Unfamiliar Script Research Articles

Exploring the Opportunities of Implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology for Teaching Arabic to Non-Native Speakers: A Theoretical Approach

Language is a tool through which humans exchange their ideas and thoughts among themselves. It helps humans express their feelings and needs. Because of the global pervasion of Islam, the Arabic language unites Arabs and non-Arab Muslims under one religion. In Islamic perception, the Arabic language holds vital importance in Muslims' lives. Thus, Muslims consider learning and teaching Arabic in their day-to-day lives. Learning Arabic presents several challenges due to its complex grammar, diverse dialects, unfamiliar script, and significant differences from many other languages in terms of structure and vocabulary. These difficulties can make learning the language a demanding task for learners. This research aims to explore the importance of learning and teaching the Arabic language in the contemporary world, examine theoretical frameworks for incorporating AI in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers, and evaluate existing AI tools for it. The methodology adopted is qualitative. Primary and secondary data were collected. This research concludes that Arabic, as a language, is deeply intertwined with Islamic religious and cultural heritage, while also serving as a vital means of global communication. Teaching Arabic to non-native speakers poses unique challenges, but the implementing of AI technology offers promising solutions. AI enables personalized learning experiences, instant feedback, and diverse learning tools, ranging from text generation to virtual reality, enhancing language acquisition. By combining AI with traditional teaching methods, educators can address these challenges and maximize learning outcomes, ultimately shaping the future of Arabic language teaching to be more accessible, effective, and engaging worldwide.

Concurrent and longitudinal predictors of beginning writing in Chinese: the unique role of copying skills

Pure copying skill (copying of unfamiliar scripts) and delayed copying (copying of unfamiliar Chinese characters presented previously) can both be important correlates in learning to write Chinese. The present study tested both traditional literacy-related skills and copying skills among 267 Chinese kindergarteners (mean age = 5.52) to examine the relations between these skills and Chinese beginning word dictation, or spelling, both concurrently and one year later. A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both pure and delayed copying skills contributed a relatively large amount of unique variance to Chinese spelling both concurrently and subsequently. Mediation analyses showed that with the auto-regressor effect included, delayed copying had both significant direct and indirect effects on Time 2 spelling performance, while morphological awareness, phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, and pure copying contributed to subsequent Chinese spelling mainly through their influence on Time 1 spelling performance. This study highlights the importance of copying for Chinese dictation/spelling acquisition.

Literacy learning in early Chinese-English bilinguals: the role of pure copying skill

Literacy learning in different writing systems involves both universal and unique features, even in bilinguals. The present study investigated whether the role of pure copying differs in Chinese and English literacy acquisition by following a group of early Chinese-English bilinguals from kindergarten to grade two across three time points. Age, nonverbal IQ, three cognitive-linguistic skills administered in Chinese (i.e., phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and RAN) and pure copying of unfamiliar scripts (Korean and Hebrew) were tested in 188 children (mean age = 5.54 years) when they were in their final year of kindergarten. Both Chinese and English word reading and spelling performance were measured when they were in first and second grades, respectively. Results showed that pure copying skill was a critical predictor of Chinese reading and spelling, whereas it was not a significant longitudinal correlate of English reading and spelling. In addition, Chinese phonological awareness was a unique correlate of subsequent English, but not Chinese, word reading and spelling. This finding highlights the unique features of literacy learning in two different writing systems and suggests the importance of using somewhat different strategies according to the unique features of different writing systems during literacy learning and teaching.

Does orthographic processing emerge rapidly after learning a new script?

Orthographic processing is characterized by location-invariant and location-specific processing (Grainger, 2018): (1) strings of letters are more vulnerable to transposition effects than the strings of symbols in same-different tasks (location-invariant processing); and (2) strings of letters, but not strings of symbols, show an initial position advantage in target-in-string identification tasks (location-specific processing). To examine the emergence of these two markers of orthographic processing, we conducted a same-different task and a target-in-string identification task with two unfamiliar scripts (pre-training experiments). Across six training sessions, participants learned to fluently read and write one of these scripts. The post-training experiments were parallel to the pre-training experiments. Results showed that the magnitude of the transposed-letter effect in the same-different task and the serial function in the target-in-string identification tasks were remarkably similar for the trained and untrained scripts. Thus, location-invariant and location-specific processing does not emerge rapidly after learning a new script; instead, they may require thorough experience with specific orthographic structures.

