Handbook of Literacy in Diglossia and in Dialectal Contexts: Psycholinguistic, Neurolinguistic, and Educational Perspectives (Literacy Studies, 22)

This volume is the first published collection of papers on the impact of diglossia and dialectal variations on language and literacy acquisition, impairment, and education. The authors are pioneering in this field and are leading researchers with substantial experience in conducting research in this area. A wide range of areas and languages are covered, including the US, South Africa, Israel, and various European countries. The chapters present novel data and insights regarding the role of dialectal variations on language and literacy, from a wide range of countries and perspectives. These insights have significant theoretical and practical implications. A majority of literacy learners worldwide are taught to read and write in a language variety or a dialect that is not the same as their spoken language. Not only is this the global norm, but it is probably also the greatest obstacle to literacy learning. This volume is the first published collection of papers on therole of dialect in language and literacy acquisition, impairment, and education in a variety of languages and situations across Europe, the Middle East, North America, Africa, and Asia.The authors are pioneers in this field. Foreword References Introduction References Contents Contributors Some Thoughts on the Relation Between Language, Dialect, and Literacy References Part I: Dialect and Literacy Interfaces: Theoretical and Empirical Insights Language and Dialect of African American Children 1 What Do We Know? 1.1 Speaking a Dialect 1.2 African American English 1.2.1 Sources of Variation 1.2.2 Reading and Writing 1.2.3 Difference vs. Disorder 1.3 Summary 2 What Do We Still Need to Know? 2.1 Similarities and Dissimilarities in Dialect Acquisition 2.2 Who Code-Switches? 2.3 Cognitive Aspects of Code-Switching 2.4 Impact of Code-Switching on Health and Well-Being 3 Summary References The Sociolinguistics of Diglossia in Switzerland 1 Multilingualism in Switzerland 2 German-Speaking Switzerland 2.1 Bilingualism and Diglossia 2.2 The Ideology of the Dialect 3 The Overall Concept of Language Education 4 Second Language Literacy 5 Summary: Challenges and Perspectives References Literacy Development in Cyprus: Exploring the Effects of Diglossia and Bilectalism 1 By Way of Introduction: The (Socio)linguistic Situation in Cyprus 2 Cypriot Greek(s)—A Mixed Koiné? 3 A Perspective from Child Language Acquisition and Development 4 Literacy Learning 4.1 Sociopolitical Framework and Educational Policies 4.2 Language Ideologies and Attitudes 4.3 Linguistic Variation in Classroom Discourse 4.4 The Curricular Reform of 2010: Variation and Critical Literacy 5 Conclusion Appendix: Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax of Cypriot Greek References Diglossia and Children’s Literacy Acquisition in South Africa 1 Introduction 2 South Africa: The Sociolinguistic Context 2.1 Humans Are Not Designed for Literacy; It Must Be Taught 2.2 Literacy Must Stand on a Foundation of Oral Language 2.3 A Lack of Resources 3 Methodology 3.1 Search Strategy 4 Results 4.1 Varieties of a language 5 Discussion 5.1 Humans Are Not Designed for Literacy; It Must Be Taught 5.2 Literacy Must Stand on a Foundation of Oral Language 5.3 A Lack of Resources References Linguistic Diversity: Basic Concepts and Implications for Reading Research 1 Introduction 2 Forms of Societal Multilingualism 3 Dialect Continua 4 Diglossia 5 Global Literacy Rates and Territorial Linguistic Diversity 6 Concluding Thoughts References Diglossia in Chinese? It’s Complicated 1 Introduction 1.1 Variations of the Chinese Language 1.2 Differences in Literacy- and Language-Learning between Hong Kong and Beijing 1.3 Psycholinguistic Correlates of Word Reading and Word Writing 1.4 Maternal Mediation 1.5 Word Reading in Chinese and English 1.6 Reading Comprehension 1.7 Essay Writing 1.8 Conclusion: It’s Complicated References A Psycholinguistic-Developmental Approach to the Study of Reading in Arabic Diglossia: Assumptions, Methods, Findings and Educational Implications 1 Introduction 2 Setting the Scene: The Role of Oral Language Skills in Learning to Read and the Case of Arabic Diglossia 3 Key Sociolinguistic Features of Arabic Diglossia 4 Issues in the Study of Reading Acquisition in Arabic Diglossia 5 A Psycholinguistic-Developmental Approach to the Study of Reading Acquisition in Arabic Diglossia 5.1 Basic Assumptions, Concepts and Methods in the Psycholinguistic-Developmental Study of Reading Acquisition in Arabic Diglossia 5.1.1 Assumptions and Concepts 5.1.2 Methods 5.2 Findings from the Study of Reading in Arabic Diglossia 5.2.1 Does Diglossia Impact the Acquisition of Basic Reading Skills in Arabic? 5.2.2 Is the Impact of Diglossia the Same Across Dialects? 5.2.3 Does the Impact of Diglossia Decrease with Increased Exposure to the Standard? 5.2.4 Does the Impact of Diglossia Interact with Developmental and Environmental Risk Factors? 5.2.5 Does Reading Development In Diglossia Show Cross-Lectal Transfer of Skills? 6 Conclusions and Educational Implications References Part II: Psycholinguistic and Neurolinguistic Studies of Specific Effects of Dialect on Language and Literacy Acquisition Literacy Acquisition in a German Dialect: A Behavioral and EEG Study in Swiss-German and Standard German Speaking Children 1 Introduction 2 Language Situation in the German-Speaking Part of Switzerland and Its Implications for the School Context 3 How Speaking a Dialect Influences Pre-school Literacy-Related Skills and Early Reading and Spelling Acquisition in German-Speaking Children (Study 1) 4 How Dialect-Based Differences in Vocabulary and Pronunciation Impact Audio-Visual Semantic Integration in Young Swiss and German Children (Study 2) 5 Predicting Grade 1 Reading and Spelling Outcome Using Neural Measures for (Dialect- Independent and/or Dialect-Specific) Language Processing (Study 3) 6 Overall Summary and Discussion References About the Neural Basis of Arabic Diglossia: Behavioral and Event- Related Potential Analysis of Word Processing in Spoken and Literary Arabic 1 Introduction 2 Material and Methods 2.1 Participant 2.2 Stimuli and Procedure 2.3 Electroencephalographic (EEG) Recordings and Analysis 2.4 ERP Wave Shape Analysis 2.5 Behavioral Analysis 3 Results 3.1 Auditory Lexical Decision Task 3.2 Visual Lexical Decision Task 4 Discussion 5 Conclusion Appendix 1: Examples of Words Used for LA, SA and Hebrew and Their Phonetic Translation References A Longitudinal Comparison of Spelling and Reading Comprehension of Bidialectal and Monolingual Dutch Speaking Children in Primary School 1 Introduction: The Sociolinguistic Context of Dutch Limburg 1.1 Language Choice at Home in Limburg 2 Theoretical Background 3 Comparing Test Scores in Spelling and Reading Comprehension Between Monolingual Dutch and Bidialectal Limburgish and Dutch Children 3.1 Research Question and Hypotheses 3.2 Test Scores Used and Language Definition 3.3 Data Set and Sample Selection 3.4 Approach and Other Variables Used 4 Results 4.1 The Relation Between Language Background and Test Scores in Spelling 4.2 The Relation Between Language Background and Test Scores in Reading Comprehension 5 Conclusion References Between Varieties and Modalities in the Production of Narrative Texts in Arabic 1 Introduction 2 Language Development in Arabic Diglossia 2.1 Diglossia 2.2 Linguistic Differences in Arabic Diglossia 3 Text Production as a Window on Language Development 4 Arabic Diglossia in Text Production 4.1 Working Hypotheses 4.2 Experimental Design and Method 4.2.1 Participants, Materials and Procedure 4.2.2 Transcription and Coding 5 Results 5.1 Distribution of Verbal Patterns 5.2 Case Markers 6 Conclusion and Future Directions References Acquiring Literacy in the Diglossic Contexts of Malay and Tamil in Singapore: Problems and Prospects in Early Childhood Classrooms 1 Introduction 1.1 The Relation Between Oral and Written Language – Cases of Divergence 1.2 Reading and Spelling Development 1.3 Diglossia and Literacy Acquisition 1.4 Diglossia in Singapore 1.5 The Nature of Tamil 1.6 The Nature of Malay 1.7 The Home Environment – Language and Literacy Exposure 1.8 The School Environment – Implications for Instruction 2 A Study of Young Children’s Spelling Errors in Tamil and Malay 2.1 Methods 3 Results 4 Discussion References Reading and Writing in a Diglossic Context: A Multifaceted Perspective 1 Reading and Writing in a Diglossic Context 2 Characterization of Arabizi 2.1 Studies of Arabizi 3 The Current Study 3.1 Method 3.1.1 Participants 3.1.2 Materials and Stimuli 3.1.3 Procedure for Reading Tasks 3.1.4 Scoring of Reading Tasks 3.1.5 Procedure for Arabizi Transcription and Writing Tasks 4 Results 4.1 The Questionnaires 4.2 Reading in Arabizi and MSA 4.3 Writing in Arabizi 5 Discussion 6 Conclusions Appendices Appendix A Appendix B: Word Lists Appendix C: Texts References Part III: Dialect and Literacy in Special Contexts and Populations: Acquisition, Assessment