Visual Word Processing of Non-Arabic-Speaking Qur'anic
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Visual Word Processing of Non-Arabic-speaking Qur’anic Memorisers Siti Syuhada Binte Faizal Doctor of Philosophy School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences Newcastle University June 2019 Abstract Visual word processing typically involves the interplay between orthographic, phonological, morphological, and semantic knowledge. However, there are atypical learning situations where the input of one of the above is limited, such as rote memorisation of the Qur’an with little semantic input. This is common in non-Arabic-speaking countries where speakers from Muslim communities learn how to read the Qur’an without understanding what it means. Despite this unique and pervasive phenomenon, little work has been carried out in this area. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the visual word processing of non-Arabic-speaking Qur’an memorisers at three levels of processing—lexical, sublexical, and morphological. It also aimed to investigate individual differences through examining potential interactions of effects with Qur’an vocabulary knowledge and amount of Qur’an memorised, thereby informing us of the roles of semantics and print exposure to the language in visual word processing. Using stimuli constructed from the Qur’an Lexicon Project, a series of psycholinguistic experiments were conducted with non-Arabic-speaking Qur’an readers and memorisers from Singapore. Participants were given two visual lexical decision tasks (one with morphological priming and one without) and a speeded pronunciation task. A standardised Qur’an Vocabulary Test was also given to measure their vocabulary knowledge and self-reports of Qur’anic memorisation scores were elicited to measure the amount and fluency of Qur’anic memorisation. Findings from these experiments provide insight into the factors influencing the visual word processing of non-Arabic-speaking Qur’an memorisers and demonstrate that the influence of these factors can vary differentially depending on one’s vocabulary knowledge and amount of Qur’an memorised, given several significant three-way interactions. The findings broadly suggest the implicit learning of lexical and sublexical features of a writing system through exposure to its orthography and phonology, despite limited exposure to semantics, with vocabulary knowledge and statistical exposure to the language i playing different but interdependent roles in strengthening the quality of lexical and sublexical representations. However, for morphological processing, findings suggest that vocabulary knowledge plays a more important role alongside statistical exposure in the implicit learning of roots whereas statistical exposure is more important than vocabulary knowledge in the implicit learning of word patterns, which is consistent with the view that roots and word patterns represent distinct structural characteristics in Semitic languages. Keywords: visual word processing; visual word recognition; semantic knowledge; print exposure; statistical learning. ii Acknowledgements Praise be to Allah. This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of the following: My mother, ‘Aishah, for her many du’as and for being my “research assistant” in many ways, as well as my father, Faizal, for his financial support and belief in my education; My first supervisor, Ghada Khattab, who has been superbly patient and supportive despite the numerous challenges I have presented her with over the years and is truly deserving of her Research Supervisor of the Year award, as well as my second supervisor, Cristina McKean, for always providing insightful comments and advice that are much appreciated; Brett Kessler, for providing excellent advice over many emails; Susan Rickard Liow and Melvin Yap, for inducting me into the field of psycholinguistics and for the helpful discussions about my research; Jalal Al-Tamimi, for providing helpful advice on R and Praat; Kamil Bartoń, for his help with troubleshooting the MuMIn package in R; Sekolah Ugama Radin Mas, Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah, Madrasah Wak Tanjong Al-Islamiah, Darul Huffaz Learning Centre, Akademi Tahfiz, Darul Qur’an Singapura, and International Islamic University Malaysia for participating in the study in various ways through giving permission to observe their classes or to conduct my experiments with their students; The huffaẓ who participated in my interviews and provided me with helpful information about Qur’an memorisation, especially Ustazah Susilawati, who patiently answered my numerous questions about tajweed; The hundreds of participants who had so kindly spent their time doing my experiments and questionnaires; The Muslim Converts’ Association of Singapore, for their generous education bursaries and for providing a venue for me to conduct an experiment session; Lembaga Biasiswa Kenangan Maulud, for their belief in me and awarding me their Prestigious Scholarship for three years; Lee Foundation, for their generous bursary; iii Aini Funiah, Jehanzaib Alvi, Yusuff Shah, Meredith and Ismail, Ben Ho, Zairiati Zakaria, Aisyah Omar, Dedi Affandi, Crystal Ngu, Muhammad Mohsin, Hamid Rahmatullah, Melati Tengku, and many others for their generous donations to my GoFundMe campaign; My fellow PhD schoolmates, Patchanok Kitikanan, Chen Yiling, Victoria Wong, Nur Nabila, Abang Khaliq and Kak Aida, for their emotional support and help in many ways; My BFFs, Shuli and Izzati, for their general awesomeness, and my buddies, Mahdi and Ridzwan, for never failing to treat me to a meal; My family, especially my youngest brother, Irfan, for his help with numerous tasks; My husband, Hidayath, for his technical expertise in programming and support in numerous aspects; And everyone else who has directly or indirectly helped me in any way. I am truly grateful. iv Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .............................................................................................. v List of Figures ................................................................................................ xiii List of Tables .................................................................................................. xxi Chapter 1. Introduction .................................................................................... 1 1.1 Visual Word Recognition ........................................................................... 1 1.2 Non-Arabic-speaking Qur’anic Memorisers ............................................... 2 1.3 Qur’anic Arabic .......................................................................................... 3 1.4 Overview of the Current Work ................................................................... 4 1.4.1 Contributions ....................................................................................... 4 1.4.2 Research Questions ........................................................................... 5 1.5 Organisation of the Dissertation ................................................................ 5 Chapter 2. Background .................................................................................... 9 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 9 2.2 Importance of Qur’anic Reading and Memorisation .................................. 9 2.3 Psycholinguistic Characteristics of Qur’anic Arabic ................................. 11 2.3.1 Orthography ...................................................................................... 12 2.3.2 Phonology ......................................................................................... 15 2.4 Qur’anic Reading and Memorisation in Singapore .................................. 17 2.4.1 Orthographic Input ............................................................................ 19 2.4.2 Phonetic Input ................................................................................... 24 2.4.3 Semantic Input .................................................................................. 25 2.5 Summary ................................................................................................. 26 v Chapter 3. The Qur’an Lexicon Project: A Psycholinguistic Database for Qur’anic Arabic ............................................................................................... 29 3.1 Introduction.............................................................................................. 29 3.2 Development of the Qur’an Lexicon ........................................................ 30 3.2.1 Corpus .............................................................................................. 30 3.2.2 Transcription ..................................................................................... 30 3.3 Database Descriptives ............................................................................ 33 3.3.1 Pronunciation .................................................................................... 33 3.3.2 Length ............................................................................................... 34 3.3.3 Frequency ......................................................................................... 34 3.3.4 Lexical Uniqueness Point ................................................................. 36 3.3.5 Neighbourhood Size ........................................................................