segments was not improved by eliminating an inappropriate strategy. This indicates that their use of an orthographic strategy is a symptom of an inability to detect the phonemes. In contrast to the Hong Kong subjects' results, the Chinese subjects' performance at the phonemic level was superior even compared to the performance of Australian native English speakers. A number of the Chinese subjects commented that they were "thinking of how to write the word in pinyin", a much closer GPC representation than the English spelling. It is possible that whereas the Australian subjects might have experienced some confusion arising from the inconsistency of English GPC rules, the Chinese subjects segmented the task phonemically without reference to English spelling. The Vietnamese subjects' pattern of performance over the three conditions was similar to their Australian counterparts suggesting similar interference from English spellings. Perhaps the Chinese students' superior performance can be attributed to their thinking of pinyin as a translation of sound, not just the spelling of a word.

4.1.3. Spoonerism creation The results of the spoonerism task, which required manipulation of phonological segments (not just the isolation of the segments as required in the phoneme segmentation task), indicate that the groups used similar strategies for both the phoneme segmentation task and the spoonerism task. The Hong Kong subjects had much greater difficulty than the other ESL groups. Although an orthographic strategy generally works quite well for the single letter and digraph pairs in this task (i.e., exchanging the initial letters rather than the sounds as in big dog---~dig bog; sharp chain---~charp shain), the letter-digraph condition does not allow the use of an orthographic strategy (e.g., soft cheese---~ colt sheese instead of choft seese). The Hong Kong subjects had specific difficulty with these items, their errors being consistently orthographically based. One interesting pattern of results in the spoonerism task was the dramatic inability of all but the Chinese to correctly spoonerise cluster pairs. The explanation given for the Chinese group's superior performance on the phoneme segmentation task also applies to the spoonerism task. They were the only group not influenced by the English orthographic representation; they simply relied on their phonemic awareness. Both Australian and Vietnamese groups, however, treated cluster pairs like digraphs and exchanged both elements of the cluster. The results from the phoneme segmentation and spoonerism tasks clearly

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show that the Hong Kong group, in contrast to the Australian, Chinese and Vietnamese groups, had little phonological awareness at the phonemic level. The only significant difference between the ESL groups was the nature of their first language orthography which supports the theory that development of phonemic awareness requires alphabetic literacy, not just literacy in general. The Hong Kong subjects had not acquired phonemic awareness before they learned English, and it appears that their look-and-say method of learning English did not facilitate phonemic awareness at that stage either. The other significant finding from the phonemic level was the consistent over-reliance of the Hong Kong subjects on an orthographic strategy, a strategy that they also used at the onset-rime level. Thus, the results discussed so far support the hypothesis (see Introduction) that ESL learners who transfer skills formed during literacy acquisition of a logographic language, with no exposure to an alphabetic system, have limited phonological awareness. Further, the results provide evidence bearing on three issues discussed in the literature: • Subsyllabic awareness seems to be developed through environmental influences (e.g. rhyming games) rather than being an innate ability. • the development of phonemic awareness seems to be dependent upon alphabetic acquisition, or another form of explicit phonemic instruction; and • acquisition of a non-alphabetic first language system leads to reliance on a visual strategy if a whole word learning approach to reading English is employed.

4.2. Reading and spelling of real and nonwords Comparing the reading and spelling of nonwords and real words is an effective way to examine if and how phonological awareness is being applied. Unlike nonwords, known words can be read by a direct, nonphonological route using addressed phonology. Nonwords require assembly either by converting letters to sounds using GPCs or by making analogies to components of known words, which requires intrasyllabic awareness (see Goswami & Bryant, 1990 for a detailed review). Spelling of nonwords has been shown to require phonological awareness either at the phonemic or subsyllabic level (Marsh, Friedman, Desberg, & Saterdahl, 1981; Read, 1986; Treiman, 1983). The results from the current study support the hypothesis that while known words can be processed without phonological awareness, nonwords cannot. The Hong Kong subjects, with little phonological awareness at either the subsyllabic or phonemic levels, had difficulty assembling phonology to allow them to process nonwords in either the spelling or reading conditions. The results also suggest that neither the alphabetic principle nor analogy reference are essential for efficient reading and spelling of English. All ESL

