EMU Psychology Department Hosted a Conference on The Role of Different Writing Systems on Literacy Acquisition

EMU Psychology Department has recently hosted an important conference on The Role of Different Writing Systems on Literacy Acquisition. The conference has been organized by EMU Psychology Students Club and was given by Dr. İlhan Raman who is currently a Cognitive Psychologist in the Department of Psychology at Middlesex University, UK. 

Dr. Raman has reported that the past 40 years have seen an unprecedented theoretical and empirical activity in the domain of psycholinguistics to examine the role of different writing systems on literacy acquisition that shed light onto our understanding of how we read and spell in different languages, in particular in alphabetic writing systems. The aim of the conference was to provide a review this field including theoretical advances and findings from alphabetic writings systems that differ in the way spoken sounds are transcribed by their alphabets. For example, it has long been reported that learning to read in English is complicated by the inconsistencies in the way letters are converted to sounds (e.g. CAT, BALL). On the contrary, learning to read in Turkish is effortless due to the simple and consistent relationship between letters and their sounds (e.g. KAPI, AYI). In this respect, Turkish is said to be a transparent alphabetic writing system, whilst English is an opaque writing system. Findings from recent research on Turkish were presented to demonstrate that the specific properties of languages influence literacy development. A large number of EMU students and academics have attended to the conference which took place at EMU Assoc. Prof.  Mehmet Tahiroğlu Conference Hall on 28th April 2014.