The First Modern Japanese: The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku by Donald Keene

Reviewed by: The First Modern Japanese: The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku by Donald Keene Sarah Frederick (bio) The First Modern Japanese: The Life of Ishikawa Takuboku. By Donald Keene. Columbia University Press, 2016. 288 pages. $35.00, cloth; $34.99, E-book. Based on detailed readings of the diaries of writer Ishikawa Takuboku (1886–1912), Donald Keene's new book covers the span of Takuboku's troubled adult life, cut short as it was by tuberculosis when Takuboku was only 26. Through the lens of these diaries and related correspondence, readers gain a strong sense of the personality of this writer and a fascinating glimpse into the literary culture of late Meiji-period Japan. Especially richly depicted is what life may have been like for an individual and his family trying to live off poetry and fiction in the first decade of the twentieth century during the rise of modern publishing. As the title suggests, this is a biography of Takuboku, but it is equally an account of Takuboku's diaries and a further extension of Keene's ongoing interest in Japanese diaries.1 While some corroborating information from acquaintances and other scholars appears here, the shape of information emerges from the diaries themselves. They were held first by his friend, linguist and poet Kindaichi Kyōsuke (1882–1971), and then for many years by Takuboku's widow, Ishikawa (Horiai) Setsuko. Since quite personal comments were made about both of them, the diaries were in danger of being destroyed; fortunately, however, these writings eventually made their way to a library archive in Hokkaido and into Takuboku's collected works, where Keene could turn his attention to them and produce this fascinating book. Some readers will have encountered Takuboku in English, first through the selection from Rōmaji nikki in Keene's own Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, if not also the fuller translation by Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda of Rōmaji nikki and the posthumous tanka collection Kanashiki gangu.2 Because of its status, I should clarify that Keene's biography is based on Takuboku's full set of diaries, spanning 1902 to his death [End Page 153] in 1912, of which the roman script diary was only a short section from the spring of 1909. While the roman script diary is not his focus, Keene's broader readings of Takuboku's diaries as a whole shed insight on Takuboku's thinking behind the Rōmaji nikki. For example, Keene notes Takuboku's buying a copy of Oscar Wilde's Art and Morality in February 1909 and argues that it "may have given him the courage to describe behavior that, though considered immoral by society, might be fashioned by the poet into a work of artistry" (p. 139). Such a book was too expensive for Takuboku to keep for very long in the face of his many debts; it was purchased with an unexpected gift of cash sent by a geisha, Koyakko, whom he had abandoned in Kushiro, a relationship detailed in an early chapter of Keene's book. Just a few months after this purchase, Takuboku begins the romanization of his diary in earnest. Keene shows us also that Takuboku's explanation for the choice in script is that he does not want his wife Setsuko to be able to read it easily. Keene recognizes that she surely would have been able to decipher it if she truly wished, but like other readers of the day would be slowed considerably by the unfamiliar script. As is well known, this section of Takuboku's diaries stands on its own and details rather explicitly relationships with prostitutes. These are told less as the accounts of pleasure and adventure that one might see in Edo-style pleasure quarter diaries, but rather depict depression about his disappointment in relationships and life.3 Here too, Takuboku details his dismay of his own attempts at prose fiction, even though, ironically, the roman diary stands, as Keene puts it, as "one masterpiece of prose" (p. 152). Throughout Keene's account, we see an ornery and flawed character who suffered a fair degree of personal misfortune. At the same time as he was beginning to publish...

Types of reading, types of pleasure: Pantographia and the specimens of globalization

London typefounder Edmund Fry’s Pantographia (1799) is an extraordinary catalogue of all of the known languages of the world, published on thousands of pieces of custom non-Latin type that the book’s creator spent more than a decade cutting with his own hands. Though it is now long since forgotten, Pantographia sold hundreds of copies and was reviewed approvingly in the major periodicals of its day. The book is addressed to a general audience, not to printers. I argue that the book gave its readers permission to look at printed language not as a source of knowledge or words, but as a source of visual pleasure. Throwing scores of unfamiliar scripts at the reader, one after another, Pantographia savors the visual exotics of the world’s languages and reiterates the strangeness and contingency of every writing system. The work is about the verbal/visual interface, self-consciously troubling the line between illustration and text. It invites a mode of “reading” that fixes the reader’s attention on the inked lines and shapes that readers ordinarily look through. This mode of reading, and its pleasures, are aspects of eighteenth-century print culture that we have not yet understood.