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groups were highly literate. The results showed no significant differences between the ESL groups' performance on the real word tasks, despite the Hong Kong subjects' poor phonological awareness. In the auditory~visual matching words and nonwords tasks both phonological and orthographic information was presented. The real word matching condition did not differentiate the groups. However, even at this simplified level, the Hong Kong subjects performed significantly more poorly than the other three groups in the nonword matching condition because they did not have the phonological skills to generate a complete phonological representation of the nonwords that matched the visual and aural representations. Further, while the real word reading task results were within 2% of each other for the three ESL groups, the nonword reading task showed significant differences between the groups, reflecting the Hong Kong subjects' impaired ability to process nonwords. The aim of the task designated by Treiman et al. (1990) was to establish which of the two possible ways (GPC or analogy) of assembling phonological representations was used for reading nonwords. Treiman et al. (1990) found that the H nonwords elicited the use of an analogy reference to other words with similar orthographic patterns, while the L nonwords were less likely to elicit an analogy because they had fewer orthographic neighbours. If a GPC route was used to process both H nonwords and L nonwords there should have been no difference in performance since words in each list would be spelled in the same way. However, all groups in the present study read the H nonwords better than the L nonwords. This result matches that of Treiman et al. (1990). The Hong Kong group, however, performed poorly in both conditions, suggesting that they used neither a GPC nor an analogy process effectively. Their relatively better performance on the H nonwords may reflect their ability to use orthographically based analogies to generate a phonological approximation. The performance of all groups reflects their abilities on the phonological awareness tasks. The Chinese subjects consistently performed slightly better than the Vietnamese on most of the phonological awareness tasks. This pattern is reflected in their performance on the nonword reading tasks. The groups' performance on the spelling tasks reflected their pattern of performance on the reading tasks. The real word spelling task failed to differentiate the three ESL groups (81.6-84.6% range). These data do not fit with research into the acquisition of English spelling by young children. Goswami and Bryant (1990) claimed that children rely on phonological awareness of phonemic and/or subsyllabic units in order to spell. They concluded: "We can find no sign at all of a global strategy, or of a logographic stage, in children's spelling" (p. 61). In contrast, the Hong Kong subjects' results indicate that English spelling can be acquired without phonological awareness, and that they use a "global strategy". The ESL subjects' nonword spelling performance, however, was much more heterogeneous across the three groups (23.0-60.2% range). The specific

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difficulty that the Hong Kong subjects had with nonword reading is mirrored by their inability to process nonwords for spelling. Neither analogy nor GPCs were used effectively by the Hong Kong group to spell nonwords. The results suggest that it is very difficult to apply rules that convert phonology to orthography in the absence of phonological awareness. The Hong Kong subjects' results on the spelling and reading tasks were similar to those reported for a phonological dyslexic, R.E., by Campbell and Butterworth (1985). R.E. was also highly literate but had difficulty reading nonwords. Campbell and Butterworth argued that R.E.'s phonological processing difficulties underlie her inability to process nonwords. A number of the Hong Kong subjects also made a comment, similar to one made by R.E., when they described the way they cope with new words. They reported that they can only read a new word aloud after they have seen it written. Often they can know a word visually, from reading it in a text and locating its meaning in a dictionary. When a lecturer refers to the word, because they have never heard it, and because they have problems generating a phonological representation just from reading it, they do not recognize it. They also have difficulty writing it down in their notes. Until they look at their neighbours' notes, they do not realise that they have met the word before. If the defining symptom of phonological dyslexia is a relative impairment in nonword reading (Patterson, Marshall, & Coltheart, 1985), then the Hong Kong subjects ought to be classified as phonologically dyslexic and dysgraphic. Such a classification is not appropriate, however, because the Hong Kong subjects had no underlying developmental or acquired deficit. R.E., for example, was not able to develop phonological awareness, even when she was given explicit analytic reading instruction as a child, so she was taught to read by a "look-and-say" method. The Hong Kong subjects probably would have acquired phonological awareness if they had been taught an alphabetic system in an analytic way. They have a phonological awareness deficit only because they have not been exposed to phonological segmentation. All the ESL groups provided evidence that the skills developed and strategies used in L1 are transferred to L2. Both Chinese logography and English alphabetic reading can involve phonological coding: phonological and visual routes are available in both orthographies (Perfetti, Zhang, & Berent, 1992). The processes of reading Chinese and English, therefore, do not differ dramatically; nevertheless, Chinese reading does not require the skills needed to use the phonological route in English reading, and thus these skills are simply unavailable for transfer. English requires phonological awareness at the subsyllabic and phonemic levels for processing new words. Chinese requires syllabic phonological awareness but not awareness at the lower levels; therefore, the Chinese reading strategy (using both visual and phonological routes) is appropriate, but Chinese readers lack the specific skills required to employ a phonological strategy in English. The differences between the pinyin-taught Chinese and non-pinyin-taught

