Showing papers on "Written language published in 1971"

Understanding Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read

Abstract: Contents: Preface to the Sixth Edition. The Essence of Reading. Comprehension and Knowledge. Spoken and Written Language. Information and Experience. Between Eye and Brain. Bottlenecks of Memory. Letter Identification. Word Identification. Phonics and Mediated Word Identification. The Identification of Meaning. Reading, Writing, and Thinking. Learning About the World. Learning About Written Language.

Children's Developing Concepts of Spoken and Written Language

Abstract: "The child with real reading disability . . . may indeed have learnt that printed words have some relation to spoken words; and, with a few simple words, he has memorized the spoken word that corresponds to a particular shape. But he does not seem to understand why; it might be quite an arbitrary association. He appears hopelessly uncertain and confused as to why certain successions of printed letters should correspond to certain phonetic sounds in words."

Transformations and Comprehension.

Abstract: TJOR children to comprehend "*" what they read, they must be able to understand the written language structures by which ideas, information and concepts are conveyed Although children may be fluent in their use of oral language and may have acquired control over the basic sentence patterns of the English language by the time they enter school, it does not follow that this fluency will automatically transfer to writ ten language structures Further more, although a child may have acquired the basic patterns of the language by the time he enters school, it must be remembered that the task of manipulating more and more complex structures still lies before him Throughout the years, writers have suggested various linguistic factors which they claim tend to increase the complexity of written language Vocabulary or number of hard words and sentence length appeared to be the two factors which were rated most often by experimenters as causing greatest difficulty in reading Within the last decade or so a new theory of language has been formulated by Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology This is the theory of transformational-generative gram mar which holds that every sen tence can be represented on two levels?a surface structure level and a deep structure level The surface structure level is the form of the language to which the learner is exposed?its spoken or

Dialect in school

Abstract: Terms of reference: Most of the observation, reading and discussion that has preceded this paper has been in the context of the particular educational needs of West Indian children in British schools. The home language of many West Indian children is an English based Creole. It is a question of debate whether Creole languages should be regarded as dialects or as languages in their own right. This is not the place to examine the arguments involved in that debate. In our work on the Project we have decided to regard these Creoles as dialects of English. This is because most of the children can with little conscious or systematic teaching modify their own language to the point where they achieve a classroom dialect that is relatively close to their teacher's standard. The point to remember is that most of the paper refers primarily to West Indian children and that many of these find themselves in an extreme dialect speech situation. The paper first of all considers the inadequacy of definitions of dialect sp...

Etude du "décalage" entre langage oral et langage écrit d'après l'analyse de quelques indices significatifs

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to investigate the development of written language compared with oral language and the possible discrepancy between the two forms of expression. It was expected that in the first stages of learning written language the subject ivould refer to the knowledge he has already concerning oral language, and that written expression would rapidly obtain its autonomy. Seventy two girls from 7 to 14 years, divided into four groups according to the age, were asked to report orally a silent movie, and to write its description (half of the subjects in each group began with the oral version and then the written one ; the other half answered in the reverse order) . The analysis of several indices which- were supposed to test the hypotheses revealed that the child, when writing a story, refers to the oral code at his disposal, as is testified to by the fact that some characteristic imperfections of oral language appear in written language. Written and oral expressions do not differ when the child has to relate a story. However, even if the child, especially when he is 7, is less prolix when he expresses himself in writing, he is more accurate and has a more varied vocabulary. From the comparison between oral and tvritten productions of the same subjects it appears that the autonomy of written language as compared with oral language begins as early as 7 years of age but becomes substantial only by 11-12 years.

Further Remarks on the Pragmatics of Natural Languages

Abstract: In his Foundations of the Theory of Signs 1 Charles Morris, followed in this respect by Rudolf Carnap, divided the study of language into three parts: syntax, the study of relations between signs among themselves, semantics, the study of the relations between signs and objects, and pragmatics, the study of the relations between signs and their users, the speaker, hearer, writer, or reader. It is obvious that any development of pragmatics along Morris’ suggestions (even if, as appeared during the Working Symposium 1970 of Jerusalem, Morris’ conception is neither clear nor unique) should be able to define what is a producer and what is a receiver, either of oral or of written language. This demand, simple as it might look, was repeatedly raised by Professor Staal at the mentioned Symposium.

Kingalu: A Myth of Origin From Eastern Tanzania

Abstract: In the essay which follows an attempt will be made to examine two versions of a myth of origin of part of the Luguru people. It will be my endeavor to treat it from a number of angles as an example of oral tradition, describing a historical series of events; from a functional sociological standpoint as providing a " charter for social action" and legitimating social institutions; from a structuralist standpoint by trying to distinguish the inherent oppositions presented and how they are mediated; and from a symbolic one, with particular consideration for the neo-FREUDian position recently presented by Robin Fox (1967: 161-178), since his interesting theories specifically concern societies practising unilineal descent, and postulate the probable earlier appearance of matrilineal over patrilineal descent, a reversal of the events recounted in the myth. For the purposes of brevity only an English translation will be used. The version which I recorded was told in Swahili rather than in the Luguru language, and the other version is from a book written in the former language by a Luguru Roman Catholic priest. It might be objected that this is a somewhat unrealistic situation since there is a living Luguru language, but it is contended that this is not true since the vast majority of Luguru today are bilingual in Swahili and KiLuguru and tend to use the former language in preference except in ritual situations, or to baffle strangers. Both are Bantu languages, but while the Luguru tongue is not to be found in print, Swahili has a long record as a written language. Today it is fashionable to deny any language a status of "primitive" or "civilized", rightly so, but it might be acceptable to paraphrase Parkinson's Law and suggest that "languages expand to fulfill the cultural demands placed upon them". Certainly Swahili has expanded and is expanding all the time to

Relationships of Reading, Spelling and Knowledge of Graphemic Options:

Abstract: In our written language most speech sounds, or phonemes, are represented by more than one letter or letter combination. For example, the phoneme /n / at the beginning of a word can be represented by the letter "n" as in the word now, by "kn" as in know, or by "gn" as in gnat. This study was an investigation of primary and elementary students' knowledge of the ways, rather than the way, selected sounds are spelled in American-English. Since each letter used to represent a phoneme is identified by linguists as a grapheme, this awareness of the ways sounds are spelled was referred to throughout the study as a knowledge of graphemic options. Following the assessment of students' awareness of graphemic options, relationships of that knowledge to reading and to spelling achievement were examined.

Spelling-to-Sound Correspondences for Reading vs. Sound-to-Spelling Correspondences for Writing.

Abstract: Differences between spelling-to-sound correspondences for reading and sound-to-spelling correspondences for writing are discussed in terms of the characteristics of and the relationships between stimuli and responses. While dialect variation can be accommodated in reading, it cannot be accommodated in spelling, where no response variation is permitted. Correspondences are not generally reversible, and complementary correspondences differ in complexity. Implications for the design of a spelling component within a unifiel communication skills program are presented. (Author) SPELLING-TO-SOUND CORRESPONDENCES FOR READING VS. SOUND-TO-SPELLING CORRESPW' 7,NCES FOR WRITING

English for Foreign Students Goes out on the Streets

Abstract: There is much discussion these days about what to do in the foreign language classroom to develop skills in communication. For the foreign students in our universities the best laboratory is outside the classroomin the community of native speakers of English. It is obvious that this setting is more natural and more challenging for the students and that, as they talk with Americans, their oral fluency will improve. What is not so obvious is that when students draw upon community experiences for their themes their writing improves. Field experiences, featuring interviews with native speakers as a source of information and ideas, help to wean the foreign students away from over-reliance on the bilingual dictionary and on the authority of the textbook. Careful preparation for the field experiences will help the students to develop more self-confidence and to be more observant of details, more independent in their thinking, and more responsible in their statements.

On the Syntax of Written Black English.

Abstract: The writing of black, elementary school children in the Watts District of Los Angeles was analyzed in an effort to relate it to current studies in oral language and to current pedagogical materials. The themes were first segmented by Kellogg Hunt's T-unit concept, with the T-units then analyzed according to the PS grammar used in the school, though some modifications were made in the model to include previously identified Black English features and recent advances in linguistic theory. This information was placed in a computer and frequency counts for over 15,000 sentence constructions were run. Black students were shown to write in patterned and rule-governed ways. Their syntactic forms were lengthy and complicated generally, with almost half of the sentence constructions embedded or conjoined within T-units. Embedding within T-units is almost four times as common as conjoining within T-units. The basic sentence categories were those of the pedagogical model, though some types, like the indirect object patterns, occurred infrequently. Auxiliary patterns did not include all White English forms, but did include all generally identified Black English auxiliaries as well as one pattern mentioned only in the writings of the "Creolists." Noun phrase constituency rules also were noticeably different from the pedagogical model.

An Intercultural Study of the Development of a Reading Readiness Skill.