and Instruction Arabic Diglossia and Heritage Arabic Speakers 1 Introduction 2 Diglossia and Arabic Dialects 3 Diglossia-Less Context of Heritage Arabic Acquisition 4 Knowledge of CA and SA 5 Language Transfer 6 Codeswitching 7 Conclusion References Assessment of Developmental Language Disorders in Bilinguals: Immigrant Turkish as a Bilectal Challenge in Germany 1 The Immigrant Turkish Dialect as a Heritage Language in Germany 2 The Assessment of Developmental Language Disorder in Bilingual Contexts 2.1 DLD in Bilinguales and Bilectals 2.2 The Assessment of Developmental Language Disorder with Sentence Repetition Tasks 3 The Immigrant Turkish Dialect as a Test Case for Standardized Assessment Tools in Bilectal Contexts 3.1 Participants, Materials and Methods 3.2 Analysis 3.3 Results 4 Discussion: The Immigrant Turkish Dialect as a Heritage Variety and Its Implications for Language Assessment and Education References Children with Hearing Impairment in a Diglossic Context – The Case of Palestinian-Arabic Speaking Children 1 Introduction 1.1 Diglossia as a Sociolinguistic Context of the Arabic Language 1.2 The Challenges Children with HI Face Growing Up in Diglossia 1.3 Narratives as a Window onto the Language Difficulties of Children with HI 2 Method 2.1 Participants 2.2 Materials 2.3 Procedure 2.4 Coding and Scoring the Narratives 3 Results 4 Discussion References Impact of Nonmainstream Dialect Use in Language Assessment with Young African American English-Speaking Children 1 Difference, Disadvantage, and Disorder 2 Language Skills for Assessment with African American Children 2.1 Grammatical Morphology and Syntax 2.2 Vocabulary and Word Learning 2.3 Language Comprehension 2.4 Sentence Recall 2.5 Nonword Repetition 3 Assessment Methods 3.1 Universal Screening 3.2 Response to Intervention: An Achievement-Based Framework 3.3 Language Sample Analysis 4 General Conclusions & Discussion Appendices Appendix A: Features Common Across African American English (AAE) Appendix B: Clinically Informative Structures from Extant Literature Appendix C: Dialect-Appropriate Marking Options for Major African American English Features Appendix D: Oral Language and Literacy Screener Components for Pre-K Through Primary Grades References Assessing Diglossic Knowledge and Awareness in Language and Literacy: Pilot Results from the Syria Holistic Assessment for Learning (SHAL) 1 Introduction 1.1 Literacy Assessment and Diglossia in Arabic 1.2 Assessing Diglossia in the Emergency Context of Syria 2 The Syria Holistic Assessment for Learning (SHAL) 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Development Process 2.3 Measure Structure 2.3.1 Literacy Domain 2.3.2 Numeracy Skills Domain 3 Methods 3.1 Participants and Measures 3.2 Predictions 3.3 Analyses 3.4 Results 4 Discussion and Conclusions EKAD Subtest Record Form References Theory-Based Approaches to Language Instruction for Primary School Poor Readers Who Speak Nonmainstream American English 1 Introduction 1.1 The Prevailing Hypothesis: Linguistic Interference-Mismatch Informed Instruction 1.2 A New Hypothesis: Linguistic Awareness-Flexibility Hypothesis 1.3 Purpose of Study 2 Methods 2.1 Participants 2.2 Instructional Conditions 2.3 Experimental Measures 3 Results 4 Discussion Appendix Items on the Morphological Awareness Task Items on Dialect-Shifting Task References This volume is the first published collection of papers on the impact of diglossia and dialectal variations on language and literacy acquisition, impairment, and education. The authors are pioneering in this field and are leading researchers with substantial experience in conducting research in this area. A wide range of areas and languages are covered, including the US, South Africa, Israel, and various European countries. The chapters present novel data and insights regarding the role of dialectal variations on language and literacy, from a wide range of countries and perspectives. These insights have significant theoretical and practical implications. A majority of literacy learners worldwide are taught to read and write in a language variety or a dialect that is not the same as their spoken language. Not only is this the global norm, but it is probably also the greatest obstacle to literacy learning. This volume is the first published collection of papers on the role of dialect in language and literacy acquisition, impairment, and education in a variety of languages and situations across Europe, the Middle East, North America, Africa, and Asia.The authors are pioneers in this field