Reading in Arabic: New Evidence for the Role of Vowel Signs

Raphiq Ibrahim

The Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities and Department of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2013.44036                

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of vowelization on reading Arabic orthography. Native children speakers of Arabic were asked to read aloud words (vowelized and unvowelized) and pseudowords. The results showed that unvowelized words were read aloud more quickly and more accurately than the shallow fully vowelized Arabic words. The disadvantage of vowelized words in both speed and accuracy was therefore unexpected, and, furthermore, inconsistent with findings from several other relevant studies. The results suggested that Arab children used a different perceptual and coding strategy when the stimuli differ in their lexical feature (word vs pseudoword) and visual/orthographic feature (vowelized vs unvowelized).

Keywords

Arabic; Words; Pseudoword; Orthography; Transparency; Reading

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Abdelhadi, S., Ibrahim, R., & Eviatar. Z. (2011). Perceptual load in the reading of Arabic: Effects of orthographic visual complexity on detection. Writing Systems Research, 3, 117-127. doi:10.1093/wsr/wsr014
[2]	Abu-Rabia, S. (1997). Reading in Arabic orthography: The effects of vowels and context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled Arabic native readers in reading paragraphs, sentences, and isolated words. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 465-482. doi:10.1023/A:1025034220924
[3]	Abu-Rabia, S. (1996). The role of vowels and context in reading of highly skilled native Arabic readers. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 25, 629-641. doi:10.1007/BF01712413
[4]	Abu-Rabia, S. (1998). Reading Arabic texts: Effects of text type, reader type and vowelization. Reading and Writing, 10, 105-119. doi:10.1023/A:1007906222227
[5]	Abu-Rabia, S. (2001). The role of vowels in reading Semitic scripts: Data from Arabic and Hebrew. Reading and Writing, 14, 39-59. doi:10.1023/A:1008147606320
[6]	Abu-Rabia, S., Share, D., & Mansour, M. S. (2003). Word recognition and basic cognitive processes among reading-disabled and normal readers in Arabic. Reading and Writing, 16, 423-442. doi:10.1023/A:1024237415143
[7]	Abu-Rabia, S., & Siegel, L. S. (1995). Different orthographies, different context effects: The effects of Arabic sentence context in skilled and poor readers. Reading Psychology: An International Quarterly, 16, 1-19. doi:10.1080/0270271950160101
[8]	Aro, M., & Wimmer, H. (2003). Learning to read: English in comparison to six more regular orthographies. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 621-635. doi:10.1017/S0142716403000316
[9]	Azzam, R. (1989). In the linguistics of literacy, orthography and reading of the Arabic language. In J. Aaron, & R. M. Joshi (Eds.), Reading and Writing Disorders in Different Orthographic Systems (pp. 203-218). Berlin: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-1041-6_12
[10]	Azzam, R. (1993). The nature of Arabic reading and spelling errors of young children. Reading and Writing, 5, 355-385. doi:10.1007/BF01043112
[11]	Barker, A., Torgesen, K., & Wagner, K. (1992). The role of orthographic processing skills on five different reading tasks. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 334-345. doi:10.2307/747673
[12]	Bentin, S., & Ibrahim, R. (1996). New evidence for phonological processing during visual word recognition: The case of Arabic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 309-323. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.22.2.309
[13]	Bentin, S., & Frost, R. (1987). Processing lexical ambiguity and visual word recognition in a deep orthography. Memory & Cognition, 15, 13-23. doi:10.3758/BF03197708
[14]	Berman, R. A. (1978). Modern Hebrew structure. Tel Aviv: University Publisher.
[15]	Brown, G. D. A., & Deavers, R. P. (1999). Units of analysis in nonword reading: Evidence from children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 73, 208-242. doi:10.1006/jecp.1999.2502
[16]	Coltheart, M. (1978). Lexical access in simple reading tasks. In: G. Underwood (Ed.), Strategies of Information Processing (pp. 151 216). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
[17]	Coltheart, M., Besner, D., Jonasson, J. T., & Davelaar, E. (1979). Phonological recording in the lexical decision task. Quarterly Journal of experimental Psychology, 31, 489-507. doi:10.1080/14640747908400741
[18]	Corcos, E., & Willows, D. M. (1993). The processing of orthographic information. In D. M. Willows, R. S. Kruk, & E. Corcos (Eds.), Visual Processes in Reading and Reading Disabilities (pp. 163-188). Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
[19]	Eviatar, Z., Ibrahim, R., & Ganayim, D. (2004). Orthography and the hemispheres: Visual and linguistic aspects of letter processing. Neuropsychology, 18, 174-184. doi:10.1037/0894-4105.18.1.174
[20]	Fender, M. (2008). Spelling knowledge and reading development: Insights from Arab ESL learners. Reading in a Foreign Language, 20, 19-42.
[21]	Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia. In K. patterson, J. Marshall, & M. Clotheart (Eds.), Surface Dyslexia (pp. 301-330). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
[22]	Frost, R. (1994). Prelexical and postlexical strategies in reading: Evidence from deep and shallow orthography. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 116-129. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.20.1.116
[23]	Frost, R. (1995). Phonological computation and missing vowels: Mapping lexical involvement in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 398-408. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.21.2.398
[24]	Frost, R. (1998). Toward a strong phonological theory of visual word recognition: True issues and false trails. Psychological Bulletin, 123, 71-99. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.123.1.71
