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Cross-language Influences in Bilingual Processing and Second Language Acquisition
Edited by Irina Elgort, Anna Siyanova-Chanturia and Marc Brysbaert
[Bilingual Processing and Acquisition 16] 2023
► pp. 126–151

Chapter 6
Cross-language influences in L2 pre-lexical and lexical processing and acquisition

| University of the West of England
| Radboud University Nijmegen

We review how second language (L2) printed and spoken word recognition is affected by first language (L1) characteristics. First, sublexical word properties in bilingual word recognition are considered, in particular diacritical marks and Capital Letters in a script, script-specific letters, language-sensitive bigrams, and grapheme to phoneme correspondences (GPCs). Next, we focus on cross-language effects for words varying in orthographic neighbourhoods and morphological family size, cognates, and interlingual homographs. For both sublexical and lexical aspects, we examine if language membership information might be used to facilitate processing. Finally, we describe how cross-language similarities and differences play out during second language acquisition. A summary of sublexical and lexical cross-linguistic effects in L2 processing and acquisition concludes the chapter.

Keywords: cross-language, L2, sublexical, script, Second Language Acquisition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Cross-language influences in L2 sublexical processing
    • 2.1Consequences of script differences
    • 2.2Diacritical marks
    • 2.3Different scripts and shared letters
    • 2.4Bigrams and letter transitional probabilities
    • 2.5Grapheme to phoneme correspondences
  • 3.Cross-language influences in L2 lexical processing
    • 3.1Language membership
    • 3.2Cross-language influences in bilingual auditory word processing
  • 4.Cross-language influences in L2 lexical acquisition
    • 4.1Cross-language influences in bilingual L2 word learning
  • 5.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 1 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bpa.16.06pia
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