Linguistics

1
Linguistics Literacy L2 Literacy Semester 2,
2004

• Lecture slides and notes
• Week 2

2
The reading process

• Aims of the lecture
• Give an overview of the reading process and how
  it is studied.
• Introduce key concepts and terms.
• Develop an understanding of the complexity of
  the reading process

3
Key terms

• Top-down Bottom-up
• Interactive Dual route
• Background knowledge Schemata
• Phonology Orthography
• Inferencing Comprehension (vs reading)
• Skills Strategies

4
Reading as a cognitive activity

• The main focus is on reading as a cognitive
  activity.
• What is cognition?
• .the act or process of knowing

5
Types of reading models

• Process models
• Componential models

6
Process models

• Approaches that attempt to describe the actual
  processes involved in reading
• bottom-up
• top-down
• interactive
• interactive-compensatory
• information processing approach

7
Bottom-up approaches

• Bottom-up approaches begin with the stimulus
  i.e., letters and words, and work up to the
  meaning.
• Sequential or simultaneous?

8

• Gough's 1972 model of reading aloud
• SCANNER
• DECODER
• LEXICON
• SYNTACTIC
• SEMANTIC RULES
• VOCAL SYSTEM

9
Letter recognition is not strictly sequential

• How many ds?
• cpme qwdz mxuw ndkn
• make axle odor dunk
• Letters in words are recognised more quickly than
  letters alone.

10
Top-down approaches

• Expectations of the reader play a key role. The
  reader is seen as bringing hypotheses to the
  text, and using the text data to confirm or deny
  the hypotheses.
• Reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game
• Goodman, 1967

11
Interactive approaches

• Reading comprehension is the result of the
  interaction of multiple sources of information.
• e.g. Rumelhart (1977)

12
Just Carpenter Model of Reading

• Get next input
• Move eyes
•  
• Extract
• Physical Features
  
•  
• Encode Word
• Assign Case
• Roles
• Integrate with
• Presentation
• of Previous Text
• End of sentence
• ?
• Sentence wrap-up

LONG TERMMEMORY orthography phonology syntax sema
ntics pragmatics world knowledge
WORKING MEMORY activated representations physical
features Words Meanings case roles clauses Etc.
No
YES
13
Interactive-compensatory approaches

• A weakness in one area (e.g., vocabulary) is
  compensated by strength in another area
  (syntactic knowledge)

14
Componential models

• Approaches that focus on the components of the
  reading process what the reader has to know
• two-component model
• word recognition linguistic comprehension
• three-component model
• language, literacy world knowledge
  (Bernhardt, 1991)
• (Coady, 1996)

15
Two-component model

• Word recognition accessing meaning of words
  through phonological look-up
• Linguistic comprehension ability to answer
  questions
• Distinction between language skills and reading
  skills

16
Components of reading

• Word recognition
• Feature detection
• Letter detection
• Word detection
• Two routes direct versus phonological access
• The effect of script

17
Two routes to the mental lexicon

• Direct straight from visual input to meaning
• Phonological from visual input to sound to
  meaning
• English tends to rely on direct route but
  phonological influence is also evident e.g., word
  recognition slowed down by similar
  spelling/different sounding words touch is
  read slower when preceded by couch
• Also pseudohomophone effect phock is
  recognised slower than boik

18
Three-component model

• Language word structure, word meaning, syntax
  and morphology
• Literacy knowing how to approach the text,
  knowing what the text is for and what ones
  purpose is in using it
• World knowledge knowledge of topic
• (Bernhardt, 1991)

19
Knowledge components of reading (1)

• Phonology sounds of the language
• Orthography script and mapping of sound to
  script
• Words
• Word structure (morphology)

20
Knowledge components of reading (2)

• Sentence-level grammar
• Inferencing Going beyond the text e.g., bridging
  inferences relate new information to old
  information and allow us to maintain textual
  coherence
• Vlad looked around the castle. The moat was dry.
• We assume the castle that contains the moat in
  sentence two is the same castle as in sentence
  one.

21
Knowledge components of reading (3)

• Background knowledge
• Schema theory the effect of higher level
  knowledge structures on learning and
  comprehension
• Formal knowledge about the formal structure of
  texts
• Content Knowledge about content

22
Knowledge components of reading (4)

• Literacy what to do with the text
• Communicative intent authors intended effect on
  reader
• Content things discussed
• Structure how content is organised
• Status of information already established or
  proposed

23
Cognitive processes in reading

• Comprehension
• Skills
• Strategies

24
Reading comprehension

• Comprehension understanding of a text.
• Where does reading start and understanding begin?
• Is comprehension a product or process?

25
Cognitive reading skills

• Skills "A cognitive ability which a person is
  able to use when interacting with text." (p88)

26
A skill taxonomy

• 1. Recognise script
• 2. Recognise words and phrases
• 2. Deduce meaning of words
• 3. Understand explicitly stated information
• 4. Understand relations within sentences
• 5. Understand relations between sentences
  (textual relations)
• 6. Understand sequence of ideas (temporal
  spatial)
• 7. Understand conceptual relations (cause
  effect)
• 8. Predict what will come
• 9. Identify main idea
• 10. Generalise draw conclusions
• 11. Understand information not explicitly stated
  (inferences)
• 12. Skim scan
• 13. Read critically evaluate

27
Strategies

• - actions that readers take voluntarily to
  develop an understanding of what is read.

28
Examples of strategies

• Use of context to define a word
• Paraphrasing
• On-going self-evaluation
• Attempt to predict meaning
• Re-reading and review
• Skipping incomprehensible sections

29
Kinds of reading

• Search reading
• Skimming
• Scanning
• Careful reading
• Browsing

30
Strategies and skills

• " A skill is an ability which has been
  automatised and operates largely unconsciously,
  whereas a strategy is a conscious procedure
  carried out in order to solve a problem." (pp98)

31
Sources of reading research (1)

• Psychology
• associative learning and goal-directed behaviour
• Education psychology
• phonics versus the whole word approach

32
Knowledge components of reading (2)

• Psycholinguistics reading as information
  processing
• Neuroscience localising reading in the brain

33
A definition of reading

• Reading is a process of translating signs and
  symbols into meanings and incorporating the new
  information into cognitive or affective
  structures. (Robeck Wallace, 1990, p 27)

34
Discussion question

• The focus in the lecture has been on reading as a
  cognitive process. In what ways is it also social
  process?

35

• As a social process reading is used to
  establish, structure, and maintain social
  relationships between and among peoples...a
  sociolinguistic perspective on reading requires
  exploring how reading is used to establish a
  social context while simultaneously exploring how
  the social context influences reading praxis and
  the communication of meaning.
• Bloome and Greene,1984, pp395-396 cited in
  Bernhardt, 1991, p9.

36
References

• Urquhart, S. Weir, C. (1998). Chapter 2. The
  Theory of Reading. In Reading in a second
  language Process, product and practice (pp.
  37-107). London Longman.
• Bernhardt, E. B. (1991). Chapter 1. The nature
  of second language reading (p 1-17). In Reading
  development in a second language. Norwood, NJ
  Ablex.

37

• Last slide week2