Second Language Word Decoding Strategies

Abstract

Over the past decade, one of the central topics studied in the research in first language (Ll) vocabulary and reading has been the processes that readers use in word decoding and word recognition. This area of investigation is important because it has been shown that perceiving and comprehending already known words in a text is one factor that leads to successful reading comprehension and speed (Walker, 1983). Readers are able to understand the meanings of new and unfamiliar words through a combination of contextual clues (Palmberg, 1987), schemata (Parry, 1987), and morphological clues afforded by cognates, word families and word formation (Tyler & Nagy, 1989). However, if second language (L2) readers are handicapped by slower or less accurate word decoding and recognition processing strategies, it will be more difficult for them to integrate contextual clues into an understanding of the unknown words. This has been found to be true even if the word's meaning is explicitly presented in the text (Haynes & Carr, 1990).Aspecific complication in word decoding and recognition research is that we do not yet know whether the processes used in all languages are similar, and whether speakers of English as a second language (ESL) transfer their L1 decoding strategies when reading in their second language. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the word decoding strategies used in reading English by advanced non-native speakers whose L1 is Finnish, and compare their strategies with those used by native English speakers.