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.