Written Language Acquisition Research Articles

Exploring the Intricacies and Interferences of Spoken and Written Language Acquisition in English Language Learners: Challenges and Strategies

Exploring the Intricacies and Interferences of Spoken and Written Language Acquisition in English Language Learners: Challenges and Strategies

Language acquisition and speech rhythm patterns: an auditory neuroscience perspective.

All human infants acquire language, but their brains do not know which language/s to prepare for. This observation suggests that there are fundamental components of the speech signal that contribute to building a language system, and fundamental neural processing mechanisms that use these components, which are shared across languages. Equally, disorders of language acquisition are found across all languages, with the most prevalent being developmental language disorder (approx. 7% prevalence), where oral language comprehension and production is atypical, and developmental dyslexia (approx. 7% prevalence), where written language acquisition is atypical. Recent advances in auditory neuroscience, along with advances in modelling the speech signal from an amplitude modulation (AM, intensity or energy change) perspective, have increased our understanding of both language acquisition and these developmental disorders. Speech rhythm patterns turn out to be fundamental to both sensory and neural linguistic processing. The rhythmic routines typical of childcare in many cultures, the parental practice of singing lullabies to infants, and the ubiquitous presence of BabyTalk (infant-directed speech) all enhance the fundamental AM components that contribute to building a linguistic brain.

Written Language Acquisition Is Both Shaped by and Has an Impact on Brain Functioning and Cognition.

Spoken language is a distinctive trace of our species and it is naturally acquired during infancy. Written language, in contrast, is artificial, and the correspondences between arbitrary visual symbols and the spoken language for reading and writing should be explicitly learned with external help. In this paper, I present several examples of how written language acquisition is both shaped by and has an impact on brain function and cognition. They show in one hand how our phylogenetic legacy influences education and on the other hand how ontogenetic needs for education can rapidly subdue deeply rooted neurocognitive mechanisms. The understanding of this bidirectional influences provides a more dynamic view of how plasticity interfaces phylogeny and ontogeny in human learning, with implications for both neurosciences and education.

Socialisation écrite et rédaction épistolaire de scripteurs moins expérimentés – lettres des soldats de la Grande Guerre

AbstractJust recently, documents written by less skilled writers constitute an object of investigation in linguistics of different philologies. This contribution valorizes private letters as testimonies from writers of varying social status, as opposed to the elite, and furthermore describes the process and the context of their production. In this perspective, it is important to distinguish the process of acquisition of the written language and the complex cognitive and social process of writing. Dealing with private correspondence of writers with less experience, we focus on circumstances of the writing production in a familial and individual context. We investigate different influences on these texts: the writers’ specific writing socialization, an interrupted process of written language acquisition, specificities of colloquial everyday language as well as a lack of epistolary and writing experience. In order to realize the different writing tasks and to evoke intimacy, less-skilled writers acquire an inventory of creative tricks by following oral representations, by imitating strategies from the immediate communication and by using different linguistic and discursive routines.

Auditory perception of Mexican children with profound bilateral hearing loss receiving auditory verbal therapy

Profound hearing loss can have serious and irreversible consequences for oral language development in children, affecting spoken and written language acquisition. Auditory-verbal therapy has been widely applied to children with hearing loss with promising results, mainly in developed countries where cochlear implants are available. An evaluation was done of auditory perception in 25 children 5 to 8 years of age, with profound hearing loss, users of 4- or 5-channel hearing aids, and enrolled in a personalized auditory-verbal therapy program. Regarding initial auditory perception skills, children performed better on the Noises and Sounds block than on the Language block. By subscales, top performance was observed for auditory analysis (Noises and Sounds) and auditory recognition (Language). A series of t-tests showed that significant improvement after Auditory-verbal therapy occurred in global scores for Noises and Sounds and for Language blocks, regardless of sex, urban or rural community origin, nuclear or extended family. The study provides evidence of deficiencies in auditory in children with profound bilateral hearing loss and how this might improve after receiving Auditory-verbal therapy. Nevertheless, the descriptive study design prevents conclusions regarding the effectiveness of the therapy. Subsequent research must take into account intrinsic and environmental factors that might play a mediating role in the benefits of Auditory-verbal therapy for auditory perception.

