published_or_final_version / abstract / Humanities / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Leung, Ming Ming Grace. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-277). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

Literacy development, particularly spelling development is an important topic in SLA because spelling ability is the foundation of literacy skills (Venezky, 1989). However, little is known about the development of spelling in ESL. Research on the development of spelling skills has focused on native English language. This study investigated English L2 spellings among Korean L1 learners of English on the basis of linguistic differences in their L1 and L2 phonology and orthography. Two groups of 3rd graders, Korean L1 English learners (N=36) and native English speakers (N=30), performed a pseudoword spelling task, in which they listened to an audio recording of a total of 34 pseudowords and dictated what they heard. The task material targeting phonological difference consists of two types of pseudowords: the consonants that exist in both English and in Korean (congruent type) and the consonants that do not exist in Korean but exist English (incongruent type). The task material targeting orthographic difference consists of two types of pseudowords: more consistent vowels and less consistent vowels. Data were tested with an experiment with a 2 x 2 factorial design with “group” and “word type” as independent variables. The groups included two groups who are from contrasting L1 backgrounds: English and Korean. For phonological difference, word type included two contrasting types: congruent and incongruent. For orthographic difference, word type included two contrasting types: more consistent and less consistent. The results support the prediction that Korean L1 learners of English would have difficulty in spelling pseudowords containing phonemes which do not exist in Korean but are present in English phonology and that learners whose L1 is relatively transparent had difficulty in spelling L2 words whose grapheme phoneme correspondence is less transparent. Further analysis on error types and pedagogical implications regarding English L2 spellings are addressed. / Department of English

This dissertation reports research into the problem of how to teach mastery of the English writing system (MEWS) to students of English as a second language (ESL). The problem involves the relatedness of English orthography and phonology. The research had two purposes. First was development of classroom instructional materials for improving reading proficiency in ESL students by application of generative phonological principles. Second was use of the instructional materials in a pilot study of fifty-three ESL college freshmen. A major finding was that subjects' reading proficiency was far below that of native speakers at the college level. Another was that the subjects had more difficulty with English vowels than with consonants. The subjects' scores on nonsense-word tests correlated significantly with five other criteria, including measures of ability to use ESL. A uniform disparity between ESL-student and native-speaker scores on tests of nonsense words was identified. Native-speakers generally had perfect scores, and ESL students had low scores. A chief implication is the importance of understanding orthography in reading English. Recommendations are that ESL proficiency be determined by nonsense-word tests and that the MEWS program be used by students of English as a second dialect.

Auditory sensitivity was associated with speech perception which influenced Chinese word reading mainly through morphological awareness and rapid automatized naming. In contrast, for English word reading, the best model required an additional direct path from suprasegmental sensitivity (in Chinese) to English word reading on the basis of the proposed model. To be specific, auditory sensitivity was fully mediated by segmental and suprasegmental speech perception which further impacted English word reading mainly through phonological awareness; in addition, suprasegmental perception or speech prosody (in Chinese) was directly associated with word reading. Third, stress sensitivity in English was highly associated with speech prosodic sensitivity in Chinese. Hierarchical regressions also showed that suprasegmental speech perception failed to account unique variance for English word reading beyond phonological awareness when stress sensitivity was further controlled, suggesting that Chinese suprasegmental speech sensitivity may influence English word reading at least partly through its overlap with stress sensitivity. / This study investigated the associations of auditory sensitivity, speech perception, Chinese reading as a first language (L1) and English reading as a second language (L2) in Hong Kong Chinese children. Participants were 180 second and third graders (98 boys and 82 girls, mean age=98.6months). Apart from auditory sensitivity (both temporal and rhythmic processing measures), English stress sensitivity and English word reading, children were also tested on Chinese tasks of speech perception (both segmental and suprasegmental tasks), phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (digit), verbal short-term memory, morphological awareness and Chinese word reading. I proposed a four-stage model, in which auditory sensitivity is fully mediated by speech perception at both the segmental and suprasegmental levels. These further impact word reading through phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, verbal short-term memory and morphological awareness. A series of nested model comparisons were conducted to test this model for both Chinese and English word reading using structural equation modeling. For Chinese word reading, the proposed four-stage model was demonstrated to be the best model. / Zhang, Juan. / Advisers: Catherine A. McBride-Chang; Him Cheung. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-06, Section: B, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-118). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-227). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xvi, 227 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm