Research on the impact of letter transpositions in visual word recognition has yielded important clues about the nature of orthographic representations. This study investigated the impact of syllable transpositions on the recognition of Korean multisyllabic words. Results showed that rejection latencies in visual lexical decision for…

The present study examined visual word recognition processes in Hebrew (a Semitic language) among beginning learners whose first language (L1) was either Semitic (Arabic) or Indo-European (e.g. English). To examine if learners, like native Hebrew speakers, exhibit morphological sensitivity to root and word-pattern morphemes, learners made an…

Word age-of-acquisition (AoA) affects reading. The mapping hypothesis predicts AoA effects when input--output mappings are arbitrary. In Spanish, the orthography-to-phonology mappings required for word naming are consistent; therefore, no AoA effects are expected. Nevertheless, AoA effects have been found, motivating the present investigation of…

Skilled readers were trained to recognise either the oral (n=44) or visual form (n=40) of a set of 32 novel words (oral and visual instantiation, respectively). Training involved learning the "meanings" for the instantiated words and was followed by a visual lexical decision task in which the instantiated words were mixed with real English words…

The theme for this year's College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa was "Engaged Language Research and Practice," with the plenary speech given by Dr. Kathryn A. Davis. Following a preface from the editors and plenary speaker highlights, contents of these proceedings include: Section I:…

Introduces the articles in this special issue. Reviews research on linguistic processes in reading across orthographies. Concludes that these articles contribute to the understanding of factors affecting development of efficient reading in first and second languages; they also help to ameliorate the relative silence in the reading literature about…

The ability of children to process words printed in a second language was studied over the course of a school year as the children acquired increasing familiarity with the language. The children, ranging in age from 5 to 15 years, represented four ability groups with respect to their reading skills in their first and second languages. A…

Describes research in which a group of proficient speakers of a second language were tested in their ability to identify individual words taken from spoken discourse in both their native language and their second language. Results show that, on the average, they were more proficient in identifying words in their second rather than their first…

Examines the relationship of second-language-learning patterns and experience to the acquisition of automatized processing skills in the morphological domain. Finds that Russian-speaking undergraduate students were significantly less accurate and slower than the English-speaking students at a naming task, and less impaired by experimental…

Two experiments were conducted to test how readers process unattended words in a display and how the semantic category of these flanking words affects response time. (Author/AM)

Three lexical decision experiments show that Serbo-Croatian letter-strings are ascribed two phonological readings simultaneously. This phonologic bivalence may impede lexical decision making if the letter-string has a lexical entry in one of the alphabets (Roman and Cyrillic). (RL)

The domain of second language reading is a rich source for insights into bilingual cognitive processing. Most cross-language transfer research has been carried out on acquisition and production of second-language (L2) structures. Relatively little work has been done on cross-language transfer in bilingual reading. An overreliance on top-down,…

Compares development of phonological awareness across Turkish- and English-speaking kindergarten and first-grade children. Finds the Turkish speakers were more proficient in handling syllables and deleting final phonemes, and that the patterns were related to characteristics of the respective spoken languages. Discusses development of phonological…

Reports on three experiments that: (1) extend the findings of Scarborough et al. (1977) that exposure to single words facilitates lexical judgments of single words, and (2) suggest that recency of exposure may contribute to word "frequency" effects in reading and in learning from written material. (Author/AM)

Studies the development of accurate and fast reading processes in 66 children learning to read simultaneously in English and Hebrew. Finds that steps associated with development of English reading efficiency apply to the development of word recognition skills in Hebrew, and specific linguistic features may interact with more global Hebrew…