Glyph guessing for 'oo' and 'ee': spatial frequency information in sound symbolic matching for ancient and unfamiliar scripts.

In three experiments, we asked whether diverse scripts contain interpretable information about the speech sounds they represent. When presented with a pair of unfamiliar letters, adult readers correctly guess which is /i/ (the ‘ee’ sound in ‘feet’), and which is /u/ (the ‘oo’ sound in ‘shoe’) at rates higher than expected by chance, as shown in a large sample of Singaporean university students (Experiment 1) and replicated in a larger sample of international Internet users (Experiment 2). To uncover what properties of the letters contribute to different scripts' ‘guessability,’ we analysed the visual spatial frequencies in each letter (Experiment 3). We predicted that the lower spectral frequencies in the formants of the vowel /u/ would pattern with lower spatial frequencies in the corresponding letters. Instead, we found that across all spatial frequencies, the letter with more black/white cycles (i.e. more ink) was more likely to be guessed as /u/, and the larger the difference between the glyphs in a pair, the higher the script's guessability. We propose that diverse groups of humans across historical time and geographical space tend to employ similar iconic strategies for representing speech in visual form, and provide norms for letter pairs from 56 diverse scripts.

Predicting Individual Differences in Reading and Spelling Skill With Artificial Script–Based Letter–Speech Sound Training

In this study, we examined the learning of letter–speech sound correspondences within an artificial script and performed an experimental analysis of letter–speech sound learning among dyslexic and normal readers vis-à-vis phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, reading, and spelling. Participants were provided with 20 min of training aimed at learning eight new basic letter–speech sound correspondences, followed by a short assessment of mastery of the correspondences and word-reading ability in this unfamiliar script. Our results demonstrated that brief training is moderately successful in differentiating dyslexic readers from normal readers in their ability to learn letter–speech sound correspondences. The normal readers outperformed the dyslexic readers for accuracy and speed on a letter–speech sound matching task, as well as on a word-reading task containing familiar words written in the artificial orthography. Importantly, the new artificial script-related measures were related to phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming and made a unique contribution in predicting individual differences in reading and spelling ability. Our results are consistent with the view that a fundamental letter–speech sound learning deficit is a key factor in dyslexia.

Predicting responsiveness to intervention in dyslexia using dynamic assessment

In the current study we examined the value of a dynamic test for predicting responsiveness to reading intervention for children diagnosed with dyslexia. The test consisted of a 20-minute training aimed at learning eight basic letter–speech sound correspondences within an artificial orthography, followed by a short assessment of both mastery of these correspondences and word reading ability in this unfamiliar script. Fifty-five (7- to 11-year-old) children diagnosed with dyslexia engaged in specialized intervention during approximately 10months and their reading and spelling abilities were assessed before and after. Our results indicated that the dynamic test predicted variance in reading skills at posttest, over and above traditional static measures, such as phonological awareness and rapid naming. These findings indicate that responsiveness to learning new letter–speech sound correspondences has a prognostic value for the success of specialized reading intervention.

Emergence of representations through repeated training on pronouncing novel letter combinations leads to efficient reading

Printed text can be decoded by utilizing different processing routes depending on the familiarity of the script. A predominant use of word-level decoding strategies can be expected in the case of a familiar script, and an almost exclusive use of letter-level decoding strategies for unfamiliar scripts. Behavioural studies have revealed that frequently occurring words are read more efficiently, suggesting that these words are read in a more holistic way at the word-level, than infrequent and unfamiliar words. To test whether repeated exposure to specific letter combinations leads to holistic reading, we monitored both behavioural and neural responses during novel script decoding and examined changes related to repeated exposure. We trained a group of Dutch university students to decode pseudowords written in an unfamiliar script, i.e., Korean Hangul characters. We compared behavioural and neural responses to pronouncing trained versus untrained two-character pseudowords (equivalent to two-syllable pseudowords). We tested once shortly after the initial training and again after a four days' delay that included another training session. We found that trained pseudowords were pronounced faster and more accurately than novel combinations of radicals (equivalent to letters). Imaging data revealed that pronunciation of trained pseudowords engaged the posterior temporo-parietal region, and engagement of this network was predictive of reading efficiency a month later. The results imply that repeated exposure to specific combinations of graphemes can lead to emergence of holistic representations that result in efficient reading. Furthermore, inter-individual differences revealed that good learners retained efficiency more than bad learners one month later.

