Kessler, Brett & Rebecca Treiman. 2009, June. Learning about the role of context in spelling-to-sound translation: The case of initial <c> and <g> in English. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), Boston, MA.
When writing systems deviate from one-to-one associations between letters and phonemes, the deviations are usually not random. For example, deviations from the typical /k/ and /g/ pronunciations of English <c> and <g> are influenced both by adjacent context (the front or “soft” pronunciations are more common before <e> and <i> than before <a>, <o>, and <u>) and nonadjacent context (front pronunciations are more common when a word has a Latinate suffix, such as the -ous of generous, than a native suffix, such as -ing). These facts reflect the history of the language and the nonrandom nature of sound change. Can readers use these facts to decrease the uncertainly of spelling–sound translation? At what point in the development of reading skill do they begin to do so?
Experiment 1 examined the influence of the adjacent vowel on the pronunciation of initial <c> and <g> in nonwords in readers ranging from the first-grade to university levels. Experiment 2 examined sensitivity to nonadjacent context as well as adjacent context.
Children showed a sensitivity to adjacent context before nonadjacent context and they were more swayed by context for <c> than <g>. Use of context was slow to develop, however, and even college-level readers were not as influenced by context as one would expect given the patterns in the English vocabulary.
Readers of English use context to decrease the uncertainty of spelling-to-sound translation, but they could be helped through instruction to do so more effectively.
Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2009, June). Learning about the role of context in spelling-to-sound translation: The case of initial <c> and <g> in English. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Boston, MA.
Last change 2009-08-07T11:09:46-0500