The effects of first language orthographic features on word recognition processing in English as a second language

This study investigated the possible effects of first language (L1) orthogr aphic characteristics on word recognition in English as a second language ( ESL). Case alternation was used to examine the impact of visually distorted words of different types on fluent ESL readers' word recognition in naming . Visual distortion of word shape (i.e., cAsE aLtErNaTiOn) was utilized bec ause, although visually distorted words have lost word-shape cues, they pre serve the cue value of words (i.e., spelling patterns). It, therefore, was hypothesized that if one is sensitive to alphabetic orthography, or if one' s inner mechanism of processing an alphabetic word is efficient, then the v isual disruption of word-shape cues should not affect one's sensitivity to sequences of letters in words. In other words, this study focused on the ma gnitude of the effect of case alternation in word recognition as an index o f the sensitivity to alphabetic words. Results showed that the magnitude of the case alternation effect in a naming task was significantly larger for the ESL participants whose L1 is not alphabetic (i.e., Chinese and Japanese ) than the ESL participants whose L1 is alphabetic (i.e., Iranians - Persia n as L1). This result seems to indicate that the Persian speakers, due to t he facilitating influence of their L1 orthography, were less influenced by case alternation than the Chinese and Japanese speakers, whose L1 orthograp hies are not alphabetic. This finding suggests that the first language orth ographic features affect the orthographic coding mechanisms (i.e., word rec ognition mechanisms) in a second language.