Foreign language reading anxiety: Chinese as a foreign language in the United States

This study examined the foreign language (FL) reading anxiety level of English‐speaking university students learning Chinese as a foreign language (n = 114) in the United States. Data from two anxiety measures, a background information questionnaire, and an email interview indicated that learners of Chinese experienced a level of FL reading anxiety similar to general FL anxiety. FL reading anxiety was associated with course level and experience with China but not with gender. Moreover, FL reading anxiety was found to be negatively correlated with FL reading performance among Elementary Level I and Intermediate Level students but not among Elementary Level II students. Unfamiliar scripts, unfamiliar topics, and worry about comprehension were identified as the major sources of FL reading anxiety. Findings suggest that reading anxiety was a salient problem for learners of Chinese whose native language was English.

A new orthography in an unfamiliar script: a case study in participatory engagement strategies

This paper describes a series of workshops in which speakers of two minority languages in southeast Asia without a written tradition developed orthographies for their languages. Sociolinguistic factors affecting orthography design and acceptability are explained, particularly those motivating script choice, followed by linguistic considerations for orthography development. A discussion of the necessity for community participation in orthography development includes methods for facilitating a participatory orthography development process. Next, a case study of participatory orthography development where two language communities developed their initial orthography proposals with the author's involvement is presented. As a result of various sociolinguistic factors, both groups of workshop attendants developed an orthography in a script previously unknown to the majority of their language communities. The paper outlines the process used for this, as well as specific strategies for involving language committee members in orthography development. An evaluation of the case study in the light of previous research is given in the conclusion, followed by a discussion of how participatory orthography processes can be applied when working with other language communities, in order to develop orthography proposals that are sociolinguistically acceptable.

The role of orthography in the semantic activation of neighbors.

There is now considerable evidence that a letter string can activate semantic information appropriate to its orthographic neighbors (e.g., Forster & Hector's, 2002, TURPLE effect). This phenomenon is the focus of the present research. Using Japanese words, we examined whether semantic activation of neighbors is driven directly by orthographic similarity alone or whether there is also a role for phonological similarity. In Experiment 1, using a relatedness judgment task in which a Kanji word-Katakana word pair was presented on each trial, an inhibitory effect was observed when the initial Kanji word was related to an orthographic and phonological neighbor of the Katakana word target but not when the initial Kanji word was related to a phonological but not orthographic neighbor of the Katakana word target. This result suggests that phonology plays little, if any, role in the activation of neighbors' semantics when reading familiar words. In Experiment 2, the targets were transcribed into Hiragana, a script they are typically not written in, requiring readers to engage in phonological coding. In that experiment, inhibitory effects were observed in both conditions. This result indicates that phonologically mediated semantic activation of neighbors will emerge when phonological processing is necessary in order to understand a written word (e.g., when that word is transcribed into an unfamiliar script).

Those voices in your head: Activation of auditory images during reading

Auditory imagery experiences (AIEs) occur when readers simulate character voices while reading. This project assessed how familiarity with voice and narrative contexts influences activation of AIEs. Participants listened to dialogs between two characters. Participants then read scripts with the characters, half that had been previously listened to and half that were new. During reading, participants were interrupted with an auditory recognition task, with probes presented in voices that either matched or mismatched the character associated with the current line of dialog. Faster responses to matching than mismatching voices were consistently obtained for familiar scripts, providing evidence for AIEs. Transfer to unfamiliar scripts only occurred after extended experience with character voices. These findings define factors that influence activation of speaker voice during reading, with implications for understanding the nature of linguistic representations across presentation modalities.

Mental Genesis of Scripts in Adolescents With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Twenty nine ADHD adolescents and 29 age, IQ and gender matched normal comparison subjects completed 6 paper pencil tasks of mental script generation. Each task required the subject to generate 10 chronologically ordered and necessary actions toward a goal. There were 3 levels of structure of the tasks (highly structured, moderately structured, unstructured) and each of these levels comprised a familiar and an unfamiliar script. The ADHD group made more sequencing errors on all the scripts, significantly so on the highly structured unfamiliar and on the moderately structured unfamiliar script tasks. The two groups were similar however with regard to the semantic structure (content) of the scripts and the total number of actions generated. Errors of omission, commission and perseveration were similar for the two groups. The results are interpreted as supportive of Barkley's (1997) frontal lobe dysfunction model of ADHD.

Masked repetition priming and word frequency effects across different types of Japanese scripts: An examination of the lexical activation account

In these experiments, cross-script masked repetition priming and word frequency effects were examined for Japanese words and nonwords as a function of script familiarity and the nature of the task (lexical decision or naming). In the lexical decision task, masked repetition priming effects were observed only for word targets and those effects were larger for targets presented in an orthographically unfamiliar script than for targets presented in an orthographically familiar script. In contrast, in the naming task, masked repetition priming effects were observed for both word and nonword targets and, for word targets, the repetition priming effects were similar regardless of the orthographic familiarity of the targets. In addition, large word frequency effects were observed when the targets were presented in a familiar script, but the effects were diminished or eliminated when the targets were presented in an unfamiliar script in both tasks. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of the possible loci of the priming effects in the two tasks.

Visual Word Form Familiarity and Attention in Lateral Difference during Processing Japanese Kana Words

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between familiarity and laterality in reading Japanese Kana words. In two divided-visual-field experiments, three- or four-character Hiragana or Katakana words were presented in both familiar and unfamiliar scripts, to which subjects performed lexical decisions. Experiment 1, using three stimulus durations (40, 100, 160 ms), suggested that only in the unfamiliar script condition was increased stimulus presentation time differently affected in each visual field. To examine this lateral difference during the processing of unfamiliar scripts as related to attentional laterality, a concurrent auditory shadowing task was added in Experiment 2. The results suggested that processing words in an unfamiliar script requires attention, which could be left-hemisphere lateralized, while orthographically familiar kana words can be processed automatically on the basis of their word-level orthographic representations or visual word form.

日本語の漢字仮名混じり語の認知ユニットに関する検討

The processing of Japanese written words has been supposed to depend only on their script, namely Kanji or Kana. There are, however, Kanji-Kana-combined-words (KKW; e.g., _??__??__??_), which signify their meanings as a whole. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the recognition unit corresponding to visual form information of the KKW is used in the lexical decision task. Experiment I showed that the more the number of the Kana letters was, the longer the recognition time of the KKW with unfamiliar script (e.g., _??__??__??_) was, while the effect was not obtained for the KKW with familiar script (e.g., _??__??__??_). In Experiment II, the lexical decision latency tended to be reduced by the existence of blank (s) between letters in the KKW with unfamiliar script. However, this effect was not obtained for the KKW with unfamiliar script. All these results suggest that the KKW is processed using the recognition unit which corresponds to visual form information of the whole-word.

Acquisition of an Unfamiliar Script in Story Form by Young Children

Preschool, first, and third graders heard similar versions of an unfamiliar scriptlike story followed by a novel story, and were tested for immediate and delayed recall. Children more often confused parts of the similar stories with each other than with the novel story, indicating that the similar versions were perceived as belonging to a separate category or script. "Very specific" story items were recalled better in immediate recall, whereas "very general" items were recalled better in delayed recall, suggesting a transition from reproductive to reconstructive recall. Preschoolers showed less evidence of constructive processing than older children, and their performance was more affected by the degree to which story items were schematically organized.

Acquisition of an Unfamiliar Script in Story Form by Young Children

Preschool, first, and third graders heard similar versions of an unfamiliar scriptlike story followed by a novel story, and were tested for immediate and delayed recall. Children more often confused parts of the similar stories with each other than with the novel story, indicating that the similar versions were perceived as belonging to a separate category or script. "Very specific" story items were recalled better in immediate recall, whereas "very general" items were recalled better in delayed recall, suggesting a transition from reproductive to reconstructive recall. Preschoolers showed less evidence of constructive processing than older children, and their performance was more affected by the degree to which story items were schematically organized.