以事件相關電位探討語音音節劃分策略教學對於台灣大學生英文詞彙閱讀之成效

The Effect of Phonological Syllabification Strategy Instruction on English Word Reading: ERP Evidence from EFL University Students in Taiwan

林麗琴(Li-ching Lin)

指導教授 ： 陳鳳如

國立清華大學/竹師教育學院/臺灣語言研究與教學研究所/博士(2021年)

摘要

目前雖然已有眾多的研究顯示語音編碼(phonological recoding)在閱讀習得早期發展中的重要性，但語音表徵在熟練閱讀中的作用尚未得到充分的驗證。本研究旨在探討語音音節劃分策略教學是否影響台灣大學生的英文詞彙閱讀表現。本研究採用事件相關電位(event-related potentials, ERP)腦波實驗，試圖以腦波反應檢驗台灣大學生的英文詞彙閱讀歷程。實驗設計控制了促發項與目標詞的初始語音音節之間的一致性條件，藉以探討不同的語音條件下呈現的實驗刺激是否促發不同的N1(100–170ms)腦波振幅，希冀由此推論語音音節對於熟練讀者的英文詞彙閱讀是否具有促發效應，語音音節劃分策略教學對於台灣大學生的詞彙閱讀表現是否有影響。
本研究實驗共招募了60位參與者並分為三組，其中20位是「英語為母語組」，另40位是新竹地區的台灣大學生，其TOEIC成績皆超過750分。在這40位台灣大學生接受腦波實驗前，先將其隨機分派成兩組，其中一半接受語音音節劃分策略教學，稱為「教學組」；另一半則未接受語音音節劃分策略教學，稱為「非教學組」。
本研究以遮蔽促發典範(masked priming paradigm)進行事件相關電位腦波實驗，實驗刺激以視覺匹配的方式呈現，所有目標詞對的前3個字母相同，但其初始語音音節則分別含2或3個字母，例如ba.lance vs. bal.cony和ma.rine vs. mar.gin。實驗刺激分別在促發項跟目標詞的初始語音音節一致與不一致的情況下呈現：ba##### – balance條件1 (2字母一致)；ba##### – balcony條件2 (2字母不一致)；mar### – margin條件3 (3字母一致)；mar### – marine條件4 (3字母不一致)。視覺匹配而語音音節條件不同的目標詞對隨機分配在四個回合。參與者會看到相同字母數的促發項配上與目標詞初始語音音節一致與不一致的實驗刺激，例如ba##### – balance vs. ba##### – balcony或mar### – margin vs. mar### – marine。
根據心理語言的紋理理論(psycholinguistic grain size theory, PGST)，初學者透過語言經驗的累積，發展出符合該文字系統最有效的形音對應原則而成為熟練的讀者(Ziegler & Goswami, 2005)。本實驗結果發現，相較於促發項與目標詞初始語音音節不一致條件下呈現的實驗刺激，一致條件下呈現的實驗刺激引發的N1(100–170ms)腦波振幅的確比較小，這個現象顯示了語音音節的促發效應。由此推論本實驗熟練讀者的英文詞彙辨識並非單純靠整個詞直接對應一個音，而是涉及分層解離文字語音成分(例如，音節、聲–韻、韻核心–韻尾、音素)，並由其中全部或部分層次抽取形音訊息的統計對應關係達到詞彙辨識。本實驗熟練讀者的英文詞彙閱讀模式符合PGST的理論原則。
實驗結果顯示：教學組與非教學組的表現不同，差異達顯著；而教學組學生與母語組參與者的表現則未見顯著差異。據此推論教學組的詞彙閱讀表現較趨近於母語者。語音音節劃分策略教學達到研究者所預期的教學效果；希冀依據本研究實驗結果針對台灣的英語教學法與內容提出符合科學精神的建議。

關鍵字

事件相關電位 (ERP) ； 英文詞彙閱讀 ； 遮蔽促發典範 ； 語音音節 ； 語音音節劃分策略教學

並列摘要

The role of phonology in skilled reading has not been well established although research has consistently shown the importance of phonological recoding in early reading development. The present study investigates whether phonological syllabification strategy instruction affects English word reading among EFL university students in Taiwan. An event-related potential (ERP) experiment using a masked priming paradigm was conducted to examine phonological syllable processing during silent word reading. The present study aimed to investigate whether the processing of phonological syllable information was reflected in N1(100–170ms) ERPs and probe whether phonological syllabification strategy instruction affected English word reading performance among Taiwan university EFL students.
Sixty participants were recruited. Twenty of them were native English speakers, and forty were L1 Chinese speakers recruited from universities in Hsinchu City. All of the forty Taiwan EFL university students were skilled readers with TOEIC scores above 750. They were randomly assigned to two groups of twenty. One group received strategy instruction in phonological syllabification, while the other did not. Thus, the present study included (1) “Native-Speaker,” (2) “With-Instruction,” and (3) “Without-Instruction” groups.
In order to detect phonological syllable priming and minimize possible orthographic confounds, eighty pairs of target words were visually matched: the initial trigrams of the paired target words were the same, but their initial phonological syllables had a different number of letters (either 2 or 3, e.g., ba.lance vs. bal.cony; ma.rine vs. mar.gin). Prime-target pairs were visually matched, either with the same initial phonological syllable, or with one letter added or subtracted, like so: ba##### – balance (condition 1 – two-letter syllable-congruent), ba##### – balcony (condition 2 – two-letter syllable-incongruent), mar### – margin (condition 3 – three-letter syllable-congruent), and mar### – marine (condition 4 – three-letter syllable-incongruent). The four conditions were evenly distributed in four runs with random order. Participants read any given target pair preceded by the identical masked prime, with half preceded by congruent primes and half by incongruent primes (e.g., ba##### – balance vs. ba##### – balcony; mar### – margin vs. mar### – marine).
Based on the psycholinguistic grain size theory (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005), reading acquisition in different languages, which vary in the consistency of mapping between orthography and phonology, can involve different psycholinguistic grain sizes (e.g., whole word, syllable, onset, rime, phoneme). The results of this experiment indicate that prime–target pairs with the same initial phonological syllable elicited a smaller N1 (100–170ms) than targets preceded by a prime with one letter more or less. The data of the present study demonstrate that suprasegmental phonological representations can exist very early in the process of recognizing a written word. This argues for early phonological syllable activation during skilled visual word recognition, and shows that phonological representation is best understood in terms of a hierarchical, sublexical structure, as psycholinguistic grain size theory suggested.
The results also reveal an effect for phonological syllabification strategy instruction on English word reading, since the word reading performance of the With-Instruction group differed significantly from that of the Without-Instruction group, but no significant difference was found between the With-Instruction and the Native-Speaker groups. This suggests that the word reading performance of the With-Instruction group was similar to that of the Native-Speaker group. Based on these findings, some suggestions are made pertaining to the content and approaches of English teaching in Taiwan.

並列關鍵字

event-related potential (ERP) ； English word reading ； masked priming paradigm ； phonological syllable ； phonological syllabification strategy instruction

參考文獻

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