Abstract: An Intercultural Study of the Development of A Reading Readiness Skill Evan R. Keislar, Helena Hsieh, and Chander Bhasin University of Ceifornia, Los Angeles How soon does a child learn to discriminate orthographic units in his written language as distinguished from a general form-discrimination ability. A discrimination test of letters, words, or characters, in three written languages, Chinese, Hindi, and English, at three age levels, from four to five and a half years was given to 153 middle class children from three different countries, Formosa, India, and the United States. The predicted interaction between nationality and language subtests was significant only at the oldest level, from five to five and a half years. At this age, children in each country performed relatively better on the subtest in their native language than they did in the other two languoges. No sex differences were obtained. An Intercultural Study of the Development Of A Reading Readiness Skill Evan R. Keislar, Helena Hsieh, and Chander Bhasin University of California, Los Angeles Introduction The presence of the printed languac:e in a young child's environment undoubtedly contributes to the development of reading ability. If youngsters are surrounded by reading materials, it is likely that they learn to discriminate letters and words even before they begin formal instruction in school. True, the effect of such materials may be mediated by other persons in their world; a home in which many printed matertals are present is also likely to be a source of models and informal instruction. Conversely, if there are limited written materials in their environment, children have less exposure to the written language and receive less social influence in this area. The problem posed in this study was to assess the effect, prior to any formal reading instruction in school, of this informal experience with the printed word on the young child's growing ability to discriminate among the different letters and words of his native language. There is considerable evidence that form discrimination ability continues to improve throughout the period of early childhood. Studies using the Marian Frostig Development Test of Visual Perception (1964) have revealed considerable improvement between the ages of three and six in a discrimination task such as form constancy. Elkind, Koegler, and Go (1964) found that children from four to nine years old showed an increase in their ability to perceive parts and wholes of drawings with independent meanings; at the age of four, parts were perceived more clearly than wholes. Gibson, Gibson, Pick, and Osser (1962) found that children's discrimination of letter-Iike forms improve consistently from the ages of four to eight. They found the greatest changes during this age year span occurred in the ability to perceive rotation or reversal of forms. Furthermore, there is a relationship between scores on form discrimination measures and socioeconomic status. For example, on a set of tests specifically designed to study form-discrimination abilities, Stern and Lombard (1968) found that the children from the lower class at the age of four and five do more poorly than the children from the upper middle class. If lower class children have fewer printed materials in their homes than do middle class, the deficiency in such discrimination abilities might well be related to this deprivation. Since a variety of other factors are also involved, however, it is difficult to support this conclusion on the basis of such data alone. Systematic instruction can certainly improve the familiarity of the young child with the written elements of his own native language peior to instruction in reading. Among the results of many intervention studies is the recent finding that the television program, Sesame Street, is effective in teaching young preschool children to identify letters; the more children watch the greater is the impact (Ball & Bogatz, 1970). The effect was found even with many three-year-old youngsters. In order to assess the informal effects of the presence of the written language in the child's environment, some deprivation technique, with adequate control of other variables, seems essential. It would be impossible to deliberately remove all contact of the subjects with the printed word.

Ann and Abby: The Agony Column on the Air.

Abstract: This article suggests that the syndicated columns published under the by-lines "Dear Abby" and "Ann Landers" contain useful textual material for intermediate and advanced ESL students. The following characteristics seem valuable: 1) the columns offer sharp insights into implicit American cultural values; 2 they are modeled on the spoken, rather than written language; 3) they stimulate classroom discussion.

The Development of a National Language in Indonesia and Malaysia

Abstract: Most countries of the world have populations which include peoples of different ethnic origins, with different languages, cultures and religious beliefs. This is especially true of the new emerging nations of Southeast Asia like Indonesia and Malaysia. National consciousness is a common sentiment in these newly independent countries. Nationalists believe that of all the elements of culture, language is one of the most effective instruments for integrating a heterogenous community. Today every country of Southeast Asia had adopted a national language of its own. According to Noss, [1], a national language is any standard language which has primary governmental sanction within a given country. And a standard language is any standard dialect for which the written language has official sanction within the country where it is used.

Lithuanian language teaching program developed by Jonas Jablonskis

Abstract: J. Jablonskis develops the Lithuanian language teaching program for primary school right after the press ban was cancelled by czar. He focused on didactical requirements and psychological age features with a view to the development of oral and written language and logical thinking of students. The main principal when creating the program is scientific basis. The program also provides with phonetic and morphological features of Lithuanian language so the primary school students receive scientific knowledge about the language. The program includes methodical guidelines, thus the author takes into account the methodical aspect of teaching Lithuanian language.