ÓÈÎïÊÓƵ

Title: 

The Effects of Congruent and Systematic Grapheme to Phoneme Correspondences on Novel Word Learning

Date, time and location:

April 15, 2025, 11:00am-2:00pm at RCB 7402.

Comittee:

Chair, Ashley Farris-Trimble, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Supervisor, Henny Yeung, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Committee Member, Yue Wang, Professor, Linguistics
External Examiner, Rachel Hayes-Harb, Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Utah

Abstract:

Previous studies report that learning new words is helped when supplemented with written forms, but only if grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) mappings are the same (congruent) as the learners’ native languages, and in a one-grapheme-to-one-phoneme relation (systematic). In contrast, orthographic input is detrimental if GPC mappings are incongruent or non-systematic. No studies have carefully investigated the potential interaction of Congruency and Systematicity, or differences when mappings are placed on consonants and vowels. To fill this gap, this study reveals that incongruent orthographic input hindered English-speaking learners from acquiring the consonants of novel words, but did not affect vowel learning. Moreover, a facilitating congruent effect was not replicated for either consonants or vowels, likely due to ceiling effects for consonants, and less well-established CGP mappings for vowels. This thesis concludes with a discussion of how the processing of consonants and vowels may affect the use of orthographic input in word learning.

Keywords:

Consonant; Dual Route Cascaded (DRC) Model; Grapheme-Phoneme; Correspondence (GPC); Second Language Acquisition (SLA); Vowel; Word Learning.

Zoom link:

Please email lingcomm@sfu.ca to receive the link.