Measuring orthographic transparency and morphological-syllabic complexity in alphabetic orthographies

6533b826fe1ef96bd1283503

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Measuring orthographic transparency and morphological-syllabic complexity in alphabetic orthographies

Frans Zwarts Heikki Lyytinen Elisabeth Borleffs Bernardus Maassen

subject

Linguistics and Language Syllabic complexity media_common.quotation_subject EUROPEAN ORTHOGRAPHIES muoto-oppi (kielitiede)050105 experimental psychology Psycholinguistics Article Education CONSONANT CLUSTERS Speech and Hearing SPEECH RHYTHM Reading (process)syllabic complexity medicine 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences LANGUAGES Orthographic transparency FAMILIAL RISK tavutus Central element media_common LITERACY ACQUISITION 05 social sciences Dyslexia 050301 education medicine.disease Morphological complexity Measures Linguistics READING ACQUISITION orthographic transparency TOKEN RATIO Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology WORD RECOGNITION Word recognition Written language DEVELOPMENTAL DYSLEXIA Syllabic verse Psychology mitat 0503 education morphological complexity Orthography

description

This narrative review discusses quantitative indices measuring differences between alphabetic languages that are related to the process of word recognition. The specific orthography that a child is acquiring has been identified as a central element influencing reading acquisition and dyslexia. However, the development of reliable metrics to measure differences between language scripts hasn’t received much attention so far. This paper therefore reviews metrics proposed in the literature for quantifying orthographic transparency, syllabic complexity, and morphological complexity of alphabetic languages. The review included searches of Web of Science, PubMed, PsychInfo, Google Scholar, and various online sources. Search terms pertained to orthographic transparency, morphological complexity, and syllabic complexity in relation to reading acquisition, and dyslexia. Although the predictive value of these metrics is promising, more research is needed to validate the value of the metrics discussed and to understand the ‘developmental footprint’ of orthographic transparency, morphological complexity, and syllabic complexity in the lexical organization and processing strategies. peerReviewed

year	journal	country	edition	language
2017-10-01	Reading and writing

10.1007/s11145-017-9741-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9741-5