Orthographic Learning via Self-Teaching: Evidence from Mandarin Chinese Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doctors der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) der Erziehungswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Erfurt vorgelegt von M.Sc. Wei-Ming Ho Erfurt 2013 Erstes Gutachten: Prof. Dr. Gerd Mannhaupt (Universität Erfurt) Zweites Gutachten: Prof. Dr. Ralf Rummer (Universität Erfurt) Drittes Gutachten: Prof. Dr. Günther Thomé (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) Tag der Disputation: 11.12.2013 Tag der Promotion: 11.12.2013 urn:nbn:de:gbv:547-201400064 Acknowledgements My hearty thanks must go to all the children and schools that participated in my research. In preparation of the dissertation and throughout the PhD program, I am particularly indebted to me myself who undertook this journey, surmounted difficulties and endured hardships, as well as to Prof. Dr. Gerd Mannhaupt for his guidance and help. I am grateful to all colleagues and professors at the EPPP colloquiums for the inspiring discussions and helpful suggestions regarding my PhD research project and the dissertation. Especially, I would also like to thank Dr. Hua- Chen Wang, Dr. Mcloddy Kadyamusuma, Sarah Knee, and Dr. Judith Schweppe for their constructive comments on the manuscript. My gratitude extends to a fellow doctoral student who is now Dr. Anne Fürstenberg, to all my friends around the globe and, specially, to my family back in Taiwan for all the pep talks and endurance on this journey with me. Without any of you, the dissertation would not have been possible and this journey would not have been as pleasant. Thank you! i Abstract This dissertation investigates the orthographic learning process of a non-alphabetic Chinese script via self-teaching. Orthographic learning is the process by which children commit word forms to memory. Successful orthographic learning leads to automaticity with word recognition; in turn, automated, efficient word recognition facilitates fluent reading. The self-teaching hypothesis proposes that reading fluency is built up via a self-teaching mechanism that empowers orthographic learning of new words on an item-by-item basis. Central to the self-teaching mechanism is phonological recoding. The internal structure properties of Chinese characters and the sublexical phonology and semantics also permit developing readers to self-teach Chinese orthographic forms. More than 80% of the Chinese characters are phonograms. Taking advantage of the phonetic and semantic radicals embedded in Chinese phonograms, four studies were carried out following Share’s (1999) self-teaching paradigm. The first two targeted young readers in Grade 3, whereas the other two studies focused on children in Grade 2. Participants were asked to independently read aloud short texts where the internal structure of target pseudocharacters and the number of exposure were manipulated. Two posttests, including an orthographic choice task and a spelling task, were administered both immediately after the reading phase and after a 3-day interval to measure orthographic learning. The overriding aim of all studies was to explore the possibility of orthographic learning via self-teaching in the visually complex, traditional Chinese script used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, as distinct from the simplified Chinese script used in China. Other aims were to look into issues as to whether radicals play a role in Chinese orthographic learning. ii Study 1 examined the effect of Zhuyin on Chinese orthographic learning. Zhuyin is the phonological aid system used to list pronunciations alongside unknown characters in Taiwanese child books; Zhuyin is completely transparent and alphabet- like. Based on the self-teaching hypothesis, extraneous phonological aids, such as Zhuyin, would divert children’s attention away from orthographic details. Favoring this prediction, the results on both posttest measures depicted a significantly stronger learning effect in conditions without Zhuyin than those with Zhuyin. Following up on the finding that Zhuyin did not give rise to optimal orthographic learning in Chinese, Study 2 looked at the issue whether phonetic radicals are sufficient for functional learning of Chinese orthographies. One of the fundamental tenets in the self-teaching theory is that phonological recoding is critical to orthographic learning. Zhuyin does not aid the process of Chinese orthographic learning by offering accurate pronunciations as much as previously assumed; it is thus arguable that the phonological recoding opportunities afforded by the phonetic radicals embedded in target pseudocharacters are crucial in learning to read Chinese. Through the manipulation of the availability of phonetic radicals embedded in targets, Study 