Abstract
The orthographic forms of words (spellings) can affect word production in speakers of second languages. This study tested whether presenting orthographic forms during L2 word learning can lead speakers to learn non-nativelike phonological forms of L2 words, as reflected in production and metalinguistic awareness. ItalianL1 learners of English as a Second Language (EnglishL2) were exposed to EnglishL2 novel spoken words (pseudowords) and real words in association with pictures either from auditory input only (Phonology group), or from both auditory and orthographic input (Phonology & Orthography group, both groups n = 24). Pseudowords and words were designed to obtain 30 semi-minimal pairs, each consisting of a word and a pseudoword that contained the same target consonant, spelled with one letter or with double letters. In Italian double consonant letters represents a long consonant, whereas the English language does not contrast short and long consonants. After the learning phase, participants performed a production task (picture naming), a metalinguistic awareness task (rhyme judgment) and a spelling task. Results showed that the Phonology & Orthography group produced the same consonant as longer in double-letter than in single-letter lexical items, while this was not the case for the Phonology group. The former group also rejected spoken rhymes that contained the same consonant spelled with a single letter in one word and double letters in the other, because they considered these as two different phonological categories. Finally, the Phonology & Orthography group learned more novel words than the Phonology group, showing that orthographic input results in more word learning, in line with previous findings from native speakers.
Highlights
Orthographic input impacts spoken word learning in native, second and novel languages, effects are different
We investigated whether ItalianL1 speakers of EnglishL2 would learn a spoken novel word in English as containing a geminate consonant if the word was presented with an orthographic form that contains double consonant letters
The main goal of the current study was to investigate how the simultaneous presentation of orthographic and phonological inputs affects the learning of novel EnglishL2 words, and, in particular, we tested whether the presence of a double consonant in the spelling of a new EnglishL2 word may lead ItalianL1 speakers to perceive and subsequently produce this word with a longer consonant than a word spelled with a singleton consonant, producing a contrast that does not exist in the L2 auditory input or in the L2 phonological system
Summary
Orthographic input impacts spoken word learning in native, second and novel languages (languages unknown to the participant, including artificial languages), effects are different. Those who are exposed to both auditory and orthographic input learn more spoken words than those exposed only to auditory input. Among adult second language learners, orthographic input facilitates the perception of the phonological form of novel L2 words. Escudero et al (2014) found that the effects of orthographic input depend on the correspondences between the graphemes and phonemes in the native language, such that DutchL2 learners were facilitated in Dutch word learning if the word’s orthographic form contained grapheme-phoneme correspondences congruent with those in the native language, and inhibited when the two languages’ grapheme-phoneme correspondences were incongruent
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