The Impact of High versus Low Linguistic Levels in Swedish Beginning Readers' Oral Reading of Running Texts

Abstract

The impact of high (e.g. syntax and semantics) and low (graphemes) linguistic levels in 50 Swedish beginners' oral reading of running texts is explored, by means of a qualitative analysis of reading errors collected in a longitudinal study. The hypothesis, based on previous quantitative results from the same data, was that the graphemic and/or lexical levels could explain some of the reading errors, but that, for example, syntactic complexity or unexpected contexts could explain others. Unfamiliar words and words with complex graphemic structures did result in many reading errors, but a relatively large number of errors seem to be caused by, for example, syntactical or contextual constraints. In the longitudinal perspective, the readers tended to advance through various phases regarding their utilisation of higher linguistic levels, revealing a possible transition from a concentration mainly on the graphemic level via a dependency on and nally a sensitivity to context.

Girl – lass or curl?

“…In a second step the lexicon is focussed, and the semantic properties of the words are activated. Previous research has highlighted the existence of two methods for recognising words while reading: either directly via the visual impression of the word, or indirectly where one grapheme at a time is decoded and transformed to phonemes (Danielsson 2003). The indirect method is used to read new, unknown words or nonsense words.…”

Processing limitations in L2 fluency

“…First, the miscellaneous pronunciation problems were the largest category of inaccuracies in the L2 tasks as well as in L1 Word List, and proficiency level significantly affected their amount in both languages. Second, guessing in Word List mostly resulted in real words: either conjugated or in some other way modified forms, as in the study by Danielsson (2003). Completely different words were mostly more familiar or frequent items (cf., Ellis, 2002); even the neologisms graphemically resembled the target words.…”

“…When aspiring to read quickly, the readers may also revert to guessing words, especially when encountering low-frequency words (see Balota et al, 2006, for an overview). The low-frequency words are often read as more frequent items of similar length and overall graphemic structure, i.e., visual form (Balota, Yap & Cortese, 2006;Broadbent, 1967;Danielsson, 2003). Similarly, Ellis (2002) notes that in listening, more common words are perceived correctly more quickly, and incorrect responses usually stem from a small set of relatively common words.…”

“…Based on these results, the authors hypothesised a model for inaccuracies stemming from the undeveloped automaticity, working memory restrictions, lexical restrictions, motivation problems, and problems in maintaining alertness. Danielsson (2003) conducted a similar study in L1 Swedish, explaining the reasons for errors in word reading mainly on orthographic or linguistic principles (see also Geva & Siegel, 2000). These studies have not, however, considered the categorisations in relation to processing limitations.…”

“…This category of inaccuracies was hypothesised to decrease as proficiency increased. The category included only real words (Example 1) and possible, readily understandable neologisms (Example 2); nonwords were not included (similarly as Danielsson, 2003).…”