2 reported a more robust learning effect on both posttest measures when targets were embedded with a phonetic radical than without. Similar to morpho-semantic information in English, the semantic hint embedded in Chinese characters might be another useful resource that unskilled readers can bring to bear upon Chinese orthographic learning. Study 3 tested the cueing effect of semantic radicals by embedding targets with cueing and non-cueing semantic radicals. Children performed significantly better in conditions with cueing semantic radicals than non-cueing ones; this demonstrated that the semantic radicals iii embedded in characters also modulated Chinese orthographic learning to a certain extent. Semantic transparency has been documented to influence Chinese word recognition; it is possible that semantic transparency also has an impact on orthographic learning. With the working definition that semantic transparency in orthographic learning refers to the semantic relatedness of an embedded semantic radical in relation to the semantic information that is to be instantiated into the target from the context, Study 4 manipulated thus the semantic relatedness between the level of embedded semantic radical and that of the context semantics. The results from Study 4, though not statistically significant, exhibited a general trend towards better learning in semantic opaque conditions. The finding might arise from the fact that, unlike established readers, 2nd grade children have yet to fully appreciate the semantic aspect at a global level. Taken together, the dissertation provided support to Chinese orthographic learning via self-teaching. Consistent with the self-teaching hypothesis, orthographic learning was evidenced with significantly more targets selected and more target spelling patterns reproduced than other alternatives. In general, the self-teaching hypothesis is also valid to account for learning to read in a non-alphabetic script, like Chinese. Taiwanese children learning to read a visually more complex, traditional Chinese script exploited the phonetic and semantic information that is embedded in the writing system to self-teach orthographic details. The self-teaching aspect of orthographic learning is hence universal across disparate writing systems, and phonology is also the key to learning to read Chinese. iv Zusammenfassung der Dissertation Diese Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit Fragen des orthographischen Lernprozesses einer nicht-alphabetischen, chinesischen Schrift durch Self-Teaching. Orthographisches Lernen ist definiert als der Prozess, durch den Kinder im Gedächtnis Repräsentationen von Wortformen anlegen. So werden automatisierte Worterkennung und damit flüssiges Lesen möglich. Die Self-Teaching-Hypothese besagt, dass sich die automatisierte Worterkennung durch einen Mechanismus selbstständigen Lernens entwickelt, der Kinder befähigt, die Orthographie neuer Wörter Item für Item zu erlernen. Für diesen Mechanismus ist die phonologische Rekodierung wichtig. Auch die chinesische Orthographie kann aufgrund der internen Struktur der Schriftzeichen und aufgrund der sublexikalischen Phonologie und Semantik durch Self-Teaching erworben werden. Mindestens vier Fünftel aller chinesischen Schriftzeichen sind Phonogramme. Die phonetischen und semantischen Radikale, die in die chinesischen Phonograme eingebettet sind, wurden für vier Experimente nach dem Self-Teaching-Paradigma (Share, 1999) genutzt. An den ersten zwei Experimenten nahmen Drittklässler teil, die anderen beiden waren auf Zweitklässler abgestimmt. Alle Teilnehmer wurden gebeten, selbstständig Kurztexte vorzulesen. Die innere Struktur des Target-Pseudo- Schriftzeichens und die Häufigkeit seiner Darbietung wurden innerhalb der Kurztexte manipuliert. Sowohl unmittelbar nach der Lesephase als auch nach einem dreitägigen Intervall wurden zwei Tests durchgeführt, eine orthographische Entscheidungsaufgabe und eine orthographische Produktionsaufgabe, um den Erfolg des orthographischen Lernens zu erfassen. Das vorrangige Ziel der Experimente war es zu untersuchen, inwiefern orthographisches Lernen im Sinne der Self-Teaching- v Hypothese in der visuell komplexen, nicht-alphabetischen chinesischen Schrift möglich ist. Darüber hinaus wurde untersucht, ob Radikale eine Rolle in diesem Lernprozess spielen. Experiment 1 untersuchte den Einfluss von Zhuyin auf den orthographischen Lernprozess im Chinesischen. Zhuyin sind spezielle Zeichen in taiwanesischen Kinderbüchern, die Informationen über die Aussprache unbekannter Schriftzeichen geben. Zhuyin ist vollständig phonologisch transparent und dem Alphabet ähnlich. Basierend auf der Self-Teaching-Hypothese würden externe phonologische Hilfsmittel, in diesem Fall Zhuyin, die Aufmerksamkeit der Kinder von den orthographischen Details ablenken.