Dissertation: Alphabetic transfer in English and Spanish

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Under the direction of Dr. Cecile McKee, Mr. Patrick Bolger will conduct psycholinguistic research for his dissertation concerning orthographic knowledge. When writing systems share letters, as English and Spanish do, a second language reader might think similar relations hold between graphemes and phonemes in both languages. But these relations are not identical and so may hinder literacy development. This research concerns the transfer of knowledge from one writing system to another. Letter-detection experiments will address these issues with adults and children in English and Spanish. Subjects will see a letter and then decide if it appears in a word. Different primes precede the target words. For example, the E in SPENT is primed by a single grapheme in WRECK, by a digraph in FIELD, and not primed by BLOCK. The key comparison is a vowel represented by one or two letters, a phenomenon that distinguishes Spanish and English orthography. Adult and child subjects include English-speakers learning Spanish and Spanish-speakers learning English, as well as monolingual English-speakers and monolingual Spanish-speakers (in Arizona and Argentina). If digraphs are reading units in English, English monolinguals should show priming effects in the WRECK condition but not in the FIELD condition. Spanish-speakers at lower English proficiency levels should show priming in both conditions in English. As they become more proficient, priming effects in the FIELD condition should disappear. In other words, Spanish-speakers should be insensitive to the difference between a single grapheme and a digraph.This project bears directly on the scientific questions noted above and indirectly on education challenges. Understanding alphabetic transfer is crucial because ever more children start school in this country as second language learners. According to the US Census Bureau (2000), the number of people in Spanish-speaking homes increased 62% from 1990 to 2000. The 2000 Census reports that over 7 million Spanish-speakers speak no English or speak it poorly. Considering all languages, that census found that 12 million people are "linguistically isolated" (i.e., in households where no one over 14 speaks English "very well"). This number is significantly greater than in 1990. This research will inform reading instruction for bilinguals and so benefit minority groups. Further, the investigators will bring the research results to parent, educators, and administrators associated with schools in both Arizona and Argentina.