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Chinese clearly show that L1 skills are transferred in ESL learning. The Chinese subjects who had learned pinyin had developed phonological awareness at the lower levels; they were able to transfer these skills to English, even though they no longer use them in Chinese. In contrast, the Hong Kong Chinese had no phonological awareness to transfer. Their inability to process nonwords was a result of their phonological awareness deficit. The results of the reading and spelling tasks in the present study, and their relationship to phonological awareness, support a number of hypotheses: • real word reading and spelling do not require phonological awareness; • nonword reading and spelling do require phonological awareness; and • ESL subjects transfer their literacy strategies from their first language to English.

4.3. Implications The findings have two important implications for professionals involved in ESL teaching and first language English teaching: (1) While phonological awareness is not a prerequisite for the achievement of high levels of literacy in English, training in phonological awareness allows the use of phonological processing for analysing new words. This additional skill removes the difficulty of connecting aural and visual vocabulary. It also allows the reader to attempt new word pronunciations, and gives a writer the ability to generate approximations of a new word's spelling. For these reasons phonological awareness is desirable for readers and spellers of English. (2) Phonological awareness requires explicit instruction for development. Literacy in an alphabetic second language can be achieved without concomitant development of phonological awareness. It cannot be assumed that because subjects can read and write in English they have phonological awareness. Specific assessment of phonological awareness is required to determine which reading processes are being used. Intervention may be required to develop phonological awareness so that a phonological route is available to the subject when new words are encountered (e.g., within educational settings).

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Appendix A. Stimulus items

A.1. Phoneme segmentation 1:1

Many : 1

Nonwords

it on pet big swim frog stamp robin

out itch white cake ocean plate friend whistle

og ap zeg lek klon vist stelp oskad

A.2. Spoonerisms big dog poor teddy dark ship soft cheese chilly seats short date chip shop sharp chain crowd play clown prince

A.3. Rhyme judgement A.3.1. Verbal stimuli OSR

ODR

OSNR

ODNR

rang / sang bush / push jar / tar fate / mate fine / mine

laugh / staff fern/yearn sheep / heap fought/port through / new

beast / breast said/paid bear / rear were/where wreath / death

wait / wet cart / kit beg / bag shop/ship fit / fat

post / lost worm/form steak / peak dew / sew cow / row

rot / rat bed/bad ball / bill lace / lice sin / sun

A.3.2. Visual stimuli sing / ring rain/pain wife / life beat / heat song / wrong

maid / grade mist / missed tight / bite core / raw fair / care

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A . 4. Auditory~visual matching

The stimulus word is in italics. A.4.1. Real words car

wallet game boot cable store knee draw

shall pie

jar purge boy cook tale shop

flower dram smell cafe

bus nurse

purse

toy book

tow story

chair stop true gnaw

table

shell cake

can

ship tree

paint stone lake

A.4.2. Nonwords

orp brev stom losk

lun brep

wug ket

blek lasp kerth kesh fres weg koot

slorn

slern

soav

kom dit

A.5. Real word spelling

dog cake yacht dragon received oceans hospital refreshments recipe impediment resignation appreciate

lost paid where seldom donkey bouquet animal discovered extinguished enigmatic supermarket aquarium

lon lang stib foad suv kosh

frel wup kej croil

lup brap stob lask

soag selp fral

klat layf slerf

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A.6. Nonword spelling

dorf sheve suts strecker truckow klondly tismuppered beartelfoam elinam churtlesneedee shepelartoe dramplehoffer

lont wump craid pitfair baytle delsom strapobees soptipal kleppering complefation diskerpillshine strimperdiction

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