THE IMPACT OF ORTHOGRAPHY ON LEXICAL ACCESS THE CASE OF CAPITALIZATION AND WORD CATEGORY INFORMATION IN L1 AND L2 GERMAN

Previous research has shown that orthographic marking may have a function beyond identifying orthographic word forms. In two visual priming experiments with native speakers and advanced learners of German (Czech natives) we tested the hypothesis that orthography can convey word-class cues comparable...

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Published inStudies in second language acquisition Vol. 44; no. 4; pp. 1194 - 1209
Main Authors Opitz, Andreas, Bordag, Denisa
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Cambridge University Press 01.09.2022
Subjects
Ambiguity (Semantics)
Capitalization
Cues
Czech language
English
Form Classes (Languages)
German
German as a second language
German language
Grammar
Homonyms
Infinitives
Inflection (Morphology)
Language Processing
Lexical access
Literacy Education
Morphology
Morphology (Languages)
Native Language
Native Speakers
Nouns
Oral Language
Orthographic Symbols
Orthography
Priming
Reading
Reading Rate
Second language learning
Slavic Languages
Spelling
Standard Spoken Usage
Stimuli
Verbs
Writing Skills
Written Language
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Summary:Previous research has shown that orthographic marking may have a function beyond identifying orthographic word forms. In two visual priming experiments with native speakers and advanced learners of German (Czech natives) we tested the hypothesis that orthography can convey word-class cues comparable to morphological marking. We examined the effect of initial letter capitalization of nouns (a specific property of German orthography) on the processing of five homonymous and grammatically ambiguous forms. Both populations showed the same pattern of results: deverbal nouns (conversions) patterned together with countable nouns while in a previous study (with eliminated orthographic word-class cues) they patterned together with infinitives. Together, findings suggest that orthographic cues can trigger word-class-specific lexical retrieval/access. They also suggest a lexical entry structure in which conversion nouns, infinitives, and inflected verbal forms share a category-neutral parent node and that specified subnodes are accessed only when specifying cues are available and/or necessary for processing.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0272-2631
1470-1545
DOI:10.1017/S0272263121000711