Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

With about 90% of all characters in a Chinese dictionary belonging to the semantic-phonetic compound category, Chinese orthography is really more phonetic than logographic. Previous studies have shown that regularity and consistency in the phonetic radical facilitate lexical access of phonetic compound characters. These findings are in line with the literature on lexical access of alphabetic languages, suggesting that phonology plays a common role in the process of visual word recognition across orthographies. The contradictory orthographic neighbourhood density effects found in Chinese and English studies, however, challenge the universal applicability of current models of lexical access. This paper reports an empirical study which investigates regularity, consistency and orthographic neighbourhood density effects on the reading and naming of traditional Chinese phonetic compound characters based on Cantonese phonology. Results showed that by manipulating regularity and consistency at the body rime level, a facilitatory orthographic neighbourhood density effect could be found in lexical decision but not naming. The implication is that regularity and consistency at the level of rime (in addition to the syllable level) is functional in Chinese reading. It also suggests that the body rime might have a general role in lexical access across languages. These findings are interpreted within the connectionist and dual-route models of lexical access. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

The thesis investigates ways in which young children acquire meanings of novel words. Various accounts of word learning postulate that the nature of the word exposure context plays a crucial role in supporting lexical acquisition (e.g. Clark. 1997; Nelson, 1988). Children are sensitive to a range of input, such as syntactic cues (Gleitman, 1990), gestures (Kobayashi, 1997) and verbal explanations of word meaning (Dickinson, 1984). The present research aimed to further our understanding of types of word exposure that help children acquire novel words, by examining the process of lexical acquisition in naturalistic contexts. The research was carried out in an educational context; the emphasis was on vocabulary acquisition in the classroom and children's acquisition of science terms, commonly encountered at school. The range of knowledge children acquired about word meanings was assessed using a variety of lexical tasks (e.g. production and comprehension tasks). The research was divided into three phases. Phase 1 focused on the measurement of lexical knowledge. It considered the ways in which drawing-based tasks tap lexical knowledge. Phase 2 evaluated the importance of the word exposure context in lexical acquisition by investigating children's learning of words that were classed as 'difficult' to learn. Finally, phase 3 explored different kinds of word introduction that help children acquire word meanings. This phase of the research was conducted in classroom settings. Drawing assessments were found to make an important contribution to the assessment of lexical knowledge. Findings from phases 2 and 3 showed that ways in which novel words are introduced plays a crucial role in supporting lexical acquisition, and also the range of vocabulary knowledge children acquire (e.g. production and comprehension). Types of exposure that help children acquire words in classroom contexts were identified. The results are discussed in relation to implications for teaching practice and an account of lexical acquisition

A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine.

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The Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986) provides a conceptual framework for describing the processes involved when readers comprehend text and strong evidence for the SVR comes from factor analytic studies showing dissociation between decoding and comprehension skills. The aim of the present study was to investigate if pre-decoding and comprehension components exist in Canadian English-speaking pre-readers (n = 36) with the use of Principal Components Analysis and to create a parent literacy questionnaire that contains parent literacy practices that may predict children's pre-decoding and comprehension skills. All children were administered a battery of pre-reading measures and parents completed a literacy survey. Principal Components Analysis demonstrated that listening comprehension and pre-decoding measures loaded as distinct components. The findings provide support for the SVR framework. No clear patterns were identified between parent literacy practices and children's pre-reading skills. Further work is needed with a larger and more representative sample.

This thesis attempts to explain the functions of the preposing of the direct object in Japanese. Japanese is generally a verb-final language and the basic word order is Subject (S) -> Object (O) -> Verb (V). However, it also has relatively free word order, and a direct object can be preposed to the sentence-initial position forming OSV word order. Although clauses expressed in SOV and OSV word orders are semantically identical, OSV is used much less frequently in comparison to SOV. This thesis examines the motivations behind the preposing of direct objects. As a first step toward understanding the possible functions of OSV word order, this thesis analyzes characteristics of preposed direct objects in its data collected from written materials. The results show that both structural characteristics and the information status of direct objects play roles in preposing. Structural characteristics found in preposed direct objects are that they tend to be lengthy, tend to contain demonstratives, or tend not be a direct object component of idiomatic expressions formed with a direct object and a verb. Preposed direct objects tend to convey information that is either linked to the preceding discourse, is linked to the hearer's knowledge, or is emphasized. The findings also show that the preposing of direct objects is motivated by various reasons depending on what is required to enhance communication in the context. Direct objects that have structurally different characteristics, namely those that contain demonstratives or long direct object phrases, are preposed for easier sentence processing or reference. In order to avoid ambiguity, preposing does not occur when the process would split an idiomatic expression comprised of a direct object and a verb. Preposing of direct objects conveying information linked to either the preceding discourse or the hearer's knowledge creates relevance between the preceding discourse and the present proposition. Preposing direct objects structurally indicates what information is emphasized. In other words, the preposing of direct objects facilitates effective communication.