Chapter published in:
Writing Systems, Reading Processes, and Cross-Linguistic Influences: Reflections from the Chinese, Japanese and Korean Languages
Edited by Hye K. Pae
[Bilingual Processing and Acquisition 7] 2018
► pp. 427–446

Chapter 21
Constituent processing or Gestalt processing?

How native Korean speakers read mutilated words in English

This study examined how native speakers of Korean extracted letter-feature information from mutilated texts (i.e., top-half and bottom-half), compared to native speakers of Chinese and English. Hypothesized were (1) the upper-part saliency and (2) L1 script effects on L2 reading. A computer-based naming test was administered. Results showed eminent upper-part effects possibly due to more ascenders being at the top than descenders at the bottom of the English letters, but the magnitude of the effects was different among the three groups. Overall, the Korean group seemed to rely more on letter-constituent information drawn from letter features, while the Chinese participants are likely to rely on gestalt information of the word. The results were interpreted with L1 script effects and typology relatedness.
Keywords: native Korean readers, mutilated texts, ascenders and descenders, L2 English
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Reading transformed words or texts in English
    • L1 script influences on L2 reading
    • Script differences in Korean, Chinese, and English
    • Purpose and research questions
  • Method
    • Participants
    • Procedure
    • Measures
    • Design
  • Results
    • Preliminary and descriptive statistics
    • Sensitivity to mutilated words (Research question 1)
    • Useful word constituents for recovering missing parts (Research question 2)
  • Discussion
  • Limitations and future directions
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 July 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/bpa.7.21pae
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