German Orthography Research Articles

Processing multi-digit numbers: a translingual eye-tracking study.

The present study aimed at investigating the underlying cognitive processes and language specificities of three-digit number processing. More specifically, it was intended to clarify whether the single digits of three-digit numbers are processed in parallel and/or sequentially and whether processing strategies are influenced by the inversion of number words with respect to the Arabic digits [e.g., 43: dreiundvierzig ("three and forty")] and/or by differences in reading behavior of the respective first language. Therefore, English- and German-speaking adults had to complete a three-digit number comparison task while their eye-fixation behavior was recorded. Replicating previous results, reliable hundred-decade-compatibility effects (e.g., 742_896: hundred-decade compatible because 7 < 8 and 4 < 9; 362_517: hundred-decade incompatible because 3 < 5 but 6 > 1) for English- as well as hundred-unit-compatibility effects for English- and German-speaking participants were observed, indicating parallel processing strategies. While no indices of partial sequential processing were found for the English-speaking group, about half of the German-speaking participants showed an inverse hundred-decade-compatibility effect accompanied by longer inspection time on the hundred digit indicating additional sequential processes. Thereby, the present data revealed that in transition from two- to higher multi-digit numbers, the homogeneity of underlying processing strategies varies between language groups. The regular German orthography (allowing for letter-by-letter reading) and its associated more sequential reading behavior may have promoted sequential processing strategies in multi-digit number processing. Furthermore, these results indicated that the inversion of number words alone is not sufficient to explain all observed language differences in three-digit number processing.

Children’s Phonological Awareness as a Predictor of Reading and Spelling

Abstract. Numerous observational and experimental studies have shown that phonological awareness relates to reading and spelling. However, most studies were conducted in English-speaking countries, neglecting the issue of the generalizability of the findings across different orthographies. This meta-analysis focused exclusively on studies from German-speaking countries and explored how measures of phonological awareness relate longitudinally to reading and spelling. It summarized 19 manuscripts reporting the results of 21 independent studies. Results indicated a mean effect size of Zr = 0.318 (r = .308) for the relation between phonological awareness and later reading and spelling. Moderator analyses showed that phonological awareness on the rhyme level was less related to reading and spelling than phonological awareness on the phoneme level. Furthermore, the predictive power of phonological awareness remained substantial even for children beyond the second grade. The findings suggest that research on reading and spelling development should take into account the characteristics of German orthography.

Fast and slow readers of the Hebrew language show divergence in brain response ∼200 ms post stimulus: an ERP study.

Higher N170 amplitudes to words and to faces were recently reported for faster readers of German. Since the shallow German orthography allows phonological recoding of single letters, the reported speed advantages might have their origin in especially well-developed visual processing skills of faster readers. In contrast to German, adult readers of Hebrew are forced to process letter chunks up to whole words. This dependence on more complex visual processing might have created ceiling effects for this skill. Therefore, the current study examined whether also in the deep Hebrew orthography visual processing skills as reflected by N170 amplitudes explain reading speed differences. Forty university students, native speakers of Hebrew without reading impairments, accomplished a lexical decision task (i.e., deciding whether a visually presented stimulus represents a real or a pseudo word) and a face decision task (i.e., deciding whether a face was presented complete or with missing facial features) while their electroencephalogram was recorded from 64 scalp positions. In both tasks stronger event related potentials (ERPs) were observed for faster readers in time windows at about 200 ms. Unlike in previous studies, ERP waveforms in relevant time windows did not correspond to N170 scalp topographies. The results support the notion of visual processing ability as an orthography independent marker of reading proficiency, which advances our understanding about regular and impaired reading development.

School Library in the Conditions of Reform of the German Orthography (1996-2006)

There are considered the difficulties encountered in the activities of school libraries in Germany in the period of reform of the German language in 1998. There is analyzed the experience of resolving the linguistic, as well as social, political and economic problems in the conditions of one of the largest linguistic reforms over the last 100 years.

