The development of word recognition in a second language

Abstract

Do differences among first languages (LI) affect word recognition in reading a second language (L2)? Participants in this study had either Indonesian (an alphabetic language) or Chinese (a logographic language) as an L1 and were learning English (an alphabetic language) as an L2. Under the connectionist rubric, it was predicted that an alphabetic LI would facilitate word recognition in an alphabetic L2, especially if the LI and L2 have similar spelling patterns. Facilitation is relative to a logographic LI. The model also predicted a better recognition for high-frequency words in the L2 relative to low-frequency words. The results of a lexical decision task largely confirmed these hypotheses.Understanding the development of word recognition skills is of critical importance in second language (L2) reading research. Reading is a complex task, involving a number of subcomponent processes. In order to gain fluency, therefore, many subcomponent processing skills -those at lower levels in particular -must become automated. In addition, a majority of L2 readers must cope with the change from one orthographic system to another. Hence, we can expect that LI processing skills, however well developed, are not readily available during L2 processing without substantial adjustments among L2 learners from structurally different LI orthographic backgrounds. It is conceivable, then, that L2 word recognition is facilitated to the extent that the LI orthographic systems are typologically related to the L2 system.Currently, three types of orthographies are in use: Iogography, syllabary, and alphabet. In logography, one graphemic unit normally represents an entire word or morpheme. The representational unit in the other two systems, in contrast, is an intraword segment -a syllable in the syllabary and a phoneme in the alpha-

Predicting Health Literacy Among English-as-a-Second-Language Older Chinese Immigrant Women to Canada: Comprehension of Colon Cancer Prevention Information

“…Participants may read and understand the information in English but lack written language skills to complete the Cloze test [33]. Chinese ESL learners often encounter difficulties acquiring English writing skills given the contrast between the Chinese ideographic and the Western alphabetic systems [34]. S-TOFHLA is not available in Chinese, and performance in English may reflect language abilities rather than health literacy skills.…”

Alphabetic and nonalphabetic L1 effects in English word identification: a comparison of Korean and Chinese English L2 learners

“…Muljani, Koda, and Moates (1998) studied Indonesian (an alphabetic system) students' and Chinese ESL students' word recognition skills. Indonesian subjects performed significantly more efficiently than Chinese subjects in an English lexical decision task.…”

Electrophysiological evidence of sublexical phonological access in character processing by L2 Chinese learners of L1 alphabetic scripts

“…Chinese is well known for its prevalence of homophony at the single character level, which has led to the hypothesis that orthography is more reliable than phonology in character recognition Yum, Midgley, Holcomb, & Grainger, 2014), in contrast to alphabetic and syllabic systems where phonological information is integral to lexical access (Grainger & Holcomb, 2009). Findings compatible with this view include Wang et al (2003), in which L1 speakers of Korean misclassified homophones of English targets (stare instead of stair) more often than graphemic controls (e.g., stars), whereas L1 Chinese speakers did not show this pattern (see also Muljani, Koda, & Moates, 1998, of native readers of Indonesian). However, Akamatsu (2002) examined L2 learners of English who are L1 speakers of Chinese, Japanese, and Persian, and found no difference in effects of lexical frequency and phonological regularity in patterns of L2 English word naming.…”