The Influence Of Sentence Context On Onomatopoeic Processing Of Hearing-Impaired Students

Onomatopoeias serve as auditory imitations and play a fundamental role in recognizing and acquiring vocabulary.However,hearing-impaired students encounter limited opportunities to engage with external sounds and language environments,which can result in slower development of language skills and difficulties with onomatopoeic processing due to a lack of corresponding biological basis.Similar to the recognition of general words,onomatopoeic processing requires access to semantics through both phonological and orthographic processes.Additionally,onomatopoeia can be affected by imitating sounds that are shared by multiple objects or animals,leading to misunderstandings.Therefore,specific cues are needed to accurately capture the intended meaning of onomatopoeias.Contextual cues,which are restrictive and predictive,are also crucial for lexical access.Nevertheless,few studies have explored whether sentence context can impact onomatopoeic processing for hearing-impaired students and whether this effect is correlated to their phonological or orthographic awareness.Consequently,three studies were conducted to investigate the distinctive features of onomatopoeic processing among hearing-impaired students within the constraints of sentence context and the use of phonological and orthographic awareness during onomatopoeic processing.In Experiment 1,a 2×2 two-factor mixed design was utilized with rapid presentation and lexical recognition paradigms to investigate whether sentence cues can enhance the understanding and recall of onomatopoeias for hearing-impaired and typically-hearing students.The findings revealed that sentence context promoted onomatopoeic recognition and comprehension for hearing-impaired students but impeded this process for typically-hearing students.In Experiment 2,a 2×2×3 three-factor mixed design with a pseudo-homophone task was employed to examine how sentence context influences the activation of phonological awareness in hearing-impaired students during onomatopoeic processing.The results showed that both hearing-impaired and typically-hearing students experienced the activation of phonological awareness,although to varying degrees.Moreover,sentence cues played a significant role in promoting the activation of phonological awareness and enhancing onomatopoeic processing for hearing-impaired students.In Experiment 3,a 2×2×4 three-factor mixed design involving a pseudo-homophone task and a lexical decision task was used to explore the impact of sentence context on the activation of orthographic awareness of onomatopoeia for hearing-impaired students.The outcomes indicated superior orthographic awareness and semantic access performance among hearing-impaired students as compared to typically hearing students.Meanwhile,sentence context cues had a greater effect in activating the phonological awareness during onomatopoeic processing rather than on the orthographic awareness of hearing-impaired students.To summarize,sentence context has been found to influence the onomatopoeic processing of hearing-impaired students.Specifically,sentence cues have a greater impact on promoting the activation of phonological awareness rather than orthographic awareness among this group.Although the phonological awareness of hearing-impaired students can be activated during onomatopoeic processing,it is to a lesser extent compared to typically-hearing students.While hearing-impaired students seem to excel in the use of orthographic awareness during this process,typically-hearing students tend to rely more on their phonological awareness.Overall,the results suggest that the onomatopoeic processing of hearing-impaired students may be relatively slower than that of typically-hearing students.