[25]	Frost, R. (2005). Orthographic systems and skilled word recognition processes in reading. In M. J. Snowling, & C. Hulme (Eds.), The Science of Reading: A Handbook (pp. 272-295). Oxford: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470757642.ch15
[26]	Frost, R., Katz, L., & Bentin, S. (1987). Strategies for visual word recognition and orthogrsphical depth: A multilingual comparison. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 13, 104-114. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.13.1.104
[27]	Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M. K., & Jenkins, J. R. (2001). Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: A theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5, 241-258. doi:10.1207/S1532799XSSR0503_3
[28]	Geva, E., & Siegel, L. (2000). Orthographic factors in the concurrent development of basic reading skills in two languages. Reading and Writing, 12, 1-30. doi:10.1023/A:1008017710115
[29]	Goswami, U., Ziegler, J. C., Dalton, L., & Schneider, W. (2001). Children’s orthographic representation in English and Greek. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 3, 273-292.
[30]	Goswami, U., Ziegler, J. C., Dalton, L., & Schneider, W. (2003). Nonword reading across orthographies: How flexible is the choice of reading units? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 235-247. doi:10.1017/S0142716403000134
[31]	Goswami, U., & Ziegler, J. C. (2005). Reading acquisition, development dyslexia, and skilled reading languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 3-29. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.3
[32]	Ibrahim, R., & Eviatar, Z., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2002). The characteristics of Arabic orthography slows its processing. Neurosychology, 16, 322-326. doi:10.1037/0894-4105.16.3.322
[33]	Katz, L., & Frost, R. (1992). The reading process is different for different orthographies: The orthographic depth hypothesis. In R. Frost, & L. Katz (Eds.), Orthography, Phonology, Morphology and Meaning (pp. 67-84). Amsterdam: North-Holland. doi:10.1016/S0166-4115(08)62789-2
[34]	Landerl, K., Wimmer, H., & Frith, U. (1997). The impact of orthographic consistency on dyslexia: A German-English comparison. Cognition, 63, 315-334. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(97)00005-X
[35]	Leong, C. K., & Joshi, R. M. (1997). Cross-language studies of learning to read and spell: Phonologic and orthographic processing. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-1197-5
[36]	Perfetti, C. A. (1985). Reading ability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[37]	Roman, G., & Pavard, B. (1987). A comparative study: How we read Arabic and French. In J. K. O’Regan, & A. Levy-Schoen (Eds.), Eye movements: From physiology to cognition (pp. 431-440). Amsterdam: North Holland Elsevier.
[38]	Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2003). Linguistic distance and initial reading acquisition: The case of Arabic diglossia. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 431-451. doi:10.1017/S0142716403000225
[39]	Saiegh-Haddad, E., & Geva, E. (2008). Morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and reading in English-Arabic bilingual children. Reading and Writing, 21, 481-504. doi:10.1007/s11145-007-9074-x
[40]	Shankweiler, D. (1989). How problems of comprehension are related to difficulties in word reading. In D. Shankweiler, & I. Y. Liberman (Eds.), Phonology and Reading Disability: Solving the Reading Puzzle (pp. 35-68). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
[41]	Share, D. L., & Levin, I. (1999). Learning to read and write in Hebrew. In M. Harris, & G. Hatano (Eds.), Learning to Read and Write: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective (pp. 98-111). New York: Cambridge University Press.
[42]	Shatil, E., & Share, D. (2003). Cognitive antecedents of early reading ability: A test of the modularity hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 86, 1-31. doi:10.1016/S0022-0965(03)00106-1
[43]	Share, D. L. (2008). On the Anglocentricities of Current Reading Research and Practice: The Perils of Overreliance on an “outlier” orthography. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 584-615. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.584
[44]	Shimron, J. (1999). The role of vowel signs in Hebrew: Beyond word recognition. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 301-319. doi:10.1023/A:1008045316692
[45]	Shimron, J., & Sivan, T. (1994). Reading proficiency and orthography: Evidence from Hebrew and English. Language Learning, 44, 5-27.
[46]	Snowling, M. J. (2000). Dyslexia, second edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
[47]	Seidenberg, M. S., & Zevin, J. D. (2006). Connectionist models in developmental cognitive neuroscience: Critical periods and the paradox of success. In Y. Munakata, & M. Johnson (Eds.), Attention & Performance XXI: Processes of Change in Brain and Cognitive Development (pp. 585-612). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[48]	Stanovich, K. E., & Stanovich, P. (1999). How research might inform the debate about early reading acquisition. In J. V. Oakhill, & R. Beard (Eds.), Reading Development and the Teaching of Reading (13-31). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
[49]	Taouk, M., & Coltheart, M. (2004). The cognitive processes involved in learning to read in Arabic. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 17, 27-57. doi:10.1023/B:READ.0000013831.91795.ec
[50]	Treiman, R., Mullennix, J., Bijeljac-Babic, R., & Richmond-Welty, E. D. (1995). The special role of rimes in the description, use, and acquisition of English orthography. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 124, 107-136. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.124.2.107
[51]	Wagner, R. K., Torgesen, J. K., & Rashotte, C. A. (1994). Development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: New evidence of bi-directional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. Development Psychology, 30, 73-87. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.30.1.73
[52]	Ziegler, J. C., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 3-29. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.3