Spelling Morphology The Psycholinguistics of Hebrew Spelling

Far from being a mere technical skill, spelling is now perceived in psychological and psycholinguistic literature as a window into what an individual knows about words, and the acquisition of spelling is regarded as a process of conceptual and linguistic learning. In recent years linguists and psychologists have shown growing interest in the linguistic nature of alphabetic orthographic systems, in their psycholinguistic representation in adults and in their developmental history in children learning to read and write.

The question of orthographic depth - to what extent an orthographic system fully and systematically reflects the phonology of the language it represents - has been studied extensively, and is critical in the learning to read and write in many languages. However, less attention has been paid to the role morphology (word structure) plays in orthographic representation: Orthographies often reflect morphological units, such as past-tense –ed. Thus a systematic link has to be established between meaningful and consistent grammatical behavior and spelling units in spelling learners.

The role of morphological knowledge in learning to spell is related to the degree of morphological wealth in the language system and to its prominence in the orthography. In other words, developing spelling perception is mediated by typological traits of the language being learned. Modern Hebrew - a century-old language that still carries with it the traces of its 4,000-year-old past - is a highly synthetic Semitic language with a rich morphology. The wealth of morphological structures in Hebrew is reflected in its written form, promoting morphological perception and strategies in Hebrew speakers / readers / writers.

Anchored in a cross-linguistic, typological framework, Spelling Morphology: Psycholinguistic, Typological and Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Spelling Acquisition in Hebrew provides for the first time an in-depth account of the relationship between morphological knowledge and spelling acquisition. It analyzes Hebrew morphological structures and meanings and their expression in spelling from a psycholinguistic developmental perspective, and shows to what extent this model is applicable to other languages.

Spelling Morphology: Psycholinguistic, Typological and Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Spelling Acquisition in Hebrew will be of special interest to psychologists, psycholinguists, linguists and educators working on morphology, morphological processing, orthographic systems, reading and writing, the development of spelling, or emergent literacy. Speech-language pathologists specializing in literacy development and remedial reading, writing and spelling as well as Semitic specialists working on Hebrew and Arabic morphology and syntax and their orthographies will also benefit from this research.