Word frequency and morphological family size effects on the accuracy and speed of lexical access in school‐aged bilingual students

Abstract

This study investigated whether school‐aged bilingual students demonstrate word frequency and morphological family size (MFS) effects for written L2 words, and if so, the extent to which the effects are present for bilingual students in different grades. The study revealed both word frequency and MFS effects for the bilingual students in relation to the accuracy of their responses. The bilingual students were less accurate in response to mid and low‐frequency words and words with a very small morphological family compared to the monolingual students. Despite that, they demonstrated similar speed of access to the written L2 words in different frequency ranges and with different MFSs. The findings were discussed in terms of the strength of connections between the form and meaning of words.