ERIC Number: EJ1184854
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Jun
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0272-2631
EISSN: N/A
Differences in Visual Word Recognition between L1 and L2 Speakers: The Impact of Length, Frequency, and Orthographic Neighborhood Size in German Children
Schröter, Pauline; Schroeder, Sascha
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, v40 n2 p319-339 Jun 2018
Investigating the impact of linguistic characteristics on visual word recognition in children, we studied whether differences in native (L1) and second language (L2) processing already emerge at the beginning of reading development. German elementary school students in grades 2 to 6 completed a battery of standardized tests and a lexical decision task (LDT). Though L1 speakers outperformed L2 speakers on German skills, groups did not differ in their overall performance on the LDT. However, results from mixed effect models revealed greater effects for word frequency and length in L2 over L1 speakers, indicating qualitative differences in the sensitivity to linguistic information between groups. This distinction persisted across all grades and after controlling for differences in vocabulary size and reading fluency. Findings extend evidence provided for adult L2 processing, suggesting that varying language exposure shapes the development of the word-recognition system already in the early stages of reading development.
Descriptors: German, Native Language, Second Language Learning, Word Recognition, Elementary School Students, Vocabulary Development, Reading Fluency, Language Processing, Foreign Countries, Standardized Tests, Age Differences, Comparative Analysis, Decision Making, Task Analysis, Word Frequency
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A