Second Language Writing Systems (SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, 11, Band 11) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853597937 ISBN 13: 9781853597930

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Second Language Writing Systems looks at how people learn and use a second language writing system, arguing that they are affected by characteristics of the first and second writing systems, to a certain extent independently of the languages involved. This book presents for the first time the effects of writing systems on language reading and writing and on language awareness, and provides a new platform for discussing bilingualism, biliteracy and writing systems. The approach is interdisciplinary, with contributions not only from applied linguists and psychologists but also corpus linguists, educators and phoneticians. A variety of topics are covered, from handwriting to spelling, word recognition to the mental lexicon, and language textbooks to metalinguistic awareness. Though most of the studies concern adult L2 learners and users, other populations covered include minority children, immersion students and bilingual children. While the emphasis is on English as the L2 writing system, many other writing systems are analysed as L1 or L2: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Gujarati, Indonesian, Irish, Italian and Japanese. Approaches that are represented include contrastive analysis, transfer, poststructuralism, connectionism and corpus analysis. The readership is SLA and bilingualism researchers, students and teachers around the world; language teachers will also find much food for thought.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Vivian Cook is Professor in Applied Linguistics at the University of Newcastle, previously having taught in London and Essex. After writing EFL course-books, he concentrated on linguistics and language learning in books such as Chomsky's Universal Grammar and Second Language Learning and Language Teaching, and developed the concept of multi-competence through books such as Portraits of the L2 User. He was founding President of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA) . He has been exploring the English writing system through articles and books such as The English Writing System and Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary.

Benedetta Bassetti holds a PhD from the University of Essex, where she wrote her thesis on Chinese as a Second Language Writing System. She previously has studied oriental languages and applied linguistics in Rome and London. She has presented her research at various international conferences.

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Second Language Writing Systems

By Vivian Cook, Benedetta Bassetti

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2005 Vivian Cook, Benedetta Bassetti and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-85359-793-0

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii, 
Contributors, viii, 
1 An Introduction to Researching Second Language Writing Systems Vivian Cook and Benedetta Bassetti, 1, 
Part 1: Writing a Second Language Writing System, 
2 L2 Japanese Kanji Memory and Retrieval: An Experiment on the Tip-of-the-pen (TOP) Phenomenon Nobuko Chikamatsu, 71, 
3 The Role of the Phonological Strategy in Learning to Spell in English as a Second Language Ans Van Berkel, 97, 
4 Orthographic Knowledge and First Language Reading: Evidence from Single Word Dictation from Chinese and Malaysian Users of English as a Foreign Language Mick Randall, 122, 
5 Learner Corpora and Handwriting Harold Somers, 147, 
6 A Corpus-based Study of Spelling Errors of Japanese EFL Writers with Reference to Errors Occurring in Word-initial and Word-final Positions Takeshi Okada, 164, 
7 Spelling and Pronunciation in Migrant Children: The Case of Italian-Swiss German Bilinguals Stephan Schmid, 184, 
Part 2: Reading a Second Language Writing System, 
8 Are the L1 and L2 Word Reading Processes Affected More by Writing System or Instruction? Phil Scholfield and Gloria Shu-Mei Chwo, 215, 
9 Effects of Second Language Reading Proficiency and First Language Orthography on Second Language Word Recognition Nobuhiko Akamatsu, 238, 
10 Bilingual Interactive Activation Models of Word Recognition in a Second Language Walter J.B. Van Heuven, 260, 
11 The Effect of L1 Reading Processes on L2: A Crosslinguistic Comparison of Italian and Japanese Users of English Miho Sasaki, 289, 
Part 3: Awareness of Language and Second Language Writing Systems, 
12 Learning to Read Across Writing Systems: Transfer, Metalinguistic Awareness, and Second-language Reading Development Keiko Koda, 311, 
13 Effects of Writing Systems on Second Language Awareness: Word Awareness in English Learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language Benedetta Bassetti, 335, 
14 Phonological Awareness and Spelling Skill Development in Bilingual Biscriptal Children Lily H.-S. Lau and Susan J. Rickard Liow, 357, 
Part 4: Teaching a Second Language Writing System, 
15 Different and Differing Views on Conceptualising Writing System Research and Education Therese Dufresne and Diana Masny, 375, 
16 Second Language Writing Systems: Minority Languages and Reluctant Readers Tina Hickey, 398, 
17 Written Language and Foreign Language Teaching Vivian Cook, 424, 
Index, 443, 