Statistical Learning and Language Impairments: Toward More Precise Theoretical Accounts

Statistical-learning (SL) theory offers an experience-based account of typical and atypical spoken and written language acquisition. Recent work has provided initial support for this view, tying individual differences in SL abilities to linguistic skills, including language impairments. In the current article, we provide a critical review of studies testing SL abilities in participants with and without developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment and discuss the directions that this field of research has taken so far. We identify substantial vagueness in the demarcation lines between different theoretical constructs (e.g., “statistical learning,” “implicit learning,” and “procedural learning”) as well as in the mappings between experimental tasks and these theoretical constructs. Moreover, we argue that current studies are not designed to contrast different theoretical approaches but rather test singular confirmatory predictions without including control tasks showing normal performance. We end by providing concrete suggestions for how to advance research on SL deficits in language impairments.

Age of Acquisition of Mandarin Modulates Cortical Thickness in High-Proficient Cantonese-Mandarin Bidialectals.

Previous studies showed that the onset age of second language acquisition (AoA-L2) can modulate brain structure of bilinguals. However, the underlying mechanism of anatomical plasticity induced by AoA-L2 is still a question in debate. In order to explore the issue, we recruited two groups of native Cantonese-Mandarin speakers, the early group began to speak in Mandarin at about 3.5 and the late group at about 6.5years old. In addition, the early group had earlier experience in reading Chinese characters than the late group did. Through estimating the cortical thickness (CT), we found that (1) compared with the late group, the early group had thicker CT in the lateral occipital region, left middle temporal gyrus, and left parahippocampal region, which are all involved in visuospatial processing, probably reflecting the effect induced by the earlier or later experiences in processing the characters of Chinese for the two groups; and (2) compared with the late group, the early group had thicker CT in left superior parietal region, which is believed to be involved in language switching, maybe for the early group had the earlier experience in switching back and forth between Cantonese and Mandarin and therefore recruited the executive control network earlier. Our findings revealed the effects of the AoA-L2 in oral language acquisition as well as in written language acquisition as the main determinants of bilingual language structural representation in human brain.

Lexical orthographic knowledge acquisition in adults: The whole-word visual processing impact

IntroductionOne of the most persistent difficulties in French written language acquisition is lexical orthographic memorization. Both theoretical models and behavioral studies have suggested that simultaneous visual processing of all the letters of a word could be important for the acquisition of its orthographic form. Main goalTwo experiments are conducted to test this whole-word visual processing hypothesis. MethodThe paradigm used in both experiments is a self-teaching paradigm in which adult participants had to read orthographically complex bisyllabic pseudowords in isolation. In one reading condition, all the letters of the item are available at once, in the other the first and second syllables are seen successively. After reading, participants had to spell under dictation and to recognize the written items. ResultsGlobally, the results showed that participants better recall the orthographic form of a word after having read it in the whole-word reading condition. The result of the recognition task, in the second experiment, was in line with the result of the spelling under dictation task. ConclusionThese results, although they should be interpreted with caution, are in line with the whole-word visual processing hypothesis. Applied consequences for orthographic learning and teaching, as for remediation of specific orthographic disabilities, are discussed.

The right hemispheric dominance for face perception in preschool children depends on the visual discrimination level.

The developmental origin of human adults’ right hemispheric dominance in response to face stimuli remains unclear, in particular because young infants’ right hemispheric advantage in face‐selective response is no longer present in preschool children, before written language acquisition. Here we used fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) with scalp electroencephalography (EEG) to test 52 preschool children (5.5 years old) at two different levels of face discrimination: discrimination of faces against objects, measuring face‐selectivity, or discrimination between individual faces. While the contrast between faces and nonface objects elicits strictly bilateral occipital responses in children, strengthening previous observations, discrimination of individual faces in the same children reveals a strong right hemispheric lateralization over the occipitotemporal cortex. Picture‐plane inversion of the face stimuli significantly decreases the individual discrimination response, although to a much smaller extent than in older children and adults tested with the same paradigm. However, there is only a nonsignificant trend for a decrease in right hemispheric lateralization with inversion. There is no relationship between the right hemispheric lateralization in individual face discrimination and preschool levels of readings abilities. The observed difference in the right hemispheric lateralization obtained in the same population of children with two different paradigms measuring neural responses to faces indicates that the level of visual discrimination is a key factor to consider when making inferences about the development of hemispheric lateralization of face perception in the human brain.

As sílabas complexas: fonologia e aquisição da linguagem oral e escrita

Neste artigo são analisados dados de escrita espontânea produzidos por crianças da 1a a 3ª série de uma escola pública e outra particular da cidade de Pelotas, especificamente, grafias de palavras que possuem sílabas complexas, isto é, aquelas que não correspondem à estrutura canônica CV, com foco sobre os erros (orto)gráficos referentes aos onsets complexos e às rimas ramificadas. Os dados são discutidos à luz da fonologia da sílaba e de estudos sobre aquisição da linguagem oral e escrita. Os resultados mostram comportamento semelhante entre as duas escolas, o que reforça a ideia de que o conhecimento linguístico é o principal suporte para as produções escritas iniciais. Do ponto de vista da fonologia, os dados dão indícios de uma percepção particular da criança a respeito das codas da sua língua, o que traz implicações para discussões tanto da aquisição como da fonologia do português.

Formation of Arabic Theatrical Speech Culture in the Context of Language Situation

The Arabic world’s language situation is characterized by bilingualism (diglossia), as alongside the written language (Fusha), there exist many spoken languages. This situation rai­ses important theoretical and methodological issues before the theatre in general and theatrical pedagogics in parti­cular. The article deals with the problem of orthoepic norms’ lacking in spoken Arabic, which affects both the teaching methods in theat­rical high schools and the speech culture in ge­neral. In this context, the author gives a short review of language development in Arabic theatre and considers some points of view of Arabic theatrical directors and playwrights of different periods. The article represents a table of phonetics’ compa­rison of Arabic literary and spoken languages. Furthermore, the article raises the problem of spoken language codification and also considers the issue of theatre language. Emphasizing the importance of both the written and spoken langua­ges, the artic­le concludes on the ambivalent approach to forming the theatrical speech teaching methods in the Syrian theatrical school, provided that local dialects are standardized and actors-students master the capital dialect along with the literary language. In practice, teachers have to combine the written language acquisition basing on the rules, and that of the spoken language using audio samples.

Componentes del lenguaje oral y desarrollo evolutivo de la escritura en las primeras edades

In recent decades there has been considerable research focusing on the relationship between oral and handwritten language. Currently, there is agreement that oral language skills are involved in access to written language. However, the relationship between oral language and written language acquisition at the early stages of this learning process has yet to be determined clearly. The purpose of this study is twofold: Firstly, analyze the relationship between the various components of oral language and the learning of writing in the early ages, and secondly, gain knowledge about how these relationships manifest in the evolutionary development of students. Also, how these relationships develop according to the gender of the students, is addressed. A correlational design was employed that allows for the elucidation of relationships between the variables examined, as well as for increased awareness of the factors that explain the learning of our handwriting system. The study involved 166 students, from different public and subsidized schools, aged between 4 to 6 years. Results show that various components of oral language relate to the process of learning handwriting at a development model, while also noting gender differences during the learning process of handwriting system at an early age.

Cognição e aprendizagem no espaço da tecnologia

This work analyzes the impact of new technologies in everyday teaching situations. This is a qualitative research, one study of descriptive case, based on observations of the spaces of the classrooms, the same group of children between June 2013 and April 2015, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years of Primary Education a Catholic private school, as well as interviews with the regents’ teachers of these classes. We seek to establish links between the acquisition of written language in conventional texts and those in hypertext, as well as understand how to structure the scientific and digital literacy in these areas. In that sense, it was found that these experiences are possible to happen in designed spaces antagonistically to traditional spaces as often, it is less rigid, more flexible, a fact that makes the pleasant atmosphere and at the same time, more accessible, providing an environment sometimes hybrid, in which the dimensions of notebook and tablet coexist and fusion of these opposed pairs of written language acquisition occurs.

Para uma sociolinguística do texto literário traduzido: um olhar sobre ‘The Color Purple’ e sua tradução

Este trabalho tem por objetivo estabelecer uma relação entre a tradução e a sociolinguística, a partir da análise da tradução do romance epistolar The Color Purple, da afro-americana Alice Walker, A cor púrpura, realizada por Peg Bodelson, Betúlia Machado e Maria José Silveira, a fim de investigar como a heterogeneidade linguística da obra original, associada, sobretudo, à maior ou menor frequência de uso de inglês padrão e de Black English Vernacular pelas personagens, foi construída na tradução. Nessa análise, verifico quais foram os recursos utilizados na caracterização da linguagem das personagens e como estes podem ser associados aos diferentes graus de escolaridade e de letramento de Celie e Nettie, valendo-me, como instrumental para essa análise, de descrições da variação sociolinguística, das teorias do letramento e dos processos de aquisição de língua escrita.

Computer usage for learning how to read and write in primary school

Abstract Digital media are central to exchange information. Young people without sufficient literacy knowledge cannot participate in this digital society. Thus, starting to train reading and training writing with digital media as early as possible seems reasonable. But how early? Should we teach first writing and reading with digital devices? Practitioners and policy makers discuss this issue controversially. Scientific results lead to contradictory conclusions. It has been shown that writing by hand improves letter learning and memory. Other studies report e.g. higher motivation of students if digital media are used. This paper investigates the application of computers in written language acquisition. Examples and results of an inquiry in German schools are described. Since the use of digital media in the examples is confounded with teaching objectives diverging from traditional teaching, a final conclusion cannot be drawn. There is a lack of direct comparisons of early writing with and without digital media.

The Lexical Status of the Root in Processing Morphologically Complex Words in Arabic

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the effects of the Arabic root in the visual word recognition process among young readers in order to explore its role in reading acquisition and its development within the structure of the Arabic mental lexicon. We examined cross-modal priming of words that were derived from the same root of the target (/murattabun/-/tarti:bun/well ordered–order) relative to prime words that included three letters of the target but not root letters (/tura:bun/-/tarti:bun/soil-order) in two elementary-school age groups: second grade and fifth grade. The results showed facilitation in lexical decisions about target words, suggesting that the root is a lexical unit that plays a crucial role in the processing and representation of Arabic from the early stages of written language acquisition. This issue may stem from the morpho-orthographic nature of the written Arabic word and/or from the semantic information conveyed from the roots’ morpheme.

Handwriting or Typewriting? The Influence of Pen- or Keyboard-Based Writing Training on Reading and Writing Performance in Preschool Children.

Digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet PCs, or mobile phones are increasingly replacing writing by hand. It is, however, controversially discussed how writing modes influence reading and writing performance in children at the start of literacy. On the one hand, the easiness of typing on digital devices may accelerate reading and writing in young children, who have less developed sensory-motor skills. On the other hand, the meaningful coupling between action and perception during handwriting, which establishes sensory-motor memory traces, could facilitate written language acquisition. In order to decide between these theoretical alternatives, for the present study, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending the German kindergarten with 16 training sessions. Using closely matched letter learning games, eight letters of the German alphabet were trained either by handwriting with a pen on a sheet of paper or by typing on a computer keyboard. Letter recognition, naming, and writing performance as well as word reading and writing performance were assessed. Results did not indicate a superiority of typing training over handwriting training in any of these tasks. In contrast, handwriting training was superior to typing training in word writing, and, as a tendency, in word reading. The results of our study, therefore, support theories of action-perception coupling assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing.

Why Historical Linguists Need Children: Birch Bark Letters in Light of Written Language Acquisition

ABSTRACTEarly vernacular writings reveal intriguing similarities to texts produced by modern children. This study shows that these similarities result from the fact that both text varieties are the products of incipient writing. Examining medieval vernacular Russian correspondence and letters written by contemporary Russian children, this study (a) identifies the specific similarities between the two language varieties, (b) formulates a theoretical framework for interpreting these similarities, (c) applies measures of children’s writing competence to medieval vernacular writing, and (d) reevaluates the role of oral strategies in early vernacular writings. The study’s findings provide an important tool for investigations of incipient writing.

Prerequisites for Written Language Acquisition and It’s Disorders Correction in Montessori Pedagogy

The successful acquisition of written language is an important precondition for schoolchildren academic achievement. Written language disorders are usually diagnosed during primary school, although the etiology of them is largely associated to children oral and written language development in the pre-school years. This article presents the need of primary prevention of written language disorders at the preschool level and its realization with a help of Montessori pedagogy. There is summarized theoretical knowledge in the context of language acquisition and reflected Montessori pedagogy prerequisites for the successful written language acquisition and correction of early signs of disorders in the pre-school years.

Fatores socioculturais envolvidos no processo de aquisição da linguagem escrita

OBJETIVOS:verificar a influência do meio sociofamiliar no processo de aquisição da linguagem escrita de crianças em atendimento fonoaudiológico e conhecer o perfil sociocultural de seus familiares.MÉTODOS:a investigação, de caráter qualitativo, teve como participantes, pais ou responsáveis de crianças atendidas no Estágio de Leitura/Escrita do curso de Fonoaudiologia de uma universidade pública. Para o levantamento sociodemográfico realizaram-se consultas a prontuários destas crianças além de entrevistas semiestruturadas a partir de um roteiro enfocando os hábitos culturais e familiares relativos à linguagem escrita.RESULTADOS:o estudo revelou que os familiares entrevistados eram na maioria de baixa renda, baixa escolaridade, provenientes de ambientes culturais de pouca valorização e estímulo ao uso da leitura e escrita, podendo repercutir no desempenho escolar de seus filhos.CONCLUSÃO:a carência socioeconômica e cultural observada no estudo pode ser minimizada através do apoio de redes sociais comunitárias e de políticas publicas de cultura e educação, visto que há interesse e expectativa das famílias na melhoria da educação de seus filhos.