Commonalities and Differences in Word Identification Skills Among Learners of English as a Second Language

Abstract

This study examined word identification skills between two groups of college students with different first language (L1) backgrounds (Chinese and Korean) learning to read English as a second language (ESL). Word identification skills were tested in a naming experiment and an auditory category judgment task. Both groups of ESL learners demonstrated faster and more accurate naming performance on high‐frequency words than low‐frequency words and faster and more accurate naming performance on regular words than exception words. Moreover, for both groups, the difference in naming accuracies between regular and exception words was more pronounced for low‐frequency words than for high‐frequency words. An L1 effect was observed: The Korean students were overall more accurate than were the Chinese students in naming all categories of words. Furthermore, the Korean students showed a higher percentage of regularization errors in naming low‐frequency exception words than did Chinese students. The Korean students were also more accurate and faster in auditory meaning retrieval than were the Chinese students. These findings contribute to current knowledge about whether learning to read a second language (L2) involves universal or language‐specific processes. Our findings suggest that L2 readers with different L1 orthographic backgrounds engage in both universal and language‐specific processes. On the one hand, properties of the L2 writing system affect L2 processing similarly across learners irrespective of L1 backgrounds. On the other hand, L1 reading experiences also come into play in L2 reading. Particularly, systematic differences exist in L2 processing among learners with alphabetic and nonalphabetic L1 backgrounds, as would be predicted from crossinguistic analyses. We argue for an interactive view of L2 reading. The properties of both L1 and L2 interact with one another, jointly contributing to L2 reading processes.