The word recognition processes of proficient bilinguals were examined in their mother tongue (Greek) and in English in relation to the linguistic and syntactic characteristics along which the two languages differ. Their processes were then compared with those of monolingual readers.The following issues were addressed: the nature of bilingual functioning, whether it is language specific, and the factors that affect second language reading development. These issues were examined within the context of a letter cancellation paradigm. The results indicated that bilingual readers performed differently in each of their two languages, conforming more the monolingual patterns in their mother tongue than to those in their second language. This discrepancy was interpreted as a lack of coordination of different word recognition skills in the second language.

Word recognition processes of monolingual readers of English and of Greek were examined with respect to the orthographic and syntactic characteristics of each language. Because of Greek's direct letter-to-sound correspondence, which is unlike the indirect representation of English, the possibility was raised of a greater influence of the phonological code in Greek word recognition. Because Greek is an inflected language, whereas English is a word order language, it was also possible that syntax might influence word recognition patterns in the two languages differentially. These cross-linguistic research questions were investigated within the context of a letter cancellation paradigm. The results provide evidence that readers are sensitive to both the orthographic and the linguistic idiosyncracies of their language. The results are discussed in terms of the orthographic depth hypothesis and the competition model.In this research, we examined word recognition in English and Greek, two languages with different orthographies and syntactic characteristics. We examined the relationship of orthography to the role of the phonological code in word recognition as it is exemplified in the processing of syllabic and stress information. To study the role of the syntactic system, we investigated whether word recognition patterns in the two languages would differ when readers were processing function words and the different parts of content words. Of special importance in Greek, an inflected language, was whether readers would pay more attention to inflected function words and to the parts of content words carrying inflections. Greek Language and OrthographyAn Indo-European language, Greek depends primarily on inflections to denote semantic and syntactic relationships. In modem Greek, the noun, its modifiers, and the verb carry inflections. Noun inflections give information about the gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), the num-

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