Preschool Education

Various research studies have shown that speakers' language attitudes affect the employability of dialectal speakers. According to Adler (1987), speakers with non-standard accents or speakers of dialects may not be selected when applying for jobs that require high communication skills. Regarding dialects, findings are controversial. Data from Rakic, Steffens and Mummendey's (2011) research support Adler's view on job interviews. However, Mai and Hoffmann's (2011) work opposes the view that dialect constrains sales effectiveness. The present study investigates the language attitudes of speakers of standard Greek towards the dialect of Crete in the sales professional area. The data indicate that although the participants' attitudes towards the use of dialects at work seem to be influenced by the metapragmatic stereotypes regarding dialects, we conclude that the sample in this research shows positive attitudes towards the Cretan dialect. Hence, the Cretan dialect is not an obstacle for someone who wishes to work in sales.

The Greek army has its own sociolect. Its standard form is mainly used by permanent officers a) in official communicational situations b) in written speech and c) during the training of new soldiers (Ροφούζου, 2009). In this paper, we focus on the informal form (slang) of the sociolect created by Greek soldiers. This slang is used for daily discussions in a wide variety of situations so that soldiers express humor, personal opinions and feelings and establish their group identity (Καραχάλιου, 2022). The data of the present study were collected via observation and diary notes and conducting informal interviews with the soldiers. More specifically, we offer a lexicological approach to the military slang and shed light on various grammatical aspects i.e. the morphology, the semantics and the pragmatics of the sociolect in order to present the fundamental features of the slang. We discuss parts of the army vocabulary, which consists of common modern Greek words with different meanings, neologisms, loanwords, acronyms and truncated words. We record a significant number of lexical collocations, fixed and semi-fixed phrases and language games, which are widely used in the soldiers' oral speech. The present sociolinguistic analysis further underlines the fact that the Greek army slang displays linguistic fluidity, heterogeneity and creativity. These are features that, on the one hand, point out a direct interaction with the language of the youth (Ανδρουτσόπουλος, 2001); on the other hand, they highlight the dynamic nature of language, its adaptability and its evolution to different social environments.

From the early years of our lives, gender has a great effect on shaping our individual and social identity and determines our (socio)linguistic behavior (Τσοκαλίδου, 2001). At the same time, it is a significant factor of linguistic differentiation and inequality (Κανάκης, 2022). This paper examines whether language attitudes towards the dialect spoken in Crete, the biggest island in Greece, and its use in everyday life and professional areas are affected and/or are determined by the gender of the speakers of the dialect. For the qualitative approach of our research, we conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with dialectal speakers of Cretan origin. The findings of the research indicate that gender is a determining factor for the shape of linguistic attitudes and linguistic behaviors since most male speakers display negative attitudes towards women's dialectophony, although they are the ones who use the dialect more. Inevitably, linguistic inequality regarding the use of dialect extends to professional domains.

The purpose of this study was to examine longitudinally the development of letter-sound and letter-name knowledge and their relation to each other and to various aspects of phonological awareness in a sample of Greek kindergarten children who did not know how to read. One hundred twenty children aged 58–69 months were assessed on letter-sound and letter-name knowledge, as well as on phonological awareness skills at the beginning, the middle and the end of kindergarten. The findings indicated that: (a) kindergarten children knew more letter-sounds than letter-names in almost every case across the assessment points; (b) letter-sound knowledge predicted letter-name knowledge slightly better than vice versa; (c) phonological awareness was associated directly with later letter-sound and letter-name knowledge, and (d) the bidirectional hypothesis between phonological awareness and letters knowledge was not confirmed.

We examined the applicability of the Home Literacy Model in an orthographically transparent language (Greek). Seventy Greek children were followed from kindergarten until grade 4. In kindergarten they were tested in non-verbal intelligence, vocabulary, phonological sensitivity, rapid naming, and letter knowledge. The parents of the children also responded on a questionnaire regarding the frequency of storybook reading, the number of books at home, and the frequency of teaching letter names, sounds, and words. Reading fluency and comprehension were measured in grade 4. The results indicated that the early home literacy experience variables were related to the emergent literacy skills but did not directly predict future reading skills. Thus, the Home Literacy Model applies to consistent orthographies before any formal reading instruction takes place.

We examined (a) what rapid automatized naming (RAN) components (articulation time and/or pause time) predict reading and mathematics ability and (b) what processing skills involved in RAN (speed of processing, response inhibition, working memory, and/or phonological awareness) may explain its relationship with reading and mathematics. A sample of 72 children were followed from the beginning of kindergarten until the end of Grade 1 and were assessed on measures of RAN, general cognitive ability, speed of processing, attention, working memory, phonological awareness, reading, and mathematics. The results indicated that pause time was the critical component in both the RAN-reading and RAN-mathematics relationships and that it shared most of its predictive variance in reading and mathematics with speed of processing and working memory. Our findings further suggested that, unlike the relationship between RAN and reading fluency in Grade 1, there is nothing in the RAN task that is uniquely related to math.

Περίληψη. Η μελέτη αυτή παρουσιάζει μία προσέγγιση για την ερμηνεία του αναδυόμενου γραμματισμού, η οποία τεκμηριώνεται στην ανάλυση βιβλιογραφικών δεδομένων τόσο ως προς τα θεωρητικά μοντέλα των τελευταίων τριάντα ετών όσο και ως προς τα σύγχρονα ερευνητικά ευρήματα για την ανάδυση του γραμματισμού. Σύμφωνα με το προτεινόμενο τριγωνικό θεωρητικό μοντέλο, οι περιβαλλοντικές εμπειρίες κατέχουν κεντρικό ρόλο στη συνεχή ανατροφοδότηση μεταξύ των συστατικών στοιχείων του αναδυόμενου γραμματισμού. Τα συστατικά στοιχεία που βρίσκονται στις κορυφές ενός τριγώνου και θεωρούνται κρίσιμα στην ανάδυση του γραμματισμού προσδιορίζονται ως προς το επίπεδο των εννοιολογικών και διαδικαστικών γνώσεων, των δεξιοτήτων του προφορικού λόγου και της γλωσσικής επίγνωσης, των μορφών συμπεριφοράς αναδυόμενης ανάγνωσης και γραφής.

Reading and spelling are closely related to each other, but empirical evidence shows that they can also dissociate. The purpose of this study was to examine the cognitive profiles of good readers/poor spellers and poor readers/good spellers in a relatively consistent orthography (Greek). One hundred forty children were administered measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, phonological short-term memory, and orthographic knowledge in grades 1 and 2. Their performance in reading and spelling was assessed in grade 4. Two small groups of children exhibited a dissociation between reading and spelling: seven children were identified as poor readers/good spellers and 11 children as good readers/poor spellers. The former group experienced severe deficits in both rapid naming and phonological awareness. The latter group experienced mild deficits only in orthographic knowledge. Although inefficient orthographic knowledge affects their spelling accuracy (Greek is inconsistent in the direction of spelling), it does not impact their reading fluency because they can recognize words by relying on partial cues. . Nevertheless, not much is known about the cognitive processes underlying these performance patterns and whether they are the same across languages varying in orthographic consistency. Thus, the purpose of the present study was retrospectively to examine the cognitive profiles of good readers/poor spellers and poor readers/good spellers learning to read and write in a relatively consistent orthography (Greek).