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    Author
    Bolger, Patrick Anthony
    Issue Date
    2005
    Keywords
    letter perception
    grapheme perception
    bilingualism
    transfer
    Advisor
    McKee, Cecile
    Committee Chair
    McKee, Cecile
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Publisher
    The University of Arizona.
    Rights
    Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
    Abstract
    This dissertation used letter detection and masked priming to address four questions: Are graphemes or letters more fundamental in low-level reading processes? How does alphabetic-processing knowledge manifest in different languages? Do bilinguals transfer such knowledge across languages? And do young children also show such effects?Some researchers have recently revived an old hypothesis in which graphemes, not letters, are the fundamental, perceptual reading unit. This can be tested by looking at congruency effects in a letter-detection task with masked priming. Six groups participated: Spanish and English monolingual adults; Spanish- and English-dominant bilingual adults; Spanish-dominant bilingual children; and English monolingual children. The experiments with adult monolinguals tested the letter- against the grapheme-as-percept hypothesis. The experiments with developing bilinguals examined whether they would transfer alphabetic-processing knowledge from L1 to L2. And the experiments with English monolingual children probed how early congruency effects with masked primes might occur.Participants responded YES or NO depending on the presence of letters in targets. Both congruent and incongruent masked primes preceded the targets. Among the congruent primes, some contained double vowels, and others single vowels. Assuming letters are fundamental, single- and double-vowel primes in both languages should facilitate and inhibit reactions equally. Assuming graphemes are fundamental, single-vowel primes in English, but not Spanish, should facilitate and inhibit more because double vowels are digraphs in English, and should therefore conceal the identity of their component letters. Bilinguals should show L1-like effects in L2 if they transfer alphabet-specific processing knowledge. Young children should simply show congruency effects if they are able to process letter information automatically.The results with Spanish and English monolinguals suggested that graphemes do exert an effect on the task, but only after letters are perceived. This has major implications for models of proficient reading. The results also suggest that Spanish readers do not construct graphemes from letters, but rather syllables and abstract syllable structure. Bilinguals showed evidence of L1-L2 transfer at low levels of L2 proficiency. This has implications for transitional bilingual education programs. And young children showed congruency effects, which provides another link in establishing the connection between literacy development and proficient reading.
    Type
    text
    Electronic Dissertation
    Degree Name
    PhD
    Degree Level
    doctoral
    Degree Program
    Second Language Acquisition & Teaching
    Graduate College
    Degree Grantor
    University of Arizona
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    Dissertations

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