Dyslexia and vocabulary depth in EFL text comprehension

The study offers a retrospective analysis of data collected from reading comprehension activities of two groups of English foreign language (EFL) learners, one with and one without dyslexia. The aim of the investigation was to verify whether vocabulary depth corresponds to greater accuracy in answering factual and inferential questions in the two groups. The hypothesis was that depth would be associated with better comprehension even in dyslexic readers’ performance, which was generally poorer than that of the control group. In fact, this was only confirmed for high-range focus words, that is, words that were more deeply known to the participants according to an adapted Word Associates Test. Variable outcomes were observed for mid- and low-range words. A qualitative analysis of the unexpected results was carried out which led to the identification of several factors hindering text comprehension by dyslexic readers. These include a difficulty in selecting the relevant sense of focus words in contexts in which competing elements coexist and a negative interaction between lexical and pragmatic-inferential processing

Dyslexia and vocabulary depth in EFL text comprehension

The study offers a retrospective analysis of data collected from reading comprehension activities of two groups of English foreign language (EFL) learners, one with and one without dyslexia. The aim of the investigation was to verify whether vocabulary depth corresponds to greater accuracy in answering factual and inferential questions in the two groups. The hypothesis was that depth would be associated with better comprehension even in dyslexic readers’ performance, which was generally poorer than that of the control group. In fact, this was only confirmed for high-range focus words, that is, words that were more deeply known to the participants according to an adapted Word Associates Test. Variable outcomes were observed for mid- and low-range words. A qualitative analysis of the unexpected results was carried out which led to the identification of several factors hindering text comprehension by dyslexic readers. These include a difficulty in selecting the relevant sense of focus words in contexts in which competing elements coexist and a negative interaction between lexical and pragmatic-inferential processing

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Preface

Prefac

Communication with diminutives to young children vs. pets in German, Italian, Lithuanian, Russian, and English

This contribution is dedicated to Steven Gillis with whom we have collaborated since the nineties within the “Crosslinguistic Project on Pre- and Protomorphology in Language Acquisition” on both child speech (CS) and child-directed speech (CDS) and also about the development of diminutives (DIMs). We investigate parallels in the use of DIMs and of hypocoristics (HYPs) between CDS and pet-directed speech (PDS), whereas CS is only marginally dealt with. When relevant, also adult-directed speech (ADS), written or oral (especially from electronic corpora, wherever available) will be compared. The presuppositions of this investigation will be stated at the beginning of the Introduction (§ 1). This involves several innovations (beyond descriptions of new data), when compared with existing literature, relevant to theoretical and typological problem areas. We will show that also in DIMs and HYPs used in CDS and PDS semantics only plays a partial or even marginal role when using more DIMs to communicate with young children and young and/or small pets, because it is more relevant that both younger and smaller pets are emotionally closer to us, which is again a pragmatic factor. In regard to language typology, we will apply our concepts of morphological richness and productivity, as argued for and supported in our previous publications, to CDS and PDS and show that richer and more productive patterns of DIM formation of a language also have a typological impact on more frequent and more productive use both in CDS and PDS. We will also apply our concepts of grading morphosemantic transparency/opacity, as argued for and supported in our previous publications, and we start to show, as al- ready shown for CS, that also in CDS towards young children (and similarly in PDS) more morphosemantically transparent DIMs are used than in ADS. This is also connected to their predominantly pragmatic meanings in CDS and PDS (obviously not exclusively pragmatic as in early CS). The languages and authors were selected according to who among the participants in the Crosslinguistic Project on Pre- and Protomorphology in Language Acquisition had CDS and PDS available, plus Elisa Mattiello who has collected English and Italian PDS data.Dit artikel gaat over het gebruik van verkleinwoorden en koosnamen (hypocoristics) in twee taalregisters: taal gericht tot kinderen (child-directed speech, CDS) en taal gericht tot huisdieren (pet-directed speech, PDS). De semantiek van verkleinwoorden blijkt een minder grote rol te spelen dan de pragmatiek: de emotionele nabijheid van kinderen en huisdieren. De studie, waarin vijf talen worden vergeleken, verkent ook de typolo- gie: de morfologische rijkdom van verkleinwoorden in een taal beïnvloedt de produc- tie.Daarnaast speelt de semantische transparantie van verkleinwoorden crosslinguïs- tisch een rol. In CDS en PDS worden meer transparante verkleinwoorden gebruikt

Proficiency in English L2 and Cultural Knowledge: Some Reflections on the Use of a Workspace to Improve Motivation and Competence in Adult Learners

A moodle platform is used to create a community of English language learners and allow adult student to communicate to each other, in order to increase their motivation and competence

Incidental Learning of EFL Vocabulary in Students with Dyslexia

The research question addressed in this paper is whether people with dyslexia use reading strategies effectively to understand the meaning of unknown words. Developmental dyslexia is a language-based disorder that hinders the acquisition of reading and writing skills. However, besides problems in acquiring literacy, people with dyslexia also experience difficulties in learning foreign languages. Foreign language vocabulary learning deficits generally manifest as semantic paraphasias, longer times for word retrieval, and nominal aphasia. One of the typical traits of the person with dyslexia is the difficulty in learning vocabulary incidentally. This is probably caused by the complexity of the cognitive processes behind vocabulary learning, which require the integration of various sources of information. Moreover, incidental learning also relies on inferential skills and background knowledge, which might be scarce due to poor reading experience of the individual. To answer the question, a pilot experiment was carried out with a group of Italian university students learning English as a foreign language. The group of participants was diagnosed with developmental dyslexia. The participants were asked to read short English texts and guess the meaning of English-like nonwords, exploiting the information provided by the clues present in the context. Difficulties have been detected, which point to lack of reading strategies and inefficiency of the working memory system. The results of this pilot experiment can contribute to better outline the cognitive profile of DD and suggest the need of new EFL vocabulary teaching methods for DD students