CHAPTER 1

An Introduction to Researching Second Language Writing Systems

VIVIAN COOK and BENEDETTA BASSETTI

Over the past 10 years, literacy in the second language has emerged as a significant topic of enquiry in research into language processes and educational policy. This book provides an overview of the emerging field of Second Language Writing Systems (L2WS) research, written by researchers with a wide range of interests, languages and backgrounds, who give a varied picture of how second language reading and writing relates to characteristics of writing systems (WSs), and who address fundamental questions about the relationships between bilingualism, biliteracy and writing systems. It brings together different disciplines with their own theoretical and methodological insights – cognitive, linguistic, educational and social factors of reading – and it contains both research reports and theoretical papers. It will interest a variety of readers in different areas of psychology, education, linguistics and second language acquisition research.

What this Book is About

Vast numbers of people all over the world are using or learning a second language writing system. According to the British Council (1999), a billion people are learning English as a Second Language (ESL), and perhaps as many are using it for science, business and travel. Yet English is only one of the second languages in widespread use, although undoubtedly the largest. For many of these people – whether students, scientists or computer users browsing the internet – the ability to read and write the second language is the most important skill.

The learning of a L2 writing system is in a sense distinct from learning the language and is by no means an easy task in itself, say for Chinese people learning to read and write English, or for the reverse case of English people learning to read and write Chinese. Italian learners of English still face the problem to some extent since, even if both English and Italian are written with the Roman alphabet, they are read and spelled in different ways. When L2 learners become fully-fledged L2WS users, they still differ from native users of the target writing system. From one perspective, they are less efficient than first language writing system (L1WS) users; they are slower at reading the second language than people who read only one writing system and often have problems with comprehension and memorising due to inefficient decoding. From a more positive perspective, they are simply different from L1WS reader-writers of the target writing system, with different reading and writing processes that result from the interaction of previously developed reading and writing processes with the characteristics of the new writing system. Not only do L2 researchers and teachers need to bear in mind these differences between L1 and L2 users of writing systems but so do those working in the psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics of reading and writing.

Research on L2 writing systems is at present scattered across different research areas within applied linguistics, psycholinguistics and other disciplines. This book aims to present this interdisciplinary research area to students, teachers and researchers in different fields of second language acquisition or writing system research. This introduction sketches the common background and terminology of writing systems research in general, concentrating on the cross-linguistic aspects, as a basis for outlining some of the previous achievements of L2WS research. It provides an introduction to the whole of this field, for those who are unaware of its scope and achievements, as well as to the papers in this volume. It is intended partly as a reference source that readers can go back to while reading the following chapters.

The Nature of Writing Systems

Before looking at how L2WSs work, we first need to establish the basis for the concept of writing system itself. This section provides an overall view of writing systems, together with some of the crucial terms. First we outline the major types of writing system in terms of the meaning-based versus sound-based division, then the variations in sound-based systems, particularly in terms of phonological 'transparency'. Next we outline some other variable characteristics of writing systems relevant to their acquisition and use. More detailed accounts of writing systems can be found in Coulmas (1989, 2003), Cook (2004a) and Sampson (1985).

What is a writing system?

The term 'writing system' has two distinct meanings, one attached to general ideas of writing, one to specific languages. In the first sense, a writing system is 'a set of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way' (Coulmas, 1999: 560). The various types of writing system are primarily distinguished...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1853597937
• ISBN 13: 9781853597930
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 462
• Herausgeber: Cook Vivian, Bassetti Benedetta
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland