THE DEVELOPMENT OF WORD RECOGNITION IN A 2ND-LANGUAGE

Do differences among first languages (L1) affect word recognition in r eading a second language (L2)? Participants in this study had either I ndonesian (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 L 1 would facilitate word recognition in an alphabetic L2, especially if the L1 and L2 have similar spelling patterns. Facilitation is relativ e to a logographic L1. The model also predicted a better recognition f or high-frequency words in the L2 relative to low-frequency words. The results of a lexical decision task largely confirmed these hypotheses .