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Predicting Dual-Language Literacy Attainment in Irish-English Bilinguals: Language-Specific and Language-Universal Contributions

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Predicting Dual-Language Literacy Attainment in Irish-English Bilinguals: Language-Specific and Language-Universal Contributions Predicting dual-language literacy attainment in Irish-English bilinguals: language-specific and language-universal contributions Emily Barnes Supervisors: Professors Ailbhe Ní Chasaide and Neasa Ní Chiaráin Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Phonetics and Speech Laboratory School of Linguistic, Communication and Speech Sciences Trinity College Dublin January 2021 Declaration I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and it is entirely my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the Library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library conditions of use and acknowledgement. I consent to the examiner retaining a copy of the thesis beyond the examining period, should they so wish. Signature of author: Emily Barnes i Acknowledgements This research would not have been possible without the support and commitment of many people, to whom I am very grateful. Ba mhaith liom buíochas ó chroí a ghabháil leis na hOllaimh Ailbhe Ní Chasaide agus Neasa Ní Chiaráin as an léargas, tacaíocht, misneach agus cairdeas a thug sibh dom thar na blianta. Tá mé tar éis i bhfad níos mó ná an méid atá sa tráchtas seo a fhoghlaim uaibhse. Ba mhaith liom buíochas mór a ghabháil leis an Dr. John Harris, leis an Dr. Claire Dunne agus leis an Ollamh Ram Frost as an léargas agus an saineolas a roinn sibh liom - thug sibh súil eile dom. Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil le daoine eile i réimse an oideachais agus i réimse na litearthachta a thug comhairle agus deiseanna foghlama dom le linn na céime, go háirithe leis an Ollamh Noel Ó Murchadha. I would like to thank the Irish Research Council for funding this work and for supporting research of this kind. Chomh maith leis sin, ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta, a mhaoinigh taighde a bhí ina bhunús don saothar seo. Tá moladh mór tuilte ag na páistí a ghlac páirt sa taighde seo, a bhí an-chairdiúil agus fáilteach liom – go raibh míle maith agaibh! Chomh maith leis sin, tá mé thar a bheith buíoch de na tuismitheoirí, múinteoirí agus príomhoidí a chuir fáilte romham sna scoileanna a bhí páirteach sa taighde seo. I am indebted to my friends – from home and from college – for the support, inspiration and perspective they provide. I have also been fortunate to have great friends in the Phonetics and Speech Laboratory who have provided me with much camaraderie and cat- related content (as well as the odd perception test) over the last number of years. I would particularly like to thank Kate and Connor, who read and advised on drafts of this dissertation. Thank you to my family – my parents Christine and Paul, brother Andrew and husband James – for your love, levity and all of the opportunities you have given me to grow. Gabhaim buíochas mór le mo sheanmháthair Bríghdín Cassidy, a thug grá don Ghaeilge agus don léann dom – thosaigh an obair seo leatsa. ii Abstract This thesis focuses on dual-language literacy attainment and has three main aims. The first is to examine various predictors of early literacy attainment in Irish and English – phonemic awareness, rapid automatised naming and verbal short-term memory – in new and native speakers of Irish. The second aim is to investigate the extent to which these abilities are language-universal, rather than language-specific. The third aim is to examine the nature of one of the predictors - phonemic awareness - in depth. Phonemic awareness is widely considered to be a language-universal skill in dual-language learners, however this thesis investigates whether there is an additional language-specific component to phonemic awareness. In addition, this thesis explores (i) the extent to which phonemic awareness is a purely phonological ability (ii) the phonemic contrasts which are inaccurately identified by early readers of Irish and English and (iii) whether these errors in phonemic awareness are reflected in the spelling errors made in each language. To achieve the aforementioned aims, a cross-sectional study was carried out with 345 children in Grade 1 (Junior Infants), Grade 2 (Senior Infants) and Grade 3 (First Class) during the 2018-2019 school year. The majority of these participants (n = 282) attended Gaelscoileanna and a smaller number (n = 63) attended Gaeltacht schools. Participants completed a battery of tasks in both Irish and English. The battery included two phonemic awareness tasks – one tapping a language-universal component and one tapping a language- specific component. It also included rapid automatised naming tasks, verbal-short term memory tasks, literacy tasks as well as a productive vocabulary task in Irish only. In relation to the predictors of literacy attainment, the findings indicate that the efficacy of the predictors differed in each language. Overall, they predicted more variance in Irish word reading (54%) and spelling (40%) than English word reading (49%) and spelling (36%). The findings also indicate that phonological, cognitive and literacy abilities comprise both language-specific and language-universal components. Spelling errors were found to be largely language-specific and reflect the phonological and orthographic challenges posed by each language. The implications of these findings are that (i) language- specific instruction is necessary in key areas, particularly in relation to the phonemic structure and grapheme-phoneme rules of each language, and (ii) literacy assessment should be carried out in each of a bilingual’s languages. iii Table of Contents Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of Figures ix List of Tables xiii Acronyms used in this thesis xvi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Organisation of this thesis.............................................................................. 1 1.2 Rationale for this work.................................................................................... 2 1.3 Theoretical standpoint.................................................................................... 3 1.4 Objectives....................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Terminology and definitions.......................................................................... 4 1.5.1 Terminology................................................................................... 4 1.5.2 Conceptual and operational definitions.......................................... 5 1.6 Research questions......................................................................................... 6 1.7 Chapter summary........................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 2. THE IRISH CONTEXT: SOCIOLINGUISTIC, LINGUISTIC AND EDUCATIONAL 12 2.1 Sociolinguistic context................................................................................... 12 2.1.1 Gaeltacht areas............................................................................... 12 2.1.2 Areas outside of the Gaeltacht....................................................... 14 2.2 Linguistic context........................................................................................... 16 2.2.1 Irish phonology............................................................................. 16 2.2.2 Irish orthography............................................................................ 18 2.3 Demographic and environmental factors which influence literacy 21 attainment............................................................................................................. 2.3.1 Socioeconomic status..................................................................... 21 2.3.2 Gender............................................................................................ 22 2.3.3 Literacy instruction methods.......................................................... 23 2.3.4 Language exposure......................................................................... 26 2.4 Chapter summary............................................................................................ 27 CHAPTER 3. LITERATURE REVIEW 28 3.1 The triad of predictors of literacy attainment.................................................. 28 3.1.1 Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness......................... 28 3.1.2 Rapid automatised naming ............................................................. 32 3.1.3 Verbal short-term memory.............................................................. 33 3.1.4 Conceptualising the predictors of literacy attainment: insights from dyslexia research...................................................................................... 34 3.2 Language-universal and language-specific contributions to dual-language skills....................................................................................................................... 36 3.2.1 Literacy attainment.......................................................................... 37 3.2.2 Phonemic awareness........................................................................ 39 iv 3.2.3 Rapid automatised naming.............................................................. 40 3.2.4 Verbal short-term memory.............................................................. 41 3.2.5 Summary......................................................................................... 42 3.3 The efficacy of predictors of literacy
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