Zur morphembezogenen Überformung der deutschen Orthographie

Morphematic reorientation of German orthography takes place in conformity with a general law in the history of writing. Alphabetic writing systems, being necessarily phonographic, tend to develop towards the encoding of non-phonetic units. The emergence of morphematic elements in German is preceeded by the evolution of word-separation by regular spaces which had been adopted throughout Europe by the end of the 13th century. Based on a corpus containing 157 High German texts (late 15th to late 18th centuries), this paper will demonstrate that morphematic reorientation of German orthography can be explained neither as an invisible-hand-process nor as the outcome of prescriptive grammar, but as the result of interaction between orthograpic norm and usage. Three cases will be considered in detail: (1) Graphic assimilation of allomorphic plosive variation emerges as early as the 12th century, reflecting regional final devoicing. By the early 17th century, the rule governing orthographic reprensentation of final devoicing in present-day German is fully adopted in usage. Its morphematic reinterpretation does not follow before the end of the 17th century. (2) Morphematic graphic representation of [a]-Umlaut emerges during the 14th century in Upper Germany as a phonetic reflex of open [e]. It is recommended by Middle German grammarians since the 1560s, with explicit mention of morphological factors. Around 1700 the writing rule imposes itself in usage. (3) The use of double consonant letters occuring in final positions of 'graphic' syllables ( according to ) rests inhibited until the 18th century, in particular to prevent tri- or tessaragraphs (, ). It is the influence of Adelung's grammar which leads to the final adaption of the present-day rule.

Beyond single syllables: The effect of first syllable frequency and orthographic similarity on eye movements during silent reading

The study assessed the eye movements of 60 adult German readers during silent reading of target words, consisting of two and three syllables, embedded in sentences. The first objective was to assess whether the inhibitory effect of first syllable frequency, which was up to now primarily shown for isolated words, generalises to natural reading. The second objective was to assess the effect of orthographic similarity. First syllable frequency was defined phonologically and was based on the SUBTLEX norms for spoken language [Brysbaert et al. (2011). The word frequency effect: A review of recent developments and implications for the choice of frequency estimates in German. Experimental Psychology, 58, 412–424]. Orthographic similarity was indexed by orthographic Levenshtein distance neighbourhood frequency (NF) [Yarkoni, T., Balota, D. & Yap, M. (2008). Moving beyond Coltheart's N: A new measure of orthographic similarity. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 971–979]. We found inhibitory effects for first syllable frequency and for orthographic NF. First syllable frequency affected first fixation duration which was considered as reflecting early effects in visual word recognition. Orthographic NF affected “late” measures. These findings show that, first, the effect of first syllable frequency does generalise to silent reading. Second, the effect of orthographic NF, up to now investigated only for short words in the context of English, does generalise to multisyllabic words in the German orthography. Relating the effects to the individual reading rate of the participants revealed that the effects were consistent in fast readers but highly variable in slow readers.

Franz Sättler (Dr. Musallam) and the Twentieth-Century Cult of Adonism

The main character of this story is Dr. Franz Sättler, born 1884 in Northern Bohemia under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A brilliant but poor student of ancient philology and orientalism at the University of Prague and editor of the first German-Persian dictionary he wanted to become a university professor but was unable to find a paid job at the University. So he started to write adventure novels. Probably in order to finance his travels he then became a spy and ended up in prison. Due to his vast knowledge of oriental languages and culture he always found ways to travel widely in the Near East supposedly to study with esoteric masters. In several volumes Sättler explained then their alleged teachings. 1925 he founded a magical order in Vienna which he pretended to be the German outpost of an oriental secret society. This order worshipped the mythological figures of Adonis and Dido as orgiastic counterparts to the “prudish” Christian creed. A whole intricate mythological cosmos with a fierce antichristian bias and a language of its own was invented by Sättler for this purpose.&#x0D; &#x0D; Very soon however the order’s branches in Germany were closed down by the police because of immoral incidents. Dr. Franz Sättler was also accused for selling quack remedies at high prices. He fled first to Czechoslovakia and then probably to Greece. He also founded a bogus limited company which was to dig up a hidden gold treasure in Greece which Sättler pretended to have found in his early years selling the shares of this company at high prices. Other business scams were invented by him, too. At the same time however he was a typical social reformer, advocating women’s rights and sexual liberty and he even wanted to reform the existent laws of Germany and also German orthography. It is not known when, where and how he died. There are still today followers of his Cult of Adonism.

