LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:9 September 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Retrieval of Inter-Lingual Homophones among
Tamil Native Bilinguals

Palaniappan Vinodhini, M.Sc. Audiology
Senthilkumar Ramya, M.Sc. Speech Language Pathology
Rajan, N.D., M.Sc. Speech and Hearing

Abstract

Need and Aim of the Study

Inter-lingual homophones are words that have similar pronunciation but different meanings across languages. The processing of this may vary with languages. Hence, there was a need to study the retrieval of semantics of the perceived inter-lingual homophones. The present study aims at investigating the inter-lingual homophone retrieval abilities in normal bilinguals.

Methods and Material

Data were collected from a total of 60 participants (9-45 yrs) who are bilinguals (native speakers of Tamil and have acquired English as their second language). The participants were sub grouped into: Group I= 9-18 yrs; II= 19-28 yrs; and III= 29-45 yrs. Twenty paired words which consisted of inter-lingual homophones were presented. The participants were asked to listen carefully to the pairs of words which were in two different languages that they knew and were asked to write the meaning of each word.

Statistical Analysis Used

Repeated measures ANOVA, Bonferroni pairwise comparison and Paired t-tests were carried out using SPSS software, version 17.0.

Results

Irrespective of the medium of instruction taken in school, native language (L1) was more dominant for retrieval of the meanings of the words for group II and III. Hence results reveal that younger subjects of group I exhibit a shared lexicon and Subjects of group II and group III show a selective lexical-access.

Conclusions

The study has its implications for the assessment, diagnosis and planning of intervention programs. For subjects belonging to group I, either L1 or L2 can be considered as a medium of instruction during remediation, but care should be taken about the choice of language used while planning out intervention for subjects of the other two groups.

Keywords:

Introduction

Inter-lingual homophones refer to words that sound the same or very similar but do not have the same meaning in both the languages. The retrieval has been debated through different models by various authors, but still remains to be controversial. Content plays a role in accessing words in one language or another, and bilinguals have more difficulty in processing mixed sequences of words than sentences presented only in a single language. This finding reflects that the opening word of the sentence 'switches on' the lexicon in either of the bilingual's languages, and that all lexical searching takes place initially in that particular lexicon (Grainger, 1994). The less proficient learners exhibit bilingualism of the sub-ordinative type, whereas the highly proficient and near-native learners exhibit bilingualism of the compound type, concluding that an individual lexical organization moves from the former category to the latter as proficiency increases (Woutersen, 1996 & Woutersen, 1997).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ms. Vinodhini P., M.Sc. Audiology
All India Institute of Speech and Hearing
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India
vinodhinipalaniyappan@gmail.com

Mrs. Ramya Senthilkumar
Assistant Professor
Department of Speech-Language Pathology
Aarupadai Veedu Medical College Campus
Vinayaka Missions University
Puducherry - 607402
India
ramyamaslp@gmail.com

Rajan, N.D.
, M.Sc. Speech and Hearing Principal
FAHS, Aarupadai Veedu Medical College Campus
Vinayaka Missions University
Puducherry -607402
India
rajannd@yahoo.com

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