EFFECT OF ORTHOGRAPHIC DEPTH ON READING IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH By GREGORY H. BONTRAGER A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2020 © 2020 Gregory H. Bontrager To my grandparents, without whose constant and eager support I would be neither half the scholar nor half the man I am today ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge my advisory committee, composed of Dr. Caroline Wiltshire, Dr. Lori Altmann, Dr. Brent Henderson, and Dr. Ann Kathryn Wehmeyer, as well as the many other scholars whose research is referenced in this work. I particularly wish to thank Dr. Altmann for her patient guidance on statistical analysis and interpretation, Dr. Wiltshire for alerting me to some very useful literature, and Dr. Wehmeyer for her vigilance against typos and any errors of detail. The latter two members were also quite active in ensuring proper citation and organization, for which I am also very grateful. The entire committee helped to make this project the best that it could be. Whatever insight may be gleaned in the forthcoming pages was only possible because I stood on their shoulders. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... 7 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... 8 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 11 Overview ........................................................................................................................... 11 Writing Systems ................................................................................................................. 13 Isomorphy, Regularity, and Transparency .......................................................................... 18 Orthographic Depth ............................................................................................................ 21 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................... 25 Introduction: Phonological Transparency ........................................................................... 25 Interaction with Lexical Effects .......................................................................................... 26 Literacy Acquisition by Children ........................................................................................ 34 Environmental and Contextual Factors ............................................................................... 39 Summary: Phonological Transparency ............................................................................... 44 Introduction: Morphological Transparency ......................................................................... 45 Morphological Awareness .................................................................................................. 45 Priming Studies on Adults .................................................................................................. 49 Reading Comprehension in Children .................................................................................. 52 Evidence from Non-Phonemic Scripts ................................................................................ 58 Summary: Morphological Transparency ............................................................................. 66 3 METHODOLOGICAL AND MORPHOPHONOLOGICAL BACKGROUND.................. 68 Cross-Linguistic versus Intra-Lingual Approaches ............................................................. 68 Word Recognition and Text Comprehension ...................................................................... 71 English Dactylic Laxing and Vowel Reduction .................................................................. 73 Spanish Vowel Breaking and Raising ................................................................................. 77 4 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................. 81 Subjects.............................................................................................................................. 82 Stimuli ............................................................................................................................... 83 Procedure ........................................................................................................................... 88 Hypotheses and Research Questions ................................................................................... 90 5 5 RESULTS .......................................................................................................................... 92 Reaction Times for Lexical Decision .................................................................................. 92 Accuracy for Lexical Decision ........................................................................................... 96 Inhibition by Orthographic Overlap .................................................................................... 99 Control for Ambiguity and Direction ................................................................................ 103 Cloze Test Performance ................................................................................................... 108 Conclusions...................................................................................................................... 109 6 DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................. 111 Morphological Priming and Reading Comprehension ....................................................... 111 Summary .......................................................................................................................... 111 Limitations ....................................................................................................................... 116 APPENDIX A PRIMING STIMULI ........................................................................................................ 119 B CLOZE TEXTS ............................................................................................................... 133 True Love, adapted from Tales with Soul by Rosario Gómez ............................................ 133 Amor Verdadero, adaptado de Cuentos con Alma por Rosario Gómez ............................. 134 Psychology by Ingrid Nakagawa Mendoza ....................................................................... 135 Psicología por Ingrid Nakagawa Mendoza ....................................................................... 136 C BILINGUALISM QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH TRANSLATION) ............................. 138 LIST OF REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 139 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ................................................................................................... 144 6 LIST OF TABLES Table page 5-1 Mean Reaction Times and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language (in ms) ..... 93 5-2 Mean Priming Effects and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language (in ms) ..... 94 5-3 Mean Accuracy Rates and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language ................. 97 5-4 Mean Accuracy Effects and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language ............... 98 5-5 Isolated Mean Facilitation Effects and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language (in ms) ......................................................................................................... 100 5-6 Isolated Mean Facilitation Effects and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language with Calibration of Spanish AL (in ms) ....................................................... 102 5-7 Mean Reaction Times and Standard Deviations by Ambiguity, Direction, and Language in (in ms) ..................................................................................................... 104 5-8 Mean Accuracy Rates and Standard Deviations by Direction and Language ................ 105 A-1 English List #1 ............................................................................................................ 119 A-2 English List #2 ............................................................................................................ 121 A-3 Spanish List #1 ............................................................................................................ 124 A-4 Spanish List #2 ............................................................................................................ 128 7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 5-1 Mean Reaction Times and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language (in ms) ..... 93 5-2 Mean Priming Effects and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language (in ms) ..... 95 5-3 Mean Accuracy Rates and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language (in %) ....... 97 5-4 Mean Accuracy Effects and Standard Deviations by Condition and Language (in %) .... 98 5-5 Isolated Mean Facilitation Effects