17TH CENTURY ESTONIAN ORTHOGRAPHY REFORM, THE TEACHING OF READING AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

Literary languages can be divided into those which are more transparent or less transparent, based on phoneme-grapheme correspondence. The Estonian language falls in the category of more transparent languages; however, its development could have proceeded in another direction. The standards of the Estonian literary language were set in the first half of the 17th century by German clergymen, following the example of German orthography, resulting in a gap between the ‘language of the church’ and the vernacular, as well as a discrepancy between writing and pronunciation. The German-type orthography was suited for Germans to read, but was not transparent for Estonians and created difficulties with the teaching of reading, which arose to the agenda in the 1680s. As a solution, Bengt Gottfried Forselius offered phonics instead of an alphabetic method, as well as a more phonetic and regular orthography. The old European written languages faced a similar problem in the 16th–17th centuries; for instance, Valentin Ickelsamer in Germany, John Hart in England, the grammarians of Port-Royal in France, and Comenius and others suggested using the phonic method and a more phonetic orthography. This article explores 17th century Estonian orthography reform and the reasons why it was realized as opposed to European analogues.

The Choruses of Sophokles' Antigone and Philoktetes: A Dance of Words (review)

Reviewed by: The Choruses of Sophokles' Antigone and Philoktetes: A Dance of Words Markus Dubischar Margaret Rachel Kitzinger . The Choruses of Sophokles' Antigone and Philoktetes: A Dance of Words. Mnemosyne Supplements, 292. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Pp. vii, 146. $113.00. ISBN 978-90-04-16514-4. Kitzinger studies the choruses in Sophocles' Antigone and Philoctetes, combining the perspectives of a philologist with those of a practitioner of the theater. She proceeds song by song, her method of treatment being "close reading" (1). The book's many detailed analyses cannot be summarized here, but Kitzinger's clearly articulated vision of the nature of the Sophoclean chorus can. It is the book's thematic core and the basis throughout for Kitzinger's interpretations. First, a paraphrase of Kitzinger's approach: The chorus' mode of expression is fundamentally different from that of the actors. Actors speak and act, while the chorus sings and dances. This distinctly choral mode of expression is connected with a distinctly choral worldview, also different from that of the actors. Sophocles thus presents the action of his plays from two different, irreconcilable but complementary, viewpoints. Neither of them is superior to the other; instead they reflect different ways of understanding and responding to the world. The actors' words and actions are situated on the level of the plot. The notions of causality and responsibility and of time and place are fundamental to them in their decisions and their actions. The chorus, on the other hand, is essentially situated outside the plot. Its performance refers to other traditions of choral lyric and their ritual contexts. The chorus recognizes and expresses the divine order of things and the human condition, namely the limitations of men's reasoning and actions. This choral worldview can be expressed only through its singing and dancing. The chorus in Antigone and actually in most Sophoclean plays (Kitzinger claims that her approach has a general validity) is mostly true to its typical function. Philoctetes is chosen as a second test case because of the chorus' close, if sometimes questionable or unclear, involvement in the action. But it too serves to confirm the outlined understanding. Rejecting common explanations (psychological realism, decline of the chorus' importance), Kitzinger argues that in this pessimistic play Sophocles has intentionally undermined and fragmented the usual choral perspective, depriving the audience of a worldview that would meaningfully complement that of the actors. Kitzinger's approach, to put it briefly, works for some choral passages and songs, but for others it does not. In any given Greek tragedy, the chorus' multifaceted role is among its most striking features. Kitzinger rightly argues (72 n.6) against an approach that "reduces the complexity and variety of the playwrights' uses of the chorus to a single issue [ . . . ]," but in allowing only one genuine function for the Sophoclean chorus she has done precisely that. As a result, her close reading oftentimes turns into a reductionist reading. Some random examples: For the sake of her argument, Kitzinger prefers an unlikely manuscript reading and understanding against the communis opinio (51 with n.77). Dionysus' special relations with the city of Thebes are unduly played down (65–67). The general human condition is hardly an issue when [End Page 269] the chorus sings in the parodos of Philoctetes that they hear "a sound which is like the companion of some desperate man" (transl. Kitzinger, 84–85). On the other hand, Philoctetes' explicit remarks about the general human condition (Phil. 501–502, maybe up to 506) are not mentioned, even though they immediately precede a choral passage (discussed on 92). But it must also be said that whenever the chorus does sing what according to Kitzinger it should, she makes insightful observations on differences and tensions between the action on stage and the choral performance. The book is a powerful reminder to take seriously the chorus' special role and the distinct nature of choral performance. It is clearly organized and written in a pleasant and elegant style, with hardly any misprints (40 n.59 Greek font, n.60 German orthography). Relevant scholarship is well taken into account (Th. Paulsen, Die Rolle des Chors in den späten Sophokles-Tragödien, Bari 1989, is...

