<i>Déjà-lu</i>: When Orthographic Representations are Generated in the Absence of Orthography

Abstract

When acquiring novel spoken words, English-speaking children generate preliminary orthographic representations even before seeing the words’ spellings ( Wegener et al., 2018 ). Interestingly, these orthographic skeletons are generated even when novel words’ spellings are uncertain, at least in transparent languages like Spanish ( Jevtović et al., 2022 ). Here we investigate whether this process depends on the orthographic rules of the language, and specifically, whether orthographic skeletons for words with uncertain spellings are generated even when the probability of generating an incorrect representation is high. Forty-six French adults first acquired novel words via aural instruction and were then presented with words’ spellings in a self-paced reading task. Importantly, novel words were presented in their unique (consistent words) or one of their two possible spellings (preferred and unpreferred inconsistent words). A significant reading advantage observed for aurally acquired words indicates that participants indeed generated orthographic representations before encountering novel words’ spellings. However, while no differences in reading times were found for aurally acquired words with unique and those presented in their preferred spellings, unpreferred spellings yielded significantly longer reading times. This shows that orthographic skeletons for words with multiple spellings were generated even in a language in which the risk of generating an incorrect representation is high. This finding raises a possibility that generating orthographic skeletons during spoken word learning may be beneficial. In line with this conclusion is the finding showing that – in interaction with good phonological short-term memory capacity – generating orthographic skeletons is linked to better word recall.

The role of oral vocabulary when L2 speakers read novel words: A complex word training study

“…The results showed that participants read trained consistent and inconsistent words with preferred spellings faster than inconsistent words with unpreferred spellings, which is in line with the hypothesis that Spanish native speakers generated orthographic skeletons during oral word training. Similar findings have recently been reported among French native speakers (Jevtović et al, 2023).…”

“…This can contribute to the mixed literature showing differences of morphological priming effects in processing inflected words in L1 vs. L2 but not necessarily in processing derived words (Jacob, 2018;Reifegerste et al, 2019;Silva & Clahsen, 2008). We suspect that German native speakers are naturally more reliant on German than English phoneme-grapheme correspondences, suggesting that the previously evidenced spelling-by-predictability interaction in English monolinguals (Beyersmann et al, 2021;Wegener et al, 2018), Spanish native speakers (Jevtović et al, 2022) and French native speakers (Jevtović et al, 2023) should be replicable in German monolinguals.…”

“…A positive association between oral vocabulary and reading has been reported in monolingual children and adults (Duff & Hulme, 2012;Hogaboam & Perfetti, 1978;Johnston et al, 2004;McKague et al, 2001), such that prior knowledge of the spoken form of a word conveys a reading accuracy and efficiency advantage over orally unfamiliar words. Recently, it has been proposed that readers might be able to use their knowledge of phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences to form orthographic skeletons, which are expectations of the spellings of words held in oral vocabulary that have not been seen in writing (Beyersmann et al, 2021(Beyersmann et al, , 2022aJevtović et al, 2022Jevtović et al, , 2023Wegener et al, 2018Wegener et al, , 2020. The current study builds on prior evidence from monolinguals by adopting a training study design to address the question of whether German-English bilinguals also generate orthographic skeletons when acquiring morphologically complex novel words in their second language (L2).…”