Abstract
In an overt visual priming experiment, we investigate the role of orthography in native (L1) and non-native (L2) processing of German morphologically complex words. We compare priming effects for inflected and derived morphologically related prime-target pairs versus otherwise matched, purely orthographically related pairs. The results show morphological priming effects in both the L1 and L2 group, with no significant difference between inflection and derivation. However, L2 speakers, but not L1 speakers, also showed significant priming for orthographically related pairs. Our results support the claim that L2 speakers focus more on surface-level information such as orthography during visual word recognition. This can cause orthographic priming effects in morphologically related prime-target pairs, which may conceal L1-L2 differences in morphological processing.
Highlights
The issue of how morphologically complex words are processed by non-native (L2) speakers of a given language, as compared to native (L1) speakers, has been subject to considerable debate in recent years: While some theoretical accounts of L2 morphological processing [1] suggest that L2 speakers rely relatively less on morphological decomposition and more on storage of whole word-form representations in the mental lexicon, other accounts [2] instead suggest that L1 and L2 speakers rely on the same basic mechanisms, and argue against fundamental L1-L2 differences
The most important finding from the current study is that, while L1 and L2 speakers displayed similar priming effects for morphologically related word pairs, L2 speakers showed orthographic priming effects which did not occur in the L1 group
The fact that these L2-specific orthographic priming effects emerged in overt visual priming suggests that they are not artifacts of a particular experimental paradigm which may be challenging for this group, but may instead reflect a general tendency of L2 speakers to rely relatively more on orthographic surface form during visual word recognition than L1 speakers
Summary
The issue of how morphologically complex words are processed by non-native (L2) speakers of a given language, as compared to native (L1) speakers, has been subject to considerable debate in recent years: While some theoretical accounts of L2 morphological processing [1] suggest that L2 speakers rely relatively less on morphological decomposition and more on storage of whole word-form representations in the mental lexicon, other accounts [2] instead suggest that L1 and L2 speakers rely on the same basic mechanisms, and argue against fundamental L1-L2 differences. The debate is further complicated by that fact that, even for L1 speakers, the mechanisms involved in the processing of complex words and the way in which such words are represented in the mental lexicon are not entirely clear. A key experimental approach employed by a considerable number of studies that have contributed to this debate is morphological priming. In such studies, participants are typically confronted with pairs of words sharing the same stem (e.g. walker-walk) and have to perform a task (such as lexical decision or naming) on the latter of the two words.
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