Resistance to complexity interacting with visual shape—German and Korean orthography

The aim of this article is to develop an optimality-theoretic account of orthographic phenomena concerning the correlation between phonetic and non-phonetic visual elements and their underlying forces. We analyse the interaction between visibility and simplicity and its influence on orthographic forms. This interaction is represented firstly by visual markers for vowel length and the restriction on the doubling of a vowel in German orthography, then by historical changes of letter shape and grapheme insertion in Korean orthography. Furthermore, it is shown that German and Korean orthographic syllables can be classified into two different types, resulting again from the interaction between visibility and simplicity. We claim that simplicity influences the possibilities of letter combinations and visual shape, and vice versa, and that orthographic syllables can be classified as either invisible or visible. This article is based on Optimality Theory (Prince, A. and Smolensky, P. (1993), Optimality Theory: Co...

Zwischen Wort und Zeichen. Die graphische Markierung suprasegmentaler Einheiten in der Frühen Neuzeit

Abstract Variation is an essential feature of Early New High German orthography. I attribute this phenomenon to the exhortation to pursue stylistic diversification, a striving for which rhetoricians like Erasmus expressed support. The segmentation and transformation of written words in the 16th century shows that variation led to conditions favorable for an analysis that contributed to the establishment of new—morphological and syllabic—principles for spelling words. Examples such as &lt;darvon&gt; (instead of &lt;daruon&gt;) and &lt;bisher&gt; (instead of &lt;biſher&gt;) demonstrate morphological segmentation of the written word form. Distinctive syllabic features in historically unfounded spellings like &lt;mehr&gt; and &lt;Jhar&gt; call attention to a syllabic analysis. Both new spelling principles document a process of turning away from the segmental-phonographic practice that had prevailed prior to that time. These new spellings refer to a fundamental change in how the written word was perceived.

RAN Is Not a Measure of Orthographic Processing. Evidence From the Asymmetric German Orthography

In three large samples (N = 1248) of children learning to read German we investigated the correlations between rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness (PA), phonological decoding (nonword reading fluency), and orthographic processing (word reading fluency and spelling). In a series of hierarchical regression analyses, RAN explained more variance in word and nonword reading fluency than PA, whereas PA explained more variance in spelling than RAN. This pattern was confirmed when PA response times were assessed instead of response accuracy. Two further regression models challenge the view that the RAN-literacy association is mediated by orthographic processing. First, RAN accounts for unique variance in word reading fluency even when differences in orthographic spelling were introduced before RAN. Second, RAN accounts for hardly any variance in word reading fluency when introduced after nonword reading fluency.

Development of word reading fluency and spelling in a consistent orthography: An 8-year follow-up.

In a longitudinal study, development of word reading fluency and spelling were followed for almost 8 years. In a group of 115 students (65 girls, 50 boys) acquiring the phonologically transparent German orthography, prediction measures (letter knowledge, phonological short-term memory, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and nonverbal IQ) were assessed at the beginning of Grade 1; reading fluency and spelling were tested at the end of Grade 1 as well as in Grades 4 and 8. Reading accuracy was close to ceiling in all reading assessments, such that reading fluency was not heavily influenced by differences in reading accuracy. High stability was observed for word reading fluency development. Of the dysfluent readers in Grade 1, 70% were still poor readers in Grade 8. For spelling, children who at the end of Grade 1 still had problems translating spoken words into phonologically plausible letter sequences developed problems with orthographic spelling later on. The strongest specific predictors were rapid automatized naming for reading fluency and phonological awareness for spelling. Word recognition speed was a relevant and highly stable indicator of reading skills and the only indicator that discriminated reading skill levels in consistent orthographies. Its long-term development was more strongly influenced by early naming speed than by phonological awareness.

SALLY JOHNSON, Spelling trouble: Language, ideology and the reform of German orthography

Sally Johnson, Spelling trouble: Language, ideology and the reform of German orthography. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2005. Pp viii, 208. Hb 39.95.Since the 1990s language ideology has developed into a field of inquiry of its own. Research on language ideology seeks to investigate how linguistic forms and practices and their conceptualizations are enmeshed in other contextually bound cultural patterns and practices, and how language–culture relations are fraught with moral and political interests. Taking language ideology and Blommaert's (1999) notion of language ideological debates as a point of departure, Sally Johnson sets out to explore the emergence and escalation of a public dispute, involving a variety of social actors (linguists, judges, private citizens, etc.), that broke out in Germany with the introduction of the reform of German orthography in 1996. The focus of the volume is primarily on one aspect of the German debate: the legal battle between those who attempted to challenge the reform on the basis of its alleged incompatibility with some of the principles sanctioned by the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz), on the one hand, and the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court, on the other. However, for a more nuanced understanding of the debate, the role played by linguists and the media is also taken into consideration. As Johnson convincingly demonstrates throughout the volume, the debate on German orthography was definitely not about language alone. Rather, it was about different conceptions of the German language together with their political, moral and aesthetic loading.

Der Vistembor brehlte dem Luhr Knotten auf den bänken Leuster – Wie sich die Fähigkeit zur satzinternen Großschreibung entwickelt

Abstract Using capital letters within sentences not only for proper names but also for nouns is a specific feature of the German writing system. A short sketch of the historical development and two different approaches to the description of this phenomenon is given. Data using the dictation of pseudoword texts show that the ability to master this feature of German orthography develops independently of the way the rule of capitalizing nouns is taught at school.

Vom (Un-)Sinn der Schreibvarianten

Abstract The paper analyses systematic variations in the way words are separated by spaces (WS variations) in German. In particular, WS variations in the traditional German orthography are compared with WS variations after the spelling reform of 1996. Based on a general distinction between four different kinds of spelling variants and an analysis of the WS system before and after the reform in the framework of Optimality Theory, it is shown how and why the spelling reform lead to a drastic reduction of the possibilities to express semantic differences by WS variations. Furthermore it is argued that two recent revisions of the spelling reform, although they reintroduced many WS variants that were originally banned by the spelling reform, did not succeed in restoring these possibilities.

Orthographie ohne Literalität. Blinde Flecken der Rechtschreibreform / Orthography without literacy: Blind spots of the orthographical reform

Abstract More than ten years ago the German speaking countries agreed to change the spelling system of their language. The so called Wiener Beschlüsse enacted a completely new system of orthographic rules combined with a list of about 14.000 sample words. At that time it was well known that German orthography was at least not one of the most difficult in Europe, but it seemed to be bad enough for being reworked in a fairly fundamental way. In contrast to what was expected and to what would have confirmed the prejudices about what Germans normally do, the reform was not accepted. We should try to understand why this was so and why the substance of the new system was finally withdrawn. The paper pursues two lines of argumentation, the first one being based on linguistic and cultural considerations concerning the status of an orthography viz, a ‚writing system‘ like the German one, the second one being based on purely political considerations. The situation leading to this abortive reform was a very special one, but we should not take for granted that it was unique. Something has to be learned from this expensive and bitter experience.

Spelling Trouble? Language, Ideology and the Reform of German Orthography

Spelling Trouble? Language, Ideology and the Reform of German Orthography

‘Sonst Kann Jeder Schreiben, Wie er will …’?:1 Orthography, Legitimation and the Construction of Publics?&gt;Orthography, Legitimation and the Construction of Publics

AbstractWhen the recent reform of German orthography was challenged before the ‘Bundesverfassungsgericht’ in 1998, the judges emphasised that individuals within the wider speech community were free to continue writing as they pleased, even after 2005, when the seven‐year interim period for the reform's introduction came to an end. Yet in this regard the Court's ruling appeared to contradict the stated aims of the reformers that the new orthographic guidelines should serve as a ‘blueprint’ for usage within the wider speech community, thereby helping to preserve the unity of the written language in the longer term. In this paper, I propose that underpinning the apparent tension between the Court ruling of 1998 and the aims of the reformers is a complex political debate about the relationship between state and speech community that displays the classic features of a Habermasian ‘legitimation crisis’. It is a tension, therefore, that can be fruitfully explored with reference to recent work in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology that draws on Habermasian notions of the public sphere as a site for the enactment of ‘language ideological debates’. By attending to the way in which ‘publics’– particularly speech (or writing) communities – are invoked in such debates, much can be learned about the means by which the state attempts to resolve problems of legitimation in areas of language policy such as this, albeit without necessarily achieving satisfactory closure.

Spelling trouble?: language, ideology and the reform of German orthography

Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction to the 1996 Reform of German Orthography Chapter 2. Historical Background Chapter 3 Linguistic Details Chapter 4. The Constitutional Challenge Chapter 5. The 1996 Reform as Language Ideological Debate Chapter 6. The Trouble with Spelling